By Ronny Reyes and David Propper
Israel has approved a deal with Hamas in which 50 hostages held by the terror group would be freed in exchange for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza lasting at least four days and the release of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.
The Qatar-mediated agreement was overwhelmingly approved by the Israeli Cabinet early Wednesday morning local time after more than six hours of debating – marking the first major diplomatic breakthrough since the start of the war.
“The government of Israel is committed to bringing all of the hostages home,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Tonight, the government approved the outline for the first stage of achieving this goal.”
Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs later formally announced the deal in a statement on X and said a start time to the halt in fighting would be revealed “within the next 24 hours.”
As part of the deal — struck more than six weeks into the war — Hamas is set to release 50 of the 240 hostages taken during their Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish nation, according to the Israeli government.
The first hostages to be freed would be women and children.
Hostages are to be released over the course of a four-day cease-fire in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes and subsequent ground attack aimed at destroying Hamas.
The pause in fighting would extend an extra day for every 10 additional hostages released by Hamas, the Israeli government said.
Three Americans could be among hostages freed under the agreement, the official told the outlet.
President Biden said he welcomes the “deal to secure the release of hostages taken by the terrorist group Hamas” in a Tuesday night statement.
“Today’s deal should bring home additional American hostages, and I will not stop until they are all released,” Biden said.
“I look forward to speaking with each of these leaders and staying in close contact as we work to ensure this deal is carried through in its entirety. It is important that all aspects of this deal be fully implemented,” the president added.
US officials have said they were hoping that Abigail Mor Idan, a 3-year-old American girl whose parents were killed Oct. 7, would be among the children included in the negotiations.
“For our family, we have spent the last seven weeks … worrying, wondering, praying, hoping,” Idan’s aunt, Liz Hirsh Naftali, told CNN Tuesday night.
Ten Americans are still unaccounted for, including the toddler and two women, CNN reported.
Along with the temporary cease-fire, Israel will release “a number of Palestinian women and children” jailed in the country, according to Qatar’s ministry of foreign affairs.
“The number of those released will be increased in later stages of implementing the agreement,” the ministry said in its statement.
Hamas said in a statement early Wednesday that 150 women and children imprisoned in Israeli jails will be freed.
Israel also agreed to allow more fuel into Gaza and a significant amount of humanitarian aid, including medical supplies, Hamas said in the latest statement.
Netanyahu vowed the Jewish state would resume its offensive against Hamas once the temporary truce expired.
“We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals,” Netanyahu said in a recorded message at the start of the latest government meeting. “To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel.”
Intelligence efforts will continue even during the lull so the army is ready once fighting resumes, he said.
Ahead of the hostage negotiations, Israeli soldiers transferred detained Palestinians on Tuesday out of the Gaza Strip.
It is unclear if those transferred might be among the prisoners released in the hostage negotiations.
The reported deal was designed to create the first major pause in the war that has killed more than 1,200 people in the Jewish state and more than a reported 11,500 others in Gaza, an unprecedented loss of life in the decades of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
It would come as a relief to those sheltering in Gaza after Israel began an all-out bombardment and ground assault into the Palestinian enclave, shutting down hospitals and evacuating civilians to the south.
On Monday, injured Palestinians were evacuated from the struggling Indonesian hospital to the Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The cease-fire deal was likely to be coordinated with further evacuations out of north Gaza, which holds several of Hamas’ headquarters, along with more aid trucks to be received by hospitals.
Four hostages have been released so far, including a mother and daughter with dual American and Israeli citizenship and two elderly Israeli women.
Israel’s military rescued an Israeli soldier in late October after she was kidnapped from her army base