TNN & Agencies
Doha
The ceasefire in Gaza will take effect at 08:30 am on Sunday, Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr Majed Al Ansari has announced.
“As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 8:30 am on Sunday,January 19, local time in Gaza. We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources,” Al Ansari said in a tweet on Saturday.
The ceasefire deal would see the release of 33 captives held in Gaza over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Under the deal, the three-stage ceasefire starts with an initial six-week phase when captives held by Hamas will be exchanged for prisoners and detainees jailed in Israel.
Thirty-three of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages, including women, children and men over 50 and ill and wounded captives, are to be freed in the phase. In return, Israel will release almost 2,000 Palestinians from its jails.
They include 737 male, female and teen-aged prisoners, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.
Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli government ratified the agreement after meeting for more than six hours.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have kept up heavy attacks in Gaza. Medics in Gaza said an Israeli air strike early on Saturday killed five people in the al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” area, west of Khan Younis in the enclave’s south.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that a man from the Qudra family was killed along with his wife and their three children in the attack. An Israeli drone strike also killed three Palestinian civilians in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City late on Friday, according to Wafa.
