Gaza ceasefire to start on Nov 24; 13 hostages set to be released

GAZA/JERUSALEM – A truce in Gaza meant to allow the release of hostages taken from Israel by the militant group Hamas will start on Nov 24, according to Qatar’s Foreign Ministry.

“The pause will begin at 7am (1pm in Singapore) on (Nov 24), and the first batch of civilian hostages will be handed over at approximately 4pm on the same day,” said ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari.

He said at least 13 hostages would be freed, and that Qatar expected Palestinians in Israeli jails to be released as well as part of the deal.

US President Joe Biden, vacationing in the Massachusetts island of Nantucket for the Thanksgiving holiday, said he was keeping his “fingers crossed” that a 3-year-old American girl would be among those released first.

A US State Department official called the truce a “hopeful moment” but said the administration would work to secure the release of all hostages in the coming weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying Israel had received an initial list of hostages to be released.

Mr Ansari said the truce would last for four days, and that Qatar was hoping to start new talks on the fourth day to extend the ceasefire so that more hostages could be released.

Qatar has been leading mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas. 

War raged on in Gaza on Nov 23, as details of the truce were being hammered out.

Columns of black smoke could be seen rising above northern Gaza’s war zone from across the fence in Israel as daylight broke over the strip.

In Rafah, on the strip’s southern edge where hundreds of thousands have sought shelter, residents combed with their bare hands through the ruins of a house reduced to a giant crater.

A grey-bearded man wailed in sorrow, lying among shattered masonry, while another man lay his hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

The Israeli military said it launched 300 air strikes in the past day, and sounded sirens warning of cross-border rocket launches by Palestinian armed groups.

Palestinian media reported Israeli strikes in the northern areas, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel

has told residents of the north to seek shelter.

The first truce in the seven-week-old war was intended to be accompanied by the release of 50 women and children hostages captured by militants who raided Israel on Oct 7,

in exchange for 150 Palestinian detainees

from Israeli jails.

The agreement was announced on Nov 22 but, more than a day later, an expected announcement of the official start time had yet to materialise. Mediator Qatar said on Nov 23 it could make an announcement within hours.

Israel has said the truce could last beyond the initial four days, as long as Hamas frees at least 10 hostages per day.

A Palestinian source has said a second wave of releases could allow as many as 100 hostages to go free by the end of November.

Both sides have said they will go back to fighting once the truce is over.

“We are not ending the war. We will continue until we are victorious,” the chief of the Israeli general staff, Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, told commanders in a video released by the military on Nov 23.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after gunmen from Hamas burst across the border fence, killing 1,200 people and seizing about 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, more than 14,000 Gazans have been killed by Israeli bombardment, around 40 per cent of them children, according to the health authorities in the Hamas-ruled territory.

‘We need to know if they are alive’

The delay to the start of the truce meant another day of worry for Israeli relatives of the hostages who say they still know nothing about the fate of missing loved ones, and of fear for Palestinian families trapped inside the Gaza combat zone.

“We need to know they are alive, if they’re okay. It’s the minimum,” said Mr Gilad Korngold, desperate for any information about the fate of seven of his family members, including his three-year-old granddaughter, believed to be among the hostages.

Palestinian media reported at least 15 people killed in air strikes on Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern city, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans are sheltering from the Israeli advance in the north.

Israel said its strikes in the past day had hit “military command centres, underground terror tunnels, weapon storage facilities, weapon manufacturing sites, and anti-tank missile launch posts”.

It released video of troops on foot patrol in rutted streets surrounded by bombed-out ruins.

Sirens wailed in southern Israel warning of incoming cross-border rockets.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan, citing an unidentified Israeli official, had reported that there was a 24-hour delay in the truce because the agreement was not signed by Hamas and Qatar.

“No one said there would be a release (on Nov 23) except the media... We had to make it clear that no release is planned before (Nov 24), because of the uncertainty that hostages’ families are facing,” Kan quoted a source in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office as saying. REUTERS