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Tag: Gaza

  • Israel launches fresh strikes on Gaza as UN nears vote on aid

    Israel launches fresh strikes on Gaza as UN nears vote on aid

    Israeli forces launched fresh attacks throughout the night across the Gaza Strip, residents said on Monday, as the United Nations Security Council looked set to vote on a demand that Israel and Hamas allow aid access to the Palestinian enclave.

    One Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday killed 90 Palestinians, Gaza’s health ministry spokesperson told Reuters.

    Another missile attack on a house belonging to the Shehab family killed 24 people, Hamas Aqsa radio said.

    A medic said dozens of people had been killed or wounded in the Shehab family home and nearby buildings.

    “We believe the number of dead people under the rubble is huge but there is no way to remove the rubble and recover them because of the intensity of Israeli fire,” he said by telephone on Sunday.

    In Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, medics said 12 Palestinians had been killed and dozens wounded, while in Rafah in the south, an Israeli air strike on a house left at least four people dead.

    People rushed to the building to rescue those trapped under the rubble.

    The sound of the explosion was “as powerful as an earthquake”, Mahmoud Jarbou, who lives nearby, told Reuters.

    The Israeli government said it operated against militant targets and that it takes extraordinary measures to avoid hitting civilians.

    An Israeli tank shell hit the maternity building inside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, killing a 13-year-old girl named Dina Abu Mehsen, according to Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra.

    Al-Qidra said that Abu Mehsen had previously lost her father, mother, two of her siblings, and one of her legs during the shelling of a house in the Al-Amal neighborhood in Khan Younis a few weeks ago.

    Pope Francis on Sunday again suggested Israel was using “terrorism” tactics in Gaza, deploring the reported killing by the Israeli military of two Christian women who had taken refuge in a church complex.

    At his weekly blessing, Francis referred to a statement about an incident on Saturday by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Catholic authority in the Holy Land.

    Around 19,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health officials, since Oct. 7 when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and captured 240 hostages in their surprise raid.

    The Israeli military released the names of four more soldiers who had died in combat in Gaza, bringing to 126 the number of soldiers killed in the strip since Israel launched a ground invasion in late October.

    Israel’s war on Hamas has razed large parts of Gaza and displaced the majority of its 2.3 million residents, many now living in makeshift shelters without clean water and food and fighting diseases.

    Human Rights Watch said on Monday that Israel was using starvation as a weapon by deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food, fuel, and razing agricultural areas.

    “For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water … reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

    The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened for aid trucks on Sunday for the first time since the outbreak of war, officials said, in a move to double the amount of food and medicine reaching Gazans.

    The United Nations Security Council could vote as early as Monday on a proposal to demand that Israel and Hamas allow aid access to the Gaza Strip – via land, sea, and air routes – and set up UN monitoring of the humanitarian assistance delivered.

    Diplomats said the fate of the draft Security Council resolution hinges on final negotiations between Israel’s ally and council veto power, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, which has drafted the text.

    “The UAE knows exactly what can pass and what cannot — it is up to them if they want to get this done,” said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    Hopes for another ceasefire and hostage releases had been raised on Saturday when a source said Israel’s spy chief had spoken on Friday with the prime minister of Qatar, which has previously mediated hostage releases in return for a week-long ceasefire and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.

    Two security sources from Egypt – another mediator – said on Sunday Israel and Hamas were both open to a renewed ceasefire and hostage release, though disagreements remained on how it would be implemented.

    “We are open to any efforts aimed at ending the Israeli aggression.

    “This is the ground for any discussion,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said when asked for comment on the Egyptian statement.

    But Israeli authorities said they were determined to fight on to eliminate Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2006 and is sworn to Israel’s destruction.

     

  • Gaza a total failure of our shared humanity – Norwegian Refugee Council

    Gaza a total failure of our shared humanity – Norwegian Refugee Council

    Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council,  on Tuesday said that the Gaza war “ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age.’’

    Egeland said in a statement that severe restrictions on aid access into the Gaza Strip have aggravated the situation, “leading to starvation among Gaza’s population and intensifying an already dire humanitarian crisis.’’

    He added that 1.9 million people, or almost the entire population, have been displaced and nearly two in three homes are damaged or destroyed.

    “Tens of thousands live on the streets of southern Gaza, where under bombardment, they are forced to improvise basic shelters from whatever they can get hold of,’’ he said.

    He stressed that those responsible “for the killings, the torture, and the atrocities’’ committed in Israel on Oct. 7 must be held accountable.

    “We again demand that all hostages are immediately and unconditionally released.,neither the lives of innocent children, women or men, nor the ability of aid workers to access the vulnerable, should be used as bargaining chips,’’ Egeland said.

    “The situation in Gaza is a total failure of our shared humanity. The killing must stop,’’ Egeland said.

     

  • War resumes in Gaza after truce expires

    War resumes in Gaza after truce expires

    Israeli warplanes resumed the pounding of Gaza, Palestinian civilians fled for shelter, and rocket sirens blared in southern Israel on Friday as war resumed after a week-long truce collapsed with no deal to extend it.

    The Israeli military announced it had “resumed combat operations”, accusing Hamas of violating the truce first by firing rockets.

    It said its planes were bombing “terrorist targets” in the enclave.

    Hamas said Israel bore responsibility for the end of the truce, accusing it of rejecting all offers to release more of the hostages militants in the enclave are holding.

    As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky.

    Residents took to the streets fleeing for shelter further west.

    In the north of the enclave, the main war zone before the truce, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from across the fence in Israel.

    The rattle of gunfire and thud of explosions rang out above the sound of barking dogs.

    Barely two hours after the truce expired, Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry reported that 32 people had already been killed in air strikes.

    “With the resumption of fighting we emphasise: The Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war – to free our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel,” the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

    Hamas was equally defiant: “What Israel did not achieve during the fifty days before the truce, it will not achieve by continuing its aggression after the truce,” Ezzat El Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, said on the group’s website.

    “With the steadfastness of our people and the heroism of our resistance, we confront the enemy’s crimes, the resumption of its Nazi aggression, and its targeting of civilians.”

    The seven-day pause, which began on Nov. 24 and was extended twice, had allowed for the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and facilitated the entry of humanitarian aid into the shattered coastal strip.

    Eighty Israeli women and children hostages were freed in return for 240 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, all women and teens. An additional 25 foreign hostages, mainly Thai farmworkers, were also released under parallel deals.

    Mediators had sought to extend the truce by finding a formula for hostage releases to continue, possibly to include Israeli men now that fewer women and children remained in captivity.

    Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 rampage by the militant group, when Israel says gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.

    Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, has ruled Gaza since 2007.

    Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion have laid waste to much of the territory. Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say more than 15,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed and thousands more are missing and feared buried under rubble.

    The United Nations says as many as 80 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, with no way to escape the narrow territory, many sleeping rough in makeshift shelters.

    Israel has imposed a total siege, and residents and humanitarian agencies say aid that arrived during the truce was trivial compared to the vast needs of so many displaced people.

  • We’re ready to swap all detained Israeli soldiers for Palestinian prisoners – Hamas

    We’re ready to swap all detained Israeli soldiers for Palestinian prisoners – Hamas

    Reports coming out of Gaza indicates that the Islamist movement  known as Hamas was ready to release all the Israeli soldiers it is holding captive in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, amid negotiations to extend a truce over Gaza.

    Hamas official and former Gaza health minister Bassem Naim said the group was going through “hard negotiations” to extend a cessation of hostilities that was scheduled to end early Thursday after a six-day pause in fighting.

    “We are ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners,” Naim told a press conference in Cape Town, during a visit to South Africa.

