2h ago
02.53 GMT
Opening
summary
Welcome to
our live coverage of the Middle East crisis. Here’s a snapshot of the latest
news.
Israeli
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early on Friday that a deal to return
hostages held in the Gaza Strip had been reached. The announcement comes a day
after Netanyahu’s office said there were last-minute snags in talks to free
hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian
prisoners.
Netanyahu
said he would convene his security cabinet later on Friday and then the
government to approve the ceasefire agreement.
On Thursday,
Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet wouldn’t meet to approve the agreement for
a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backed
down, accusing the group of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to
gain further concessions.
Expanding on
that and other news:
Senior US
officials insisted the hard-won ceasefire would go into effect on Sunday as
planned despite an earlier delay. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken,
said he was “very confident” the ceasefire would go forward and he “fully
expects that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday”. He confirmed
that there had been a “loose end” between the sides in the complex
negotiations. US representatives were still believed to be actively involved
with talks in Doha on the final details needed to get the deal over the line.
A vote is
now expected to take place on Friday morning, Israeli media reported. Benjamin
Netanyahu’s hardline national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, announced on
Thursday evening that he would quit the government if it ratifies the ceasefire
deal, calling it “irresponsible” and “reckless”. Ben-Gvir’s departure would not
bring down Netanyahu’s government. Opposition leader Yair Lapid pledged his
support for Netanyahu, saying that the deal was “more important than any
disagreement we’ve ever had.”
Fighting
has continued in Gaza despite expectations of a ceasefire, with at least 80
Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured by Israeli airstrikes since the
ceasefire announcement, according to the civil defence agency. The Israeli
military said it had conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets”
across Gaza since late Wednesday. A civil defence spokesperson said its teams
had recovered the bodies of five children after a strike on the northern city
of Jabalia.
More than
46,788 Palestinians have been killed and a further 110,453 wounded by Israel’s
military offensive in Gaza, according to the latest figures by the territory’s
health ministry on Thursday. They include 81 killed and 188 injured in the past
24 hours. Among them was Fatin Shaqoura-Salha, the chief of nursing staff at
Al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat, ActionAid said.
In the
first phase of the ceasefire agreement announced on Wednesday – to last 42 days
– Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages and in exchange, Israel would release 50
Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier released by Hamas, and
30 for other hostages. Palestinians displaced from their homes would be allowed
to move freely around Gaza, wounded people would be evacuated for treatment
abroad, and aid to the territory should increase to 600 trucks a day. A second
phase would include Israel completely withdrawing from Gaza.
The
leader of Yemen’s Houthis, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, said the
Iran-aligned group would suspend their attacks on Red Sea targets but continue
if Israel backtracked on the ceasefire. The Houthi attacks have damaged as many
as 30 ships and caused a diversion of commercial shipping to South Africa and
the Cape of Good Hope. Reprisals by the US, Israel and the UK have damaged key
Yemen ports and led to multiple deaths.
Arab
states are urging Israel and the incoming Trump administration to allow the
Palestinian Authority (PA), in conjunction with the UN Palestinian relief
agency Unrwa, to oversee Gaza’s recovery. The future governance of Gaza is due
to be discussed at the start of negotiations on the second stage of the deal 16
days after a ceasefire begins.
Updated
at
03.21 GMT
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