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Edited by: TJVNews.com
The Israeli government approved a deal Tuesday night that will see the Palestinian Hamas terror group release at least 50 female, child, and elderly hostages being held captive in Gaza over the span od four days, in return for a cessation in the fighting in the Gaza Strip, as was reported on the Breitbart.com web site.
In return, Israel will release a greater number of convicted Palestinians — though none who have been convicted of murder, the Breitbart.com report added. Israel will resume the fight to destroy the Hamas infrastructure in Gaza as well as the labyrinth of terror tunnels built under the enclave once the hostages are safely returned and the four-day period cessation period has concluded, according to the Breitbart.com report.
The phased release of hostages will see 12-13 individuals freed daily as the ceasefire takes effect. The Times of Israel reported that in turn, Israel will release women and minor prisoners, allowing them to return to their respective cities or towns, including those in the Judea and Samaria region as well as East Jerusalem. A list of names to be released will be provided a day before their actual release.
The Times of Israel report indicated that the deal suggests the possibility of extending the halt in fighting for additional days in exchange for ten further releases per extra day. The second stage of the agreement involves Hamas taking action to locate women and children held by other terror factions in Gaza, potentially leading to the release of up to 30 additional Israeli hostages, as was suggested in the TOI report.
The source that the TOI received the information from has indicates that the deal, if approved by the full cabinet, will prompt Israel to publish details of the Palestinian prisoners to be freed. As was noted in to TOI report, the public will have a 24-hour window to petition against any planned releases, adhering to legal protocols.
Israel’s security establishment is reportedly in favor of the imminent agreement, as was reported by the TOI, thus signaling a consensus within the country’s defense apparatus.
Fuel entering Gaza as part of the deal will be limited to the ceasefire period, and there will be a six-hour daily window during which the IDF will not use drones for intelligence gathering in the Strip, according to the TOI report. However, both the IDF and Shin Bet will retain the ability to gather intelligence even during the pause in fighting.
Moreover, Gazans who evacuated southward will not be allowed to return to the northern part of the enclave where the IDF is operating, the report added.
Hamas has asserted that it currently holds 210 of the approximately 240 hostages abducted from Israel during the October 7 atrocities. Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad is reported to be holding many of the remaining hostages.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu acknowledged that his cabinet faced a tough decision, but supporting the cease-fire was the right thing to do. Netanyahu appeared to have enough support to pass the measure, despite opposition from some ministers in his ruling Likud coalition.
Netanyahu said that during the lull, intelligence efforts will be maintained, allowing the army to prepare for the next stages of battle, as was reported by the AP. He said the battle would continue until “Gaza will not threaten Israel.”
The announcement came as Israeli troops battled Hamas terrorists in an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza and around hospitals
The Israel Defense Forces said that overnight Monday Israeli forces completed the encirclement of Jabalia in the Gaza Strip and were preparing to assault Hamas forces in the city, as was reported by the Jewish News Syndicate on Monday.
The area was hit with artillery and airstrikes in preparation for the ground advance, and Israeli forces engaged terrorists on the outskirts of the city with tanks and drones, the JNS.org report said. Three tunnel shafts on the outskirts of the city were destroyed.
The 551st Brigade Combat Team joined special forces in an operation north of Jabalia to open an axis for Israeli forces, according to the IDF. During the operation, Israeli troops engaged terrorists, confiscated weapons, including in residences and children’s rooms, and destroyed tunnel shafts, as was noted in the JNS report.
Also on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that an Israeli drone strike killed four Hamas terrorists in southern Lebanon.
The strike on a vehicle carrying the terrorists occurred in the village of Chaatiyeh near the Mediterranean coast. They were reportedly members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. According to Israeli media reports, one of those killed was Khalil Kharaz, the deputy commander of Hamas’s Lebanon wing, JNS reported.
Over the past 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force hit 250 Hamas targets in Gaza, the military reported on Tuesday morning. The JNS report indicated that dozens of terrorists were killed and rocket launchers and terror infrastructure were destroyed.
Overnight Monday, IDF troops directed a fighter jet to strike a rocket launching post next to a residential building in a civilian area from which rockets were fired at central Israel on Monday evening, the JNS report said.
The IDF also reported that Israeli troops had located a “significant weapons stockpile” at the residence of a senior Nukhba terrorist in Gaza.
The JNS report noted that the Nukhba (“elite” in Arabic) forces of Hamas led the bloody October 7th massacre in the northwestern Negev during which 1,200 people were murdered, more than 5,000 wounded and some 240 Israelis were kidnapped. Victims of the brutal assault were beheaded, burned alive, shot multiple times and scores of women and girls were sadistically raped and their bodies were severely mutilated.
The IDF also said that ground forces located an anti-tank missile hidden underneath a baby’s crib in northern Gaza.
Also on Tuesday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told the Reuters news service that the terrorist group was close to a deal with Israel for a pause in fighting, as was reported by JNS.
Hamas officials are “close to reaching a truce agreement” with Israel and the terrorist group has delivered its response to Qatari mediators, Haniyeh said in a statement delivered to the news agency by his aide.
On Monday, Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), met with Haniyeh in Qatar to “advance humanitarian issues” related to the conflict, the Geneva-based ICRC said in a statement, according to the JNS report. Spoljaric also met separately with Qatari authorities.
Speaking to the Qatari based Al Jazeera network, Hamas official Issat el Reshiq said that talks on a deal were focused on the length of the ceasefire, arrangements for delivery of aid to the Strip and details of the prisoner exchange.
JNS also reported that the AFP news agency, citing two sources close to the matter, reported on Tuesday that the agreement would involve releasing 50 to 100 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, including women and children.
The JNS report also indicated that relatives of hostages held in Gaza met with Israeli War Cabinet members on Monday night, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Recovering our hostages is a sacred and supreme task and I am committed to it,” said Netanyahu.
He added that , “we will not stop the fighting until we bring our hostages home, destroy Hamas and ensure that there are no more threats from Gaza,” according to the report.
Israel National News reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu revealed during the ongoing Cabinet meeting on the deal to free 50 of the hostages that the terms of the deal allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit the hostages who are not released and to provide them with medical assistance.
The youngest hostage was just nine months old when he was kidnapped and is now ten months old. A pregnant woman who was kidnapped gave birth in Hamas captivity, as was reported by INN. The terrorist organization has executed several hostages already.
The Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties have announced that they will vote against the hostage deal, while the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties were instructed by their rabbinical leadership to support the deal, according to the information in the INN report. It is likely that the deal will receive enough support within the Cabinet to be passed even without the religious Zionist parties.
This would be the first time the Red Cross has visited Israeli hostages held by the Hamas terrorist organization. According to the INN report, the organization never visited IDF soldier Gilad Shalit during the five years he was held captive by Hamas, nor has it visited Israeli civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held by Hamas in Gaza since 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The Red Cross has been criticized within Israel for its failure to pressure Hamas to abide by international law and to allow the organization to visit its captives, as was indicated in the INN report. Instead, the Red Cross has largely condemned Israel for its responses to Hamas’ attacks.
On Tuesday morning, The IDF released for publication the names of two more soldiers killed in action in the Gaza Strip, the report on the JNS website said.
Cpt. (res.) Arnon Moshe Avraham Benvenisti Vaspi, 26, from Yesod HaMa’ala, of the Givati Brigade’s elite reconnaissance unit, was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday
Sgt. Ilya Senkin, 20, from Nof HaGalil, of the Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion, also fell in Gaza on Monday, the report added.
At least 74 IDF soldiers have been killed in action in Gaza, at the Lebanon border and in Judea and Samaria since the start of the IDF ground operation into the Gaza Strip on Oct. 27; 390 Israeli soldiers have died since the war started on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, sirens warning of an infiltration of a hostile aircraft were sounded on in Hanita and in Rosh Hanikra, located in northern Israel, the INN report said.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that the “Iron Dome” Defense Array successfully intercepted the object over Hanita. INN reported that the sirens that were sounded in northern Israel were triggered by the interception and the incident is over, it added.
The alert regarding a hostile aerial infiltration in the area of Rosh Hanikra was a false identification, the statement added.
Separately, several launches from Lebanese territory toward the area of Shushan in northern Israel were identified.
INN also reported that earlier on Tuesday evening, in response to rocket and anti-tank missile fire toward Israel throughout the day, IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah terror infrastructure and an operational command center in Lebanon.
On Tuesday evening ,IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari presented new photos of the breach of the blast door from the terror tunnel underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza, INN reported.
“Over the course of the day, the IDF continued to deepen its operation and objectives in the Gaza Strip. We completed the encirclement of the Jabalya area, which is a significant zone of combat, and we deepened and concluded the fighting in the Zeitun area. The forces are exposing terrorists and killing them. We have the upper hand in every battle. We will continue to kill Hamas terrorists, wherever they are,” said Hagari.
He continued, “Today we continued in exposing the Hamas subterranean [tunnel] route under the Shifa Hospital. We will continue to expose other hospitals in Gaza. Hamas terrorists systematically built a vast subterranean infrastructure, using patients and hospital staff as human shields. Human shields for terror. This is a war crime, is against international law, and we will continue to expose this to the world, in order to highlight this practice.”
The INN report said that at the start of his comments, he remarked on the deal to free hostages being held by Hamas and said, “We have a moral obligation to ensure the safety of the hostages and to bring them home to their families. Our hearts are with the hostages in Gaza – children, women, men, elderly, and IDF soldiers as well. They were taken hostage by a brutal terrorist organization and are being held in Gaza. We will do anything, anything to bring them home as soon as possible.”
(Additional reporting by: Fern Sidman)