    It was gathered that Gaza militants took about 240 captives from southern Israel in an unprecedented October 7 attack that Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

    Activist groups say there are more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many of them far more prominent than the youngsters and women freed so far.

    Hamas had already in October demanded Israel release all Palestinian prisoners but at the time offered to let go all hostages in exchange.

    The new proposal came as efforts intensified to extend the halt in hostilities, with a source close to the militant group saying Hamas was willing to extend the truce by another four days and release more Israeli hostages.

    “We are trying with the mediators to negotiate a permanent ceasefire,” Naim said.

    Earlier Israel’s army said it was investigating a report by Hamas’s armed wing that a 10-month-old baby hostage, his four-year-old brother and their mother had all been killed in Gaza.

    “We have confirmed two to three weeks ago that 60 Israelis have been killed under Israeli bombardment and are still under the rubble,” Naim said.

    “The woman and her two children are among them, I can confirm that.”

  • Israeli hostage family’s deaths overshadows negotiations on Gaza truce

    Israeli hostage family’s deaths overshadows negotiations on Gaza truce

    Negotiations between Israel and Hamas to extend the Gaza truce were overshadowed at the last minute on Wednesday by an unconfirmed claim by Hamas that a family of Israeli hostages including a 10-month-old baby had been killed.

    Shortly before the final release of women and children hostages scheduled under the truce, the military wing of Hamas said in a statement that the youngest hostage, baby Kfir Bibas, had been killed in an earlier Israeli bombing, along with his four-year-old brother Ariel and their mother.

    Their father, who has also been held, was not mentioned in the statement.

    Israeli officials said they were checking the Hamas claim, a highly emotive issue in Israel where the family is among the highest-profile civilian hostages yet to be freed.

    “The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is assessing the accuracy of the information,” the military said in a statement which added that it held Hamas responsible for the safety of all the hostages in Gaza.

    Relatives had issued a special appeal for the family’s freedom after the children and their parents were excluded from the penultimate group freed on Tuesday.

    An Israeli official said it would be impossible to extend the ceasefire on Thursday morning, due to a lapse, without a commitment to release all women and children among the hostages.

    The official said Israel believed militants were still holding enough women and children to prolong the truce by 2-3 days.

    Egyptian security sources also said negotiators believed a two-day extension was possible.

    Families of those Israeli hostages due to be released later on Wednesday had already been informed earlier of their names, the final group to be freed under the truce unless negotiators succeeded in extending it.

    Officials did not say at the time whether that included the Bibas family.

    Gaza’s Hamas rulers published a list of 15 women and 15 teenage Palestinians to be released from Israeli jails in return for the hostages released on Wednesday.

    The hostages were seized by militants in their deadly raid on Israel on Oct. 7.

    For the first time since the truce began, the list of Palestinians to be freed included Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as residents of occupied territory.

    So far, Gaza militants have freed 60 Israeli women and children from among 240 hostages, under the deal that secured the war’s first truce.

    At least 21 foreigners, mainly Thai farmworkers, were also freed under separate parallel deals.

    In return, Israel has released 180 Palestinian security detainees, all women and teenagers.

    The initial four-day truce was extended by 48 hours from Tuesday, and Israel said it would be willing to prolong it further for as long as Hamas frees 10 hostages a day.

    But with fewer women and children still in captivity, that could mean agreeing to terms governing the release of at least some Israeli men for the first time.

    A Palestinian official said negotiators were hammering out whether Israeli men would be released on different terms than the exchange for three Palestinian detainees each that had previously applied to the women and children.

    Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Israel would consider any serious proposal, though he declined to provide further details.

    “We are doing everything we can in order to get those hostages out. Nothing is confirmed until it is confirmed,” Levy told reporters in Tel Aviv.

    “We’re talking about very sensitive negotiations in which human lives hang in the balance,” he added.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his earlier pledges to pursue the war to annihilate Hamas, once the ceasefire lapses.

    “There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end.

