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Gaza ceasefire to begin Sunday morning, after Israeli approval

A ceasefire in the Gaza war will begin Sunday morning at 0630 GMT, mediator Qatar said on Saturday after Israel’s cabinet voted to approve the truce and hostage-prisoner release deal.The exact time of the ceasefire’s start had been unclear, though Israel had said no Palestinian prisoners held by Israel would be freed before late Sunday afternoon.Qatar and the United States, which mediated the deal along with Egypt, had announced it on Wednesday and said it would take effect Sunday.Following that announcement, Israeli bombardment of the territory killed at least 113 people, Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency said on Friday, after Israel’s military reported hitting about 50 targets in 24 hours.On Saturday, AFP photos showed Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Yunis mourning four members of a family killed in another Israeli strike.Explosions were heard over Jerusalem Saturday morning after warning sirens blared and the military said a projectile had been launched from Yemen, whose Iran-backed rebels say they support the Palestinians.”As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 am on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said on X.”We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources.”In more than 15 months of war between Hamas Palestinian militants and Israel, there has been only one previous truce, for one week, in November 2023. That deal also saw the release of hostages held by the militants in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.”The government has approved the hostage return plan,” the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Saturday after the cabinet held its vote. Netanyahu’s office said the deal “supports achieving the objectives of the war”.Israel’s justice ministry said 737 Palestinian prisoners and detainees will be freed as part of the first phase of the deal — none before 4:00 pm local time (1400 GMT) on Sunday. – Trump -Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, announcing the agreement on Wednesday, said an initial 42-day ceasefire would see 33 hostages released by militants in Gaza.The truce is to take effect on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term as United States president. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has completed preparations “to assume full responsibility in Gaza” after the war.Israel has no definitive stance on post-war governance beyond rejecting any role for both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gaza should be under PA control.Even before the truce begins, displaced Gazans were preparing to return home.”I will go to kiss my land,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south. “If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person.”In Israel, there was joy but also anguish over the remaining hostages taken in the Hamas attack.Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday falls on Saturday, is the youngest captive.Hamas said in November 2023 that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri had died in an air strike, but with the Israeli military yet to confirm their deaths, many are clinging to hope.Israel’s cabinet endorsement of the deal came despite eight ministers voting against it, including far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.Hamas’s armed wing warned that continued Israeli strikes risked the lives of hostages and could turn their “freedom… into a tragedy”.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war and resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,876 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.- Aid-starved -Mediators had worked for months to reach a deal but the efforts were fruitless until Trump’s inauguration neared.Brett McGurk, the pointman for outgoing President Joe Biden, was joined in the region by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in an unusual pairing to finalise the agreement, US officials said.On Friday, Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed said: “We seek a full implementation of the first phase, and for the second phase to be the final.”We are waiting for the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to implement the agreement.”Israeli authorities assume the 33 captives to be released in the first phase are alive, but Hamas has yet to confirm that.Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza’s densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences”, the Qatari prime minister said.An Israeli military official said reception points had been established at Kerem Shalom, Erez and Reim, where hostages would be joined by doctors and mental health specialists before being “transported via helicopter or vehicle” to hospitals in Israel.Israel “is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences”, a source said on condition of anonymity.During talks on Friday, negotiators agreed to form a joint operations room in Cairo to “ensure effective coordination” and compliance with the truce terms, Egyptian state-linked media reported.Biden said the second phase could bring a “permanent end to the war”.In aid-starved Gaza, humanitarian workers caution a monumental task lies ahead.On Friday, British lawmakers warned that Israeli legislation banning the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, threatens the truce deal. The ban on the main aid agency in Gaza is to take effect by the end of January.burs-it/jsa

Israeli government approves Gaza ceasefire deal

Israel’s cabinet voted to approve a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal on Saturday, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, ending days of uncertainty about whether the truce would go into effect this weekend.  The ceasefire, set to begin Sunday, would halt fighting and bombardment in Gaza’s deadliest-ever war.It would also enable the release of hostages held in the territory since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.”The government has approved the hostage return plan”, Netanyahu’s office said early Saturday morning after the cabinet held its vote. Israel’s justice ministry has said 737 prisoners and detainees will be freed as part of the first phase of the deal — none before 4:00 pm local time (1400 GMT) on Sunday. Israeli strikes have killed dozens since the ceasefire deal was announced, with the military saying Thursday it had hit about 50 targets across Gaza over the previous 24 hours.The truce is to take effect on the eve of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who claimed credit for working with outgoing US President Joe Biden’s team to seal the deal.  It was earlier approved by Israel’s security cabinet, with Netanyahu’s office saying it “supports achieving the objectives of the war”.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority has completed preparations “to assume full responsibility in Gaza” after the war.Even before the truce begins, displaced Gazans were preparing to return home.”I will go to kiss my land,” said Nasr al-Gharabli, who fled his home in Gaza City for a camp further south. “If I die on my land, it would be better than being here as a displaced person.”In Israel, there was joy but also anguish over the remaining hostages taken in the Hamas attack.Kfir Bibas, whose second birthday falls on Saturday, is the youngest hostage.Hamas said in November 2023 that Kfir, his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother Shiri had died in an air strike, but with the Israeli military yet to confirm their deaths, many are clinging to hope.”I think of them, these two little redheads, and I get shivers,” said 70-year-old Osnat Nyska, whose grandchildren attended nursery with the Bibas brothers.- ‘Confident’ -Two far-right ministers had voiced opposition to the deal, with one threatening to quit the cabinet, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said before the vote he believed the ceasefire would proceed.”I am confident, and I fully expect that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday,” he said.Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israel pounded several areas of the territory, killing more than 100 people and wounding hundreds more since the deal was announced on Wednesday.Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned that Israeli strikes were risking the lives of hostages and could turn their “freedom… into a tragedy”.The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.Of the 251 people taken hostage, 94 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel’s retaliatory campaign has destroyed much of Gaza, killing 46,876 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.- Trump and Biden -The ceasefire agreement followed intensified efforts by mediators Qatar, the United States and Egypt after months of fruitless negotiations.In the days of talks, Biden pointman Brett McGurk was joined in the region by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff in an unusual pairing to get the deal over the line, US officials said.”If we weren’t involved… the deal would’ve never happened,” Trump said in an interview Thursday.Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, announcing the agreement on Wednesday, said an initial 42-day ceasefire would see 33 hostages released.On Friday, he said: “We seek a full implementation of the first phase, and for the second phase to be the final.”We are waiting for the Security Council to issue a binding resolution to implement the agreement.”The Israeli authorities assume the 33 are alive, but Hamas has yet to confirm that.Also in the first phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza’s densely populated areas and allow displaced Palestinians to return “to their residences”, the Qatari prime minister said.Two sources close to Hamas told AFP three Israeli women soldiers would be the first to be released on Sunday evening.The women may, in fact, be civilians, as the militant group refers to all Israelis of military age who have undergone mandatory military service as soldiers.An Israeli military official said reception points had been established at Kerem Shalom, Erez and Reim, where hostages would be joined by doctors and mental health specialists before being “transported via helicopter or vehicle” to hospitals in Israel.Israel “is then expected to release the first group of Palestinian prisoners, including several with high sentences”, a source said on condition of anonymity.During talks on Friday, negotiators agreed to form a joint operations room in Cairo to “ensure effective coordination” and compliance with the truce terms, Egyptian state-linked media reported.French President Emmanuel Macron said French-Israeli citizens Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi were among hostages due to be freed in the first phase.Biden said the second phase could bring a “permanent end to the war”.In aid-starved Gaza, where nearly all of its 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once, humanitarian workers worry about the monumental task ahead.”Everything has been destroyed, children are on the streets, you can’t pinpoint just one priority,” Doctors Without Borders coordinator Amande Bazerolle told AFP.burs-tym/cwl

Global equities rally, pushing London and Frankfurt to new records

Global equities rallied on Friday as traders digested corporate results and prepared for US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, pushing London’s benchmark FTSE 100 and Frankfurt’s DAX 40 index to new all-time highs.All three major indices on Wall Street closed higher, with the Nasdaq Composite propelled by a rise in tech stocks. “The sentiment in …

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