Name: Israeli PM confirms Gaza hostage release deal agreed | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-01-17T17:08:25.000Z
Duration: 6 min 38 s
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Israel and Hamas have officially signed a ceasefire and hostage release deal after overcoming last-minute disputes.

Israel's security cabinet is due to meet later to ratify the agreement.

Some ministers, including the far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gavir, have threatened to resign if it is approved, calling it a reward for Hamas.

The civil defense agency in Gaza says more than 80 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since the deal was first announced on Wednesday.

The ceasefire is meant to begin on Sunday with the release of the first three Israeli hostages, as Simon Jones reports.

That was a message from some of the families of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza as they took to the streets in Tel Aviv.

The first phase of the ceasefire would see 33 hostages, including women, children and elderly people, exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

We really hope and pray that this effort will be fruitful and we can get all our hostages back as soon as possible.

This has been a tremendous amount of pressure on the families and we just hope this period will be over.

But opponents of the deal have also been making their feelings clear.

In Jerusalem, Israeli protesters blocked the road.

The ceasefire agreement can't be implemented until it is approved by the Israeli cabinet.

That is now expected to happen today, after last-minute disputes with Hamas were overcome.

But the far-right security minister is in no mood to compromise.

If this reckless deal is approved and implemented, the Jewish Power Party will give the resignation letter to the prime minister.

The Jewish Power Party will not be part of the government and will withdraw from it.

The deal would allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes.

Hamas insists it's committed to the ceasefire.

Despite the agreement, huge blasts have been seen over the Gaza skyline from southern Israel.

The international community is calling for calm on all sides.

On the ceasefire, yes, I am confident and I fully expect that implementation will begin, as we said, on Sunday.

Look, it's not exactly surprising that in a process, in a negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end.

The ceasefire would see hundreds of aid lorries allowed into Gaza each day, but if the deal comes in this weekend as planned and holds, the reconstruction of the territory will still take years.

Well, our correspondent John Donison is in Jerusalem and has details on what we can expect in the coming hours.

Well, we expect there's going to be two meetings here in Israel, possibly this morning.

The first will be the security cabinet, who will meet to approve this deal, and then the full government has to approve it.

Now, we do expect the deal to be approved, but you'll know that there are two hardline right-wing ministers who have said they will quit the government if this deal goes ahead.

They said this deal is letting Hamas off the hook and accuse the government of doing a deal with the devil, in other words, with Hamas, in their view.

However, those two ministers, they've kind of fudged things a bit, and really they've backed down, because what they've said is that although they will resign their positions as ministers within the government, they will not vote with the opposition to bring the government down yet.

They say as long as the war continues, when the first phase of this ceasefire deal is over in six weeks' time, they will not vote with the opposition, forcing elections here in Israel.

So it buys Prime Minister Netanyahu another six weeks, and obviously things could look quite different in six weeks' time if we have got 33 hostages out of Gaza as planned.

That is obviously going to go down pretty well here in Israel.

What is Israel, and you've been out on the streets, normal people thinking about this deal?

Well, you can't talk about everyone as a single group, because this country is very divided on this issue.

So yes, we were outside the Israeli Prime Minister's office yesterday with protesters from the far right who were saying this deal shouldn't be done.

They say that the government has failed in its main war aim of totally eliminating Hamas, and they say they're letting Hamas off the hook.

At the same time, there were protests a little further down the street from another group who include some of the families of hostages, and they say that the government has been delaying on this deal for months.

They've not been prioritising the return of the hostages, that they're really not achieving anything militarily in Gaza now, and that it's time to do this deal.

So you can't speak for the people as a whole.

It divides the government, but the deal has been done, and it should come into force on Sunday if things go to plan.

Meanwhile, we should say the fighting's still continuing at the moment in Gaza.

Yep, I just saw reports that nine Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza at dawn this morning, according to officials there, and by my count, that brings the total number of people killed just since this ceasefire was first announced on Wednesday evening to close to 100.

I was looking at some awful pictures yesterday that showed a three-year-old boy still alive being pulled from a huge pile of rubble with gravel all sorts in his mouth, covered in dust.

So the suffering goes on, and I think that will continue, to be honest, right up until when this ceasefire comes into place.

Jon Donison in Jerusalem, and a reminder, we have a live page up and running with the very latest developments ahead of that expected Cabinet meeting in Israel.

 You can find all the details on the BBC News website and app.

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Israeli PM confirms Gaza hostage release deal agreed | BBC News

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