The initial four-day ceasefire was extended by 48 hours on Tuesday and Israel and Hamas reached a last-minute agreement on Thursday, the 30th of November, to extend the six-day truce for at least one more day to allow negotiators to continue work on a prisoner-hostage swap, reports Reuters.
The Israeli military is continuing its operational pause in response to the mediators’ efforts to free the hostages, said the statement. Israel announced the extension of the truce shortly before the end of the previous truce period. Hamas has also announced that the truce would continue for a seventh day.
The terms of the ceasefire – cessation of hostilities and the provision of humanitarian aid – remain unchanged,
as confirmed by the key mediator Qatari representative.
In Wednesday’s prisoner-hostage exchange, Israel released 30 Palestinian prisoners – 16 minors and 14 women – while Hamas released 16 hostages – two Russian citizens, four Thai citizens and ten Israeli citizens, five of whom were dual citizens: one minor Dutch dual national, three German dual nationals and one US dual national.
Wednesday’s exchange was overshadowed by reports of Hamas that a family of Israeli hostages, including ten-month-old Kfir, four-year-old Ariel and their mother Shiri, had been killed earlier in an Israeli bombardment. Israeli officials are verifying this report.
According to Reuters, Israel has so far released 180 Palestinian prisoners, all of them women and teenagers, while Hamas has freed 97 of the 240 hostages.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response to the 7th of October attack, claiming that militants killed 1 200 people and took 240 hostages. Before the truce Israel bombed the Gaza Strip for seven weeks, killing more than 15 000 Palestinians, according to Hamas-led health authorities.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed on Wednesday that
the Gaza Strip is facing a “huge humanitarian catastrophe”
and he and others have called for the temporary truce to be replaced by a ceasefire.
For its part, the US has urged Israel to limit the conflict area and establish safe zones for Palestinian civilians in order to avoid the high number of casualties vitnessed in previous Israeli attacks.
Read also: VIDEO | Israel-Hamas truce: hostage and prisoner exchange
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