Qatar says that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will enter into force on Sunday morning

The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced today, Saturday, that the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will enter into force within less than 24 hours.

In a post on X, Qatari Foreign Minister Majid Al-Ansari said the ceasefire would begin at 8:30 a.m. local time (1:30 a.m. ET) on Sunday. He advised people to be cautious when the agreement enters into force and to wait for the directions of officials.

Early Saturday morning, the Israeli Cabinet approved a ceasefire deal in Gaza that would release dozens of hostages and end the 15-month-old war with Hamas, bringing both sides a step closer to ending the bloodiest and most destructive fighting on record.

Despite news of a ceasefire, sirens sounded in central Israel on Saturday, and the army said it intercepted projectiles launched from Yemen. The Iran-backed Houthis have intensified their missile attacks in recent weeks.

The movement says the attacks are part of its campaign to pressure Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.

Israeli raids on Gaza also continued. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said at least 23 people were killed the previous day.

On Saturday, the spokesman for the Palestinian militant, Abu Hamza, called on the families of the hostages to demand that the Israeli army stop its attacks in the final hours before the ceasefire enters into force, saying that this “will be a reason to kill their children.”

Under the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages are scheduled to be released during the next six weeks, in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians detained by Israel. The rest, including male soldiers, will be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first phase. Hamas said it would not release the remaining prisoners without a permanent ceasefire and complete Israeli withdrawal.

According to the ceasefire plan approved by the Council of Ministers and signed by the Israeli National Security Advisor, the exchange will begin Sunday at 4 p.m. (9 a.m. ET). During each exchange, Israel will release the prisoners after the hostages arrive safely.

The plan says that during the first phase, about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners will be released, in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages, alive and dead. Among the prisoners are 1,167 Gazans who were detained by Israel but did not participate in the attacks of October 7, 2023. All women and children under the age of 19 from Gaza held by Israel will be released during this phase.

All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks will be exiled, either to Gaza or abroad, and prohibited from returning to Israel or the West Bank. Some will be exiled for three years and others permanently, according to the plan.

However, major questions remain about the ceasefire – the second reached during the war – including the names of the 33 hostages to be released and which of them are still alive.

Hamas agreed to release three hostages on the first day of the deal, four on the seventh day, and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks.

Palestinian detainees will also be released. The Israeli Ministry of Justice published a list of more than 700 prisoners who will be released in the first phase of the deal, and said that the release will not begin before 4 p.m. local time on Sunday. All people on the list are younger or female.

Also during the first phase, Israeli forces are scheduled to withdraw to a buffer zone approximately one kilometer wide inside Gaza, along its border with Israel.

This will allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including in Gaza City and North Gaza. With most of Gaza’s population forced to live in huge, dirty camps, Palestinians are desperate to return to their homes, even though many of them have been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli campaign.

Omri Miran was among the men taken hostage by militants when they stormed Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023. His son-in-law, Moshe Lavie, told CBC News on Saturday that Miran would not be among those to be released in the interim. The first of the agreement.

Lavy said that all the hostages should be released together, for humanitarian reasons, because of all the difficulties they faced.

“After 470 days in captivity, imagine that, can you believe that someone is not in human need?” He said.

The largely devastated region should see an increase in humanitarian aid thanks to the agreement. Trucks loaded with aid lined up on Friday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. The Ministry of Health said that two Egyptian government ministers arrived on Saturday in the northern Sinai Peninsula to supervise preparations for delivering aid and receiving the evacuation of patients.

Hamas sparked the war with its cross-border attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and captured about 250 others. There are still approximately 100 hostages in Gaza.

Israel responded with a devastating attack that killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say women and children make up more than half of the dead.