Before the Israeli captives held by Hamas are scheduled to be released in return for Palestinians imprisoned, fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas gunmen ceased on Friday for the first time in seven weeks.
There were no significant bombs, artillery strikes, or rocket attacks recorded, but Israel and Hamas both accused the other of occasional shootings and other transgressions. Both declared that as soon as the truce ended, the conflict would break out again at full force.
The streets of Khan Younis town, in southern Gaza, were crowded with people leaving their homes and shelters to explore a scene where houses had collapsed into mounds of debris. Families that had been uprooted and had little children brought their possessions in plastic bags in the hopes of making a temporary return to the houses they had left behind earlier in the conflict.
“I feel at rest and am extremely happy right now. “I’m returning home, our hearts are at rest,” Ahmad Wael grinned and strolled with a carpet perched atop his head. “I’m so sick of sitting around without anything to eat or drink. We can live there, make bread, and have tea at home.”
When looking at the northern Gaza conflict zone from Israel’s side of the border, nothing could be seen, not even the contrails of Hamas rocket fire or the jets that have been roaring over the sky for weeks. In the early afternoon, all that was visible was one cloud of smoke.
Aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip from Egypt at its southern end, as columns of Israeli tanks rolled away from its northern end.
150 Palestinian women and teenagers detained in Israeli jails are exchanged for the release of 50 women and children taken captive by the combatants during the four-day ceasefire, which started at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT). Later on Friday, 39 Palestinians and the first 13 captives were scheduled to be released.
If further hostages are released at a rate of at least 10 per day, Israel says it could be prolonged beyond four days; a Palestinian source has stated that up to 100 captives could ultimately be freed.
More aid is set to enter Gaza, which has been besieged by weeks of Israeli bombardment that has resulted in thousands of Palestinian deaths and a humanitarian catastrophe.
Hamas declared that its fighters would stop waging war. However, later on, Hamas’s armed wing spokesperson Abu Ubaida emphasized that this was a “temporary truce”.
The Israeli-occupied West Bank was included in his demand for a “escalation of the confrontation…on all resistance fronts” in a video message.
A similar resumption to action was promised by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said, “This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war (and) fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages.”
After Hamas militants broke through the border fence into southern Israel on October 7, murdering 1,200 people and taking approximately 240 hostages, according to Israeli estimates, Israel began its attack on Gaza.
According to Palestinian health authorities, Israel has killed almost 14,000 Gazans since then, about 40% of them were children, by dropping bombs on the Hamas-ruled enclave.
A vast number of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants have left their homes in order to avoid the carnage, since the country’s supplies of food, fuel, drinking water, and other necessities are running low.
This particular event in the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the bloodiest one. Israel claims that its goal is to completely destroy Hamas.
Since the beginning of this month, Israel has directed displaced Gazans not to try to return to the northern portion of the Gaza Strip, which has been the target of its ground campaign.
Residents of Gaza reported that Israeli forces had fired over the heads of several individuals attempting to return to Gaza City and had dropped leaflets alerting people not to walk north.
According to Al-Jazeera, Palestinians who attempted to flee north were shot at by Israeli soldiers, resulting in the deaths of two and the injuries of another. The Israeli military did not immediately provide a statement.
In two Israeli settlements in the south, sirens alerted residents to the potential threat of Palestinian rockets. Although there were no reports of damage, an Israeli government spokeswoman stated that Hamas had violated the truce by firing missiles.
In the hours before the truce, fighting had broken out, and enclave officials claimed that one of the targets attacked was a hospital in Gaza City.
Gaza health officials reported that the Indonesian Hospital was dark and crowded with elderly individuals in beds and weak youngsters who couldn’t be relocated. The director of the Gaza health ministry, Mounir El Barsh, was cited by Al-Jazeera as claiming that three patients were hurt and one patient, a wounded woman, died.
Regarding the claimed occurrence, Israel remained silent.
International worry for the prisoners’ welfare and the predicament of Palestinian people stuck in Gaza led to the short ceasefire. Israel, which is supported by the US, has rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire, claiming that doing so would help Hamas.
According to Egyptian security sources, the 13 first hostages were scheduled to be freed around 1400 GMT to be handed over to the Red Cross and an Egyptian security team before being transported outside of Egypt and taken to Israel. According to Palestinian sources, Israel will release 15 teenagers and 24 women from the occupied West Bank in return.
Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners’ committee, declared that the Palestinian inmates would be transferred to the Red Cross by Israel’s prisons authority as soon as Israel received the hostages at the Rafah crossing.
As per the deal, Gaza started receiving much-needed supplies. According to Gaza border authorities, 60 trucks bearing relief had crossed from Egypt at the Rafah crossing point by mid-morning.
A pair of the first vehicles to arrive were carrying banners that read, “Together for Humanity.” One more said: “For our brothers in Gaza.”
According to Egypt, 200 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies would drive into Gaza every day, along with 130,000 liters of diesel and four trucks carrying gas.
Out of 100 trucks carrying relief supplies, only three have made it to the northern Gaza Strip thus far, a Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasefire negotiations told Reuters.
“This is really dragging your feet,” the official declared
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