Israel and Hamas agree to begin a ceasefire on Friday morning
Israeli forces said on Thursday that they had captured the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, had been detained for questioning “following evidence showing that Al-Shifa Hospital, under his direct control, served as a Hamas command and control center. ”
And on both sides of the border, families of the prisoners waited in terrible fear, counting down the hours, hoping that their loved ones would be among those released and that nothing would go wrong at the last minute.
The family of Avigail Idan, a small child whose parents were killed by Hamas militants on a kibbutz in front of their children during the October 7 attack, hoped they would be able to celebrate her fourth birthday with her on Friday.
“I notice that I have hardly breathed in the last 24 hours,” her aunt, Tal Idan, said after the agreement was announced. “Every hour that passes feels like an eternity.”
White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the five weeks of sensitive negotiations that led to the deal, said Tuesday they expected the final list of 50 hostages would include the release of three Americans: two women and the child, Avigail, whose name is also spelled “Abigail” in American media and who is a dual Israeli and American citizen. But it was not yet clear whether they would be in the first group on Friday.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army has been conducting night raids, the siblings of 26-year-old Walaa Tanji began frantically preparing for her arrival when they heard she might be released from an Israeli prison . With their hopes already dampened the day before, they still arranged to bring relatives and rented plastic chairs to accommodate the crowd.
Israel detained Ms. Tanji in her home in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus more than a year ago, along with two other women. The Israeli military accused the three of planning an attack on an Israeli checkpoint and said it found firearms in a car they were using. Nagham Tanji, Walaa’s elder sister, said her sister was innocent and had yet to be charged or convicted.
And in the Gaza Strip, Palestinians, who have endured nearly seven weeks of intense airstrikes, were anxiously awaiting the ceasefire.
“I will live in safety, even if it is temporary and short-lived, without hearing explosions near or far,” Shadi Hijazi, a 23-year-old construction worker, said in a telephone interview.
Qatar announced it would send a plane carrying 41 tons of aid to the Gaza Strip, where an estimated 2.2 million Palestinians are in urgent need of humanitarian aid and are short of water, food and medicine. Several international humanitarian organizations said the four-day ceasefire was too tight to deal with the dire situation.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the organization was “positioned to rapidly scale up the delivery of much-needed humanitarian assistance in Gaza.” But, she said, “this is far from enough” to meet the growing needs of Palestinians.