Gaza ceasefire set to come into force on Sunday morning

A ceasefire agreement is set to take effect on Sunday morning after 15 months of Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians. An Israeli delegation arrived in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to oversee the implementation of the deal, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported.

The Israeli cabinet approved the deal in a vote on Friday, despite strong opposition from some members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition. According to the full text of the truce, the first phase will last six weeks and will include the exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners and the restoration of “sustainable calm.” The ceasefire officially took effect at 8:30 a.m. local time on Sunday.

Three living Israeli female captives are set to be released after 4 p.m., and Israeli authorities will subsequently release about 95 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are minors or women. A total of 33 Israeli captives held in Gaza will be released in the first phase. They will be exchanged for Palestinians sentenced to life imprisonment at a 1:3 ratio, and for Palestinians sentenced to other terms at a 1:27 ratio, according to the agreement. On Friday, the Israeli Ministry of Justice published a long list of hundreds of Palestinians who will be released under the prisoner swap deal.

Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu, who were held in Gaza before Israel’s war on the enclave, are expected to be released in exchange for 60 Palestinian prisoners and another 47 Palestinian detainees, who had been re-arrested after being released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. In addition to the prisoner exchange, Israel will also begin a gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as part of the first phase, moving east from densely populated areas, including from the Netzarim corridor and Kuwait Roundabout. They will withdraw to a perimeter 700 meters from the Gaza border, but there will be five localized points where the perimeter will increase by 400 meters.

Displaced Palestinians will return to northern Gaza during the first phase, where the Israeli military has carried out a brutal military operation in recent weeks. Israeli forces will continue to be stationed in the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone along Gaza’s border with Egypt, until day 42 of the ceasefire, when they will begin withdrawing from the area. Negotiations are scheduled to begin on day 16 of the ceasefire for the second phase of the truce. The general outline of the second phase is the release of all Israeli captives in exchange for a complete withdrawal from Gaza. The exact details are still being negotiated.

Netanyahu said in a video address on Saturday that if the second phase of the ceasefire deal proves “futile,” Israel will resume its war on Gaza in a “new and powerful way.” “[President Donald] Trump and President [Joe] Biden have both fully supported Israel’s right to return to fighting if Israel deems the negotiations on the second phase are futile,” he said, adding that Israel would not stop until “all war goals are achieved,” including the return of all Israeli captives.

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had been assured that the war on Gaza would continue and that Israel would “gradually take over the entire Gaza Strip.” Smotrich and his far-right Religious Zionist Party voted against the ceasefire deal, but remained in the government after Netanyahu reportedly agreed to some of their demands. The far-right minister said that while his party could not prevent the deal, they were able to “ensure” through the cabinet and “other ways” that the war would not end without achieving all of Israel’s goals, the most important of which is the “complete destruction of Hamas in Gaza.”

He said his faction demanded and “received a commitment” that the way the war is being conducted would be completely changed. This includes “gradually taking over the entire Gaza Strip, removing the restrictions the Biden administration has imposed on us, and taking full control of the strip so that humanitarian aid does not reach Hamas as it does now,” Smotrich said. The far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party announced that its legislators will submit letters of resignation from the government on Sunday morning in protest of the deal.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman threatened that Palestinians in Gaza would face “danger” if they approach Israeli forces after the ceasefire. “According to the agreement, [Israeli forces] will continue to be deployed in specific areas in the Gaza Strip. Do not approach the forces in the area until further notice. Approaching the forces puts you in danger,” Avichay Adraee wrote on X. “Movement from the south of the Gaza Strip to the north, or toward the Netzarim corridor, remains dangerous.”

“Once this movement is allowed, an announcement and instructions will be published regarding the safe movement routes. Residents are warned not to approach [Israeli] forces, especially in the Netzarim corridor area.” Under the agreement, unarmed displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to northern Gaza on the seventh day via Rashid Street. Others will be allowed to return via Salah al-Din Street on day 22. “There is a great risk in fishing, swimming, and diving along the coastal strip throughout the strip, and we warn against entering the sea in the coming days,” Adraee added.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that Israeli forces killed at least 23 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday before the start of the ceasefire. Since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 46,899 people, most of whom are women and children. More than 110,000 people have been wounded in the enclave since then.