    “This is my policy. The entire cabinet stands behind it. The entire government stands behind it. The soldiers stand behind it. The people stand behind it. This is exactly what we will do,” he said in a statement.

    Tuesday’s release also included for the first time hostages held by Islamic Jihad, a separate militant group, as well as by Hamas itself.

    “The ability of Hamas to secure the release of hostages held by other factions had been an issue in earlier talks.

    The truce has brought the first respite to a war launched by Israel to annihilate Hamas after the “Black Shabbat” raid by gunmen who killed 1,200 people on the Jewish rest day, according to Israel’s tally.

    Israeli bombardment has since reduced much of Gaza to a wasteland, with more than 15,000 people confirmed killed, 40 per cent of them children, according to Palestinian health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations.

    Many more are feared buried under the ruins. The Palestinian health ministry said another 160 bodies had been pulled out of rubble during the past 24 hours of the truce, and around 6,500 people were still missing.

    Israel rejects calls for ceasefire before UN Security Council

    Israel at the United Nations Security Council in New York on Wednesday rejected calls for a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza war.

    Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the most powerful UN body that with a ceasefire in place, Israel would not be able to protect its citizens.

    “Anyone who supports a ceasefire basically supports Hamas’ continued reign of terror in Gaza,” he said.

    One could not demand a ceasefire and at the same time claim to be seeking a solution to the conflict, Erdan said further, noting that the militant Hamas is not a partner for reliable peace.

    “Hamas has publicly stated – you all saw it – that it will repeat Oct. 7 over and over again until Israel is no more.

    “How would you respond and defend your citizens from such a clear threat with a ceasefire?” he queried.

    Erdan maintained that there could only be an end to the violence if Hamas handed over all its hostages and everyone else involved in the attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

  • Tears, laughter on Gaza beach as children get break from war

    Tears, laughter on Gaza beach as children get break from war

    Children played on a Gaza beach as displaced families left their cramped shelters for a short break during the truce between Israel and Hamas.

    However, amid the laughter their parents could not forget the hardships of war and homelessness.

    As children splashed in the shallow water, jumping over small waves, adults in bare feet watched from the shore.

    Asmaa al-Sultan, a displaced woman from northern Gaza, sat on the sand with her arm around her mother. The older woman was crying quietly.

    More than 30 members of the al-Sultan family are sheltering in a UN school in the town of Deir Al-Balah with hundreds of other displaced people.

    “We came to the beach to take a breather, to escape from the feeling of the crowded schools and from the depressing and polluted environment we are in,” said Asmaa.

    “People come to the beach to relax, to swim, for their children to have fun, they take food with them. But we are so depressed. We are on the beach but we want to cry,” she added.

    Hundreds of thousands of people have left their homes in northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of Israel’s military assault, to seek refuge in tents, schools, or the homes of friends and relatives in the southern part of the strip.

    The gruelling conditions in the tent camps and schools, with overcrowding, a dearth of toilets and showers, and long daily queues for small rations of food and water, have been compounded by the psychological impact of bombardment and displacement.

    The beach at Deir Al-Balah has a row of fishermen’s huts at the back, towards the bottom of a slope strewn with rubbish.

    Some displaced people had taken up residence in the flimsy huts, clothes hanging on strings outside.

    Waleed al-Sultan, one of Asmaa’s younger relatives, was trying to untangle a net near the huts as he prepared to go out fishing in a small boat, hoping the truce would mean he could do so without danger.

    “I brought nothing with me when I was displaced, so I thought I would make a living from fishing, but the (Israeli) guards stopped me and started shooting at us,” he said.

    The war began when Hamas militants burst out of Gaza on Oct. 7 and rampaged through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and seizing 240 hostages.

    Israel responded with an all-out assault on Gaza which has killed 14,800 Palestinians, four in ten of them children under 18, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory.

    While some displaced people have seized the opportunity of the four-day truce, which began on Friday, to check on their homes, others have been too fearful to return to the north, much of which has been reduced to a wasteland.

    “We are afraid about the end of these four days. We don’t know what will happen to us next,” said Hazem al-Sultan, Asmaa’s husband.

    He said they and their relatives had not dared to head north for fear of being shot at by Israeli soldiers and had no idea what state their homes might be in.

    “We are afraid for our children, for ourselves, and we don’t know what to do,” he said.

     

  • Gaza ceasefire begins as 1st 13 Israeli hostages wait to be released

    Gaza ceasefire begins as 1st 13 Israeli hostages wait to be released

    An agreed ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas came into force on Friday morning.

    The first pause in fighting in nearly seven weeks of war began at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and was set to last at least four days. An extension of up to 10 days is possible, mediator Qatar said.

    At 4:00 pm local time, the first 13 hostages held in the Gaza Strip were to be released as part of the agreement between Israel and Gaza-ruling Hamas. They are women and children.

    In return, three Palestinian prisoners are to be released from Israeli prisons for each hostage. This also involves women and minors.

    The fighting continued until the end. There were rocket alerts in the Israeli border area shortly before the ceasefire began. The Israeli army had previously intensified its attacks in the Gaza Strip and will keep its soldiers stationed in the Gaza Strip during the ceasefire.

    The break in fighting should also mean more aid deliveries for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) wants to use the ceasefire to distribute urgently needed aid.

    During the ceasefire, all sides will cease their military activities, said a spokesman for the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement.

    Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel would continue its intensive fighting in the Gaza Strip for at least another two months once the “short” ceasefire ends.

    After the end of this intense fighting, there will be a need for continued multiple operations in Gaza until there is no longer a military threat from there, the minister said.

    “The war is not over yet,” an Israeli army spokesperson wrote in Arabic on X, formerly Twitter, shortly before the ceasefire began.

    The northern Gaza Strip is still a “dangerous war zone” and it is forbidden to move back and forth there.

    However, he said, it will still be possible for civilians to move from the north to the south of the territory, while movement in the other direction is forbidden.

     

  • Israel-Hamas conflict has gone beyond war to ‘terrorism’ – Pope

    Israel-Hamas conflict has gone beyond war to ‘terrorism’ – Pope

    Pope Francis on Wednesday met separately with Israeli relatives of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family in Gaza and said the conflict had gone beyond war to become “terrorism”.

    Speaking in unscripted remarks at his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square shortly after the early morning meetings in his residence, Francis said he heard directly how “both sides are suffering” in the conflict.

    “This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism,” he said.

    He asked for prayers so that both sides would “not go ahead with passions, which in the end, kill everyone”.

    Both groups would be holding separate news conferences later on Wednesday.

    The meetings and the pope’s comments came hours after Israel’s government and Hamas agreed to silence the guns in Gaza for at least four days to allow in aid and release at least 50 hostages captured by militants in exchange for at least 150 Palestinians jailed in Israel.

    Israel has placed Gaza under siege and relentless bombardment since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies.

    Since then, more than 13,000 Gazans have been killed, about 40 per cent of them children, according to medical officials in the Hamas-ruled territory, figures deemed reliable by the United Nations.

     

     

  • U.S. President Biden welcomes Gaza temporary ceasefire agreement

    U.S. President Biden welcomes Gaza temporary ceasefire agreement

    U.S. President Joe Biden has welcomed the temporary ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel that will see the release of some hostages currently held in the Gaza Strip.

    “I am extraordinarily gratified that some of these brave souls, who have endured weeks of captivity and
    an unspeakable ordeal.

    “It will be reunited with their families once this deal is fully implemented,’’ Biden said in a statement.

    TheNewsGuru.com earlier reported that Israel’s government on Wednesday agreed to a four-day ceasefire deal in the Gaza war that includes the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

    Biden thanked Qatar and Egypt for their “critical leadership and partnership’’ in negotiating the deal.

