The Israeli Security Cabinet recommends approval of the hostage agreement and ceasefire with Hamas

Israel’s mini-cabinet on Friday recommended approving a ceasefire and hostage agreement with Hamas, leaving one more step until it can be implemented. The agreement still needs the approval of the full Israeli Cabinet, and its implementation is expected to begin on Sunday.

Israeli air strikes continued in Gaza on Friday night, with the Hamas-run Civil Defense Agency saying 113 Palestinians had been killed since a ceasefire and hostage agreement was announced on Wednesday evening.

Hoda Mutaribi, a Palestinian woman from northern Gaza, told CBS News partner BBC News that the prospect of reaching an agreement gave her hope, but “with that hope comes a real fear” that the agreement might collapse.

“Fear is not just the immediate danger, but the emotional toll: the constant uncertainty and the constant feeling that our lives are not really ours,” she said.

The families of the hostages gathered in Tel Aviv on Friday to demand the completion of the deal.

“This deal came too late for my son Guy, whose life will not be saved. But he can be returned home to be buried here,” said Michel Illouz, whose 26-year-old son was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival in October. February 7, 2023, and is believed to have died in Gaza, he told a crowd. “Our work is not over yet. We will not rest until every hostage returns home, alive and dead. They must all return to us, to their families.”

The Israeli security cabinet met early Friday to discuss the deal with the Israeli team sent to negotiate in Qatar. The broader group of Israeli government ministers was initially scheduled to hold a separate vote on the deal on Saturday, but it was brought forward to Friday afternoon.

Preparations are being made on Friday to receive the hostages who will be released under the deal in various Israeli hospitals.

At the Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, a special ward was equipped more comfortably, and a special menu was prepared. The hospital was putting up privacy barriers. The plan was for the hostages to arrive by helicopter.

At Sheba Hospital, plans have been made to appoint a team of specialists to support the hostages arriving there, and new clothes and toiletries have also been arranged for them.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that, subject to the approval of the mini-Cabinet and the government, the implementation of the plan to release hostages in Gaza and exchange Palestinian prisoners in Israel may begin on Sunday.

The first phase of that plan lasts 42 days and witnesses a cessation of fighting and the exchange of 33 hostages in Gaza in exchange for up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. It will also witness the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid.