By Maayan Lubell, Emily Rose, Nidal al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip went into effect on Sunday after a delay of nearly three hours, ending a 15-month war that has wreaked havoc and upheaval in the Middle East. .
Residents and medical staff in Gaza said there had been no new fighting or military strikes since half an hour before the operation began.
Israeli airstrikes and artillery attacks killed 13 Palestinians between 0630 GMT, when the ceasefire began, and 0915 GMT, when it went into effect, Palestinian medics said.
Israel blamed Hamas for the delay after the Palestinian Authority failed to provide a list of the first three hostages to be released under the deal.
Hamas attributed the delay to “technical” reasons, without specifying what those were.
A Palestinian official familiar with the matter, who did not want to be named, said the delay occurred because negotiators had called for a 48-hour “calm” before the ceasefire began, but continued Israeli strikes until the deadline made it difficult to send the list.
Two hours after the deadline, Hamas said it had sent the list, and Israeli officials confirmed they had received it. Hamas named the hostages it would release on Sunday as Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari.
Israel did not immediately confirm the names.
The long-awaited ceasefire deal could help end the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas, which controls the small coastal enclave, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel’s response has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza-based health authorities.
The war has also sparked conflict across the Middle East between Israel and its arch-enemy Iran, which supports Hamas and other anti-Israel forces and American paramilitaries across the region.
LIST OF ENMISSIONS, LAST MINUTE ATTACK
Ahead of the implementation of the ceasefire agreed at 0630 GMT, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would not take effect until Hamas released the names of hostages to be released on Sunday.
Israeli military officials said in separate statements on Sunday that their planes and artillery had struck “terrorist targets” in northern and central Gaza, and that the military would continue to attack as long as Hamas did not meet its obligations under the ceasefire.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said at least 13 people were killed in the Israeli attack and dozens were injured. Medics reported a tank explosion in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, and said an airstrike and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, sending civilians back there waiting for a ceasefire.
The air raid siren that went off in the Sderot area in southern Israel was a false alarm, the Israeli military said in a separate statement.
Israeli forces have begun withdrawing from Gaza’s Rafah to the Philadelphia tunnel near the border between Egypt and Gaza, Pro-Hamas media reported early Sunday.
The three-step ceasefire agreement followed months of ongoing negotiations initiated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came just before the inauguration on Jan. 20 of US President-elect Donald Trump.
Its first phase will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the sick and injured – will be released in return for about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and prisoners.
They include 737 men, women and youth prisoners, some of whom are members of terrorist groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza who have been held since the war began.
The first three are female hostages who are expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday. For each return, 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons will be released.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) when the meeting place will be inside Gaza and the ICRC is expected to start driving to that area to collect the hostages, an official involved in the process. he told Reuters.
IS THE WAR ENDING?
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s ambassador to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to push the deal forward.
In the run-up to his inauguration, Trump had repeated his call for an immediate deal, warning repeatedly that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released.
But what’s next for Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the enclave’s post-war future, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And while the stated goal of ending war is to end war altogether, it can be easily resolved.
Hamas, which has controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, is still there despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed not to allow Hamas to return to power and clear large swathes of territory inside Gaza, a move widely seen as a move to create a buffer zone that will allow its forces to operate freely in the fight against threats in the area.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 which resulted in the single-day killing in the history of the country.
MIDDLEAST SHOCKWAVES
The war sent shockwaves through the region, sparking a conflict with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-enemy Iran for the first time.
It also changed the Middle East. Iran, which has spent billions building a network of militant groups around Israel, saw its “Axis of Resistance” collapse and was unable to inflict serious damage on Israel with two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose massive missile arsenal was once seen as a major threat to Israel, has seen its top leadership killed and many missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
On the diplomatic side, Israel has faced anger and isolation due to the death and destruction in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces charges of war crimes and genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Israel has responded angrily to both cases, dismissing the cases as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which filed the first ICJ case, and the countries that joined it, of being against religion.