    “And I appreciate the commitment that (Israel) Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have made
    in supporting an extended pause to ensure this deal can be fully carried out.

    “To ensure the provision of additional humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinian
    families in Gaza.’’

    He said the deal “should’’ see the release of some American hostages.

    “I will not stop until they are all released,’’ he added.

    In its unprecedented terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas kidnapped about 240 people to the Gaza Strip and
    killed 1,200 in the border region.

    An air and ground offensive by Israel has killed some 13,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health
    Ministry

     

  • Truce: Israel agrees deal with Hamas to free hostages

    Truce: Israel agrees deal with Hamas to free hostages

    Israel’s government and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting to allow the release of 50 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

    Officials from Qatar, which has been mediating secret negotiations, as well as the U.S., Israel, and Hamas have for days been saying a deal was imminent.

    Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

    A statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said 50 women and children will be released over four days, during which there will be a pause in fighting.

    For every additional 10 hostages released, the pause would be extended by another day, it said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.

    “Israel’s government is committed to returning all the hostages home.

    “Tonight, it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal,” said the statement, released after hours of deliberation that were closed to the press.

    Hamas said the 50 hostages would be released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children who are held in Israeli jails.

    The truce deal will also allow hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical, and fuel aid to enter Gaza, the Palestinian group said in a statement.

    Israel had committed not to attack or arrest anyone in all parts of Gaza during the truce period, it added.

    During the four-day truce, air traffic will completely stop in southern Gaza and will halt for six hours a day, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (local time), in northern Gaza, the statement said.

    The accord is the first truce of a war in which Israeli bombardments have flattened swathes of Hamas-ruled Gaza, killed 13,300 civilians in the tiny densely populated enclave and left about two-thirds of its 2.3 million people homeless, according to authorities in Gaza.

    Before gathering with his full government, Netanyahu met on Tuesday with his war cabinet and wider national security cabinet over the deal.

    Ahead of the announcement of the deal, Netanyahu said the intervention of U.S. President Joe Biden had helped to improve the tentative agreement so that it included more hostages and fewer concessions.

    But Netanyahu said Israel’s broader mission had not changed.

    “We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel,” he said in a recorded message at the start of the government meeting.

    Hamas said in its statement: “As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look out to defend our people and defeat the occupation.”

    Three Americans, including a 3-year-old girl whose parents were among those killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, are expected to be among the hostages to be released, a senior U.S. official said.

    Israeli media said the first release of hostages was expected on Thursday.

    Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, reports said.

    Hamas has to date released only four captives: U.S. citizens Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, on Oct. 20, citing “humanitarian reasons,” and Israeli women Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on Oct. 23.

    The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the Oct. 7 raid with Hamas, said late on Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel had died.

    “We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling and this led to her death,” Al Quds Brigades said on its Telegram channel.

    As attention focused on the hostage release deal, fighting on the ground raged on.

    Mounir Al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza’s health ministry, told Al Jazeera TV that the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.

    Israel said militants were operating from the facility and threatened to act against them within four hours, he said.

    Hospitals, including Gaza’s biggest Al Shifa, have been rendered virtually inoperable by the conflict and shortages of critical supplies.

    Israel claims that Hamas conceals military command posts and fighters within them, a claim that Hamas and hospital staff deny.

    On Tuesday, Israel also said its forces had encircled the Jabalia refugee camp, a congested urban extension of Gaza City where Hamas has been battling advancing Israeli armoured forces.

    The Palestinian news agency WAFA said 33 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on part of Jabalia.

    According to the United Nations, most Palestinians in Gaza are registered as refugees because they or their ancestors were displaced by the 1948 war of Israel’s creation.

    In southern Gaza, Hamas-affiliated media said 10 people were killed and 22 injured by an Israeli air strike on an apartment in the city of Khan Younis.

    Reuters could not immediately verify the accounts of fighting on either side.