Fighting continued into Wednesday night in Gaza, but plans for a four-day ceasefire for a hostage and prisoner exchange were delayed by a day, according to reports.
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas negotiated this week is the first diplomatic breakthrough since the war began.
However, after initially agreeing to its terms and a local start time of 10 a.m. Thursday, Israel’s National Security Council later clarified: “Talks to release our hostages are moving forward and are ongoing.
“The start of the release process will occur according to the original agreement between both parties, and not before Friday,” according to CNN.
The deal between Israel and Hamas was reached to allow the release of 50 of the approximately 240 Israeli hostages that Hamas captured during its October 7 terrorist attack in exchange for up to 150 Palestinian prisoners.
On Wednesday night, Israel’s defense forces said they had seized a compound in the Sheikh Zayed neighborhood, Israeli media outlet Haaretz reported.
An Israel Defense Forces fighter jet also intercepted a cruise missile over the Red Sea that was believed to have been launched toward the southern city of Eilat. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi group claimed credit for the attack.
The IDF also said it killed six terrorists and arrested 29 suspects, including three Hamas terrorists, in a raid on the Dheisheh refugee camp, the outlet said.
An Israeli soldier sits in a Humvee amid the ongoing ground operation against Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. REUTERS Israeli fighters took journalists on a tour of Hamas’ secret tunnel network under Al Shifa Hospital on Wednesday.
Less than 12 hours before the truce originally began, smoke could still be seen rising from Gaza from the Sderot lookout and the roads around Ashkelon, according to The Jerusalem Post.
The IDF displayed weapons, grenades, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and drones equipped to carry explosives that it said it recovered from Al-Shifa Hospital after its raid on the facility, which housed thousands of refugees and housed Hamas leaders in its tunnels.
The newspaper was also able to observe in person the area around the hospital, which its journalist described as a “wasteland,” with much of its infrastructure reduced to rubble and no Palestinians in sight.
Meanwhile, in the city of Khan Younis, more than 100 bodies brought from various areas of Gaza were wrapped in blue plastic sheets and tied with zip ties before being buried in a mass grave on Wednesday.
Health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza said Wednesday that 14,532 Palestinians have died during the war and 7,000 are missing. Some 35,000 people were injured.
Meanwhile, international aid groups were ready to enter Gaza the moment the truce was declared, with thousands of trucks carrying food, water and other urgent needs lined up to provide relief to the devastated area, from where around 1 .7 million people have been displaced. their homes.
A key objective is to bring aid to the northern part of the territory, which has been crippled by airstrikes and is largely inaccessible to aid workers. It has had no water or electricity and weeks ago ran out of fuel for the generators.
The only route for international aid is through Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, which had helped mediate the truce.
Palestinian children look out a window as an Israeli soldier stands guard outside Al Shifa on Wednesday. REUTERS An IDF reservist walks with his guitar, shofar and gun after performing at a wedding.Getty Images
“The entire humanitarian sector is ready to scale up once everything is ready,” said Tommaso Della Longa, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The ceasefire agreement did not soften the rhetoric of Israel or Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
“By announcing the truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger and that our victorious fighters will remain vigilant to defend our people and defeat the occupation,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded message: “We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our objectives.
“To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel.”
With postal cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn