Israel and Hamas begin ceasefire

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on Sunday, halting 15 months of brutal war in Gaza and paving the way for the release of hostages still being held by the Palestinian militant group in the shattered enclave.

The six-week truce offers hope of a pause — and potentially an end — to the bloodiest chapter in the decades-long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has left Gaza in ruins, consumed Israeli society and brought the Middle East to the brink of a full-blown regional war.

The truce, which is the first stage of a three-phase agreement thrashed out by US-led mediators last week after months of failed attempts, had been due to take effect at 8.30am local time (06.30 GMT).

But in an indication of the fragility of the arrangements, it began nearly three hours late, with Israel continuing to bomb Gaza after a delay in Hamas providing the names of the hostages set for release on Sunday.

Israel’s government said the first three hostages — who will be freed in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners — were expected to be released after 16.00 local time on Sunday. The next exchange will take place in seven days’ time, when four more hostages will be freed.

But the chances of the agreement being implemented in full remain uncertain, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under intense pressure from far-right allies to resume fighting once the first phase of the deal is over.

The fighting in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, during which militants killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and took a further 250 hostage in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel responded with a devastating assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 46,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. It has displaced most of the coastal enclave’s 2.3mn people, reduced much of the strip to rubble and fuelled a humanitarian catastrophe.

Even before the ceasefire belatedly came into force on Sunday, celebrations had begun to spread across Gaza, where many displaced people were preparing to return to the ruins of their homes.

Mohamed Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, said some had begun returning to Jabalia — a devastated area in the north of the enclave — as early as 8.30am local time. “They were targeted by Israeli strikes, but some people still got there and our teams are there,” he said.

Among those returning was Mohamed Abu Ismail, who previously worked for the Palestinian Authority. He went to check his home in the Jabalia camp and found it in ruins.

“People arrive in Jabalia, get shocked, weep and go back to Gaza City,” he said. “There is nothing to sustain life here. Even the schools that were sheltering displaced people have been burnt. All features of Jabalia have been erased, nothing is left standing.”

Bassal said Palestinian civil defence teams were starting to retrieve bodies from areas vacated by the Israeli forces in Rafah and in the north, and that police from the era when Hamas ruled the enclave had started to redeploy in cities.

Under the terms of the deal struck by mediators last week, the first phase will involve a six-week truce, during which Hamas will release 33 of the 98 hostages still in Gaza — including children, women, the sick and elderly — in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.

During this time, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes, including in northern Gaza. There will also be a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and the ceasefire agreement also sets out plans for a massive influx of humanitarian aid.

By day 16 of the first phase, Israel and Hamas are meant to start negotiating details of the second phase of the deal, during which the remaining living hostages will be freed in exchange for hundreds more Palestinian prisoners, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a permanent end to the war.

The final phase will involve the return of the remaining bodies of hostages who have died, as well as the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza, under the supervision of Egypt, Qatar and the UN.

But in a sign of the hostility of Israel’s far-right to the deal, shortly before it went into force, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir pulled his Jewish Power party out of the government in protest, reducing Netanyahu’s majority in Israel’s 120-seat parliament to just two seats.

Ben-Gvir’s ultranationalist ally, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to pull his Religious Zionism party out of the government if the war does not resume after the first stage of the deal. If he did so, it would deprive Netanyahu of his parliamentary majority.

Smotrich sharpened his threats on Sunday, saying he would topple the government if it did not resume the fighting in a way that led to Israel “taking over the entire Gaza Strip and governing it”.

Netanyahu has previously denied that Israel is seeking to run Gaza after the war. But he said on Saturday that the US supported Israel’s right to resume fighting if talks on the details of the second phase failed.

He also insisted Israeli forces would keep “full control” of the so-called Philadelphi corridor, which separates Gaza from Egypt. “If we have to return to combat, we will do so in new ways, and we will do so with great force,” Netanyahu said.

Mike Waltz, US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, said Washington would back Israel if Hamas were to renege on the deal.

“If Hamas backs out, moves the goalpost . . . we will support Israel in doing what it has to do — number one,” Waltz told CBS’s Face the Nation show on Sunday. “And number two — Hamas will never govern Gaza. That is completely unacceptable.”

Additional reporting from Myles McCormick