Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will start a four-day truce on Friday morning with the first batch of Israeli hostages released later that day, mediators in Qatar said.
The agreement would begin at 7 a.m © Mena Today
Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will start a four-day truce on Friday morning with the first batch of Israeli hostages released later that day, mediators in Qatar said.
The agreement - the first in a brutal, near seven-week-old war - would begin at 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and involve a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry said.
Aid would start flowing into Gaza, Israeli hostages would be freed at 4 p.m. and it was expected that Palestinians would be released from Israeli jails as part of the deal, ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told reporters in Doha.
Hamas - who had been expected to declare a truce with Israel a day earlier on Thursday only for negotiations to drag on - confirmed on its Telegram channel that all hostilities from its forces would cease
A Lebanese official denied on Thursday a Reuters report that Beirut had agreed with Israel to a shortlist of countries that could send troops to Lebanon to verify the disarmament of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and said it was following up on the issue with Washington.
Israel won't withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed, the defence minister said on Thursday, qualifying remarks he made a day earlier that had suggested Israeli forces would occupy the territory indefinitely and drew U.S. criticism.
Israeli troops clashed with Jewish settlers on Wednesday while trying to disperse them from a West Bank outpost they set up directly in front of Palestinian homes, and later withdrew from the area after failing to clear the settlers, witnesses said.
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