Tentative Gaza agreement to free some hostages: report
Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie |
Israel, the United States and Hamas have reached a tentative agreement to free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting, the Washington Post reports, citing people familiar with the deal.
However, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US officials said no deal had been reached yet.
The hostage release could begin in the next several days, barring last-minute hitches, according to people familiar with the detailed, six-page agreement, the paper said on Saturday.
Under the agreement, all parties would freeze combat operations for at least five days while 50 or more hostages were released in groups every 24 hours, the Post reported.
Hamas took about 240 hostages during its October 7 rampage inside Israel which killed 1200 people.
The pause also is intended to allow a significant amount of humanitarian aid in, the newspaper said, adding the outline for the deal was put together during weeks of talks in Qatar.
“Concerning the hostages, there are many unsubstantiated rumours, many incorrect reports,” Netanyahu told reporters on Saturday evening.
“I would like to make it clear – as of now, there has been no deal.
“But I want to promise – when there is something to say, we will report to you about it.”
A White House spokesperson said Israel and Hamas have not yet reached a deal on a temporary ceasefire, adding the US was working to get a deal.
As the conflict entered its seventh week, authorities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip raised their death toll to 12,300, including 5000 children.
Raising international alarm, Israel made Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City a primary focus of its ground advance in northern Gaza.
A team led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which visited Al Shifa on Saturday described it as a “death zone” with signs of gunfire and shelling.
WHO said it was developing plans for immediate evacuation of the remaining patients and staff.
There were 25 health workers and 291 patients, including 32 babies in critical condition, remaining in Al Shifa, WHO said.
Elsewhere in the north, Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini of UNRWA, the United Nations aid organisation for Palestinian refugees, said on social media platform X that Israel bombarded two agency schools.
More than 4000 civilians were sheltered at one of them, he said.
“Dozens reported killed including children,” he said.
“Second time in less than 24 hours schools are not spared. ENOUGH, these horrors must stop.”
A spokesperson for Gaza’s Hamas authorities said 200 people had been killed or injured at the school.
Israel’s military did not comment.
Witnesses reported heavy fighting overnight between Israeli ground forces and Hamas gunmen in north west Jabalia refugee camp, the largest of all camps in the enclave with almost 100,000 people.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Saturday appealed to US President Joe Biden to intervene to stop the Israeli operation in Gaza.
Palestinian health officials said 31 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Bureij and Nusseirat refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, including two Palestinian journalists.
The officials said a woman and her child were killed in a strike overnight in Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip.
An Israeli offensive in the south could compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled Gaza City in the north to uproot again, along with residents of Khan Younis, a city of more than 400,000, compounding a dire humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has already displaced about two-thirds of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Early Saturday, an air strike in a busy residential district of Khan Younis killed 26 Palestinians and wounded 23, health officials said.
Reuters
