More Israelis and Palestinians to be released, as truce extended

Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend their ceasefire by two days, just hours before it was due to expire, Qatari officials say.

Palestinian prisoners freed from the Ofer Israeli military prison react as they get greeted by crowds awaiting their return in Beitonia, near Ramallah Source: AAP / Alaa Badarneh

Key Points

• The initial four-day truce was due to end on Monday night.
• The truce agreed last week was the first halt in fighting in the seven weeks since Hamas attacked Israel.
• There was no immediate comment from Israel but a White House official confirmed agreement had been reached.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend their ceasefire by two days, just hours before it was due to expire, Qatari officials say.

The extension continues a pause in seven weeks of warfare that has killed thousands and laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.

A Palestinian teen sits next to his bicycle amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City as a four-day ceasefire took effect on 24 November, 2023. Source: Getty / Omar El-Qattaa

"An agreement has been reached to extend the humanitarian truce for an additional two days in the Gaza Strip," a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said in a post on social media platform X.

Qatar is mediating between Israel and Hamas.

Israel's government has received a list of hostages expected to be released on Tuesday under an extended truce deal with Hamas, Israel's Army Radio reports.

Hamas also said it had agreed a two-day extension to the truce with Qatar and Egypt, who have been facilitating indirect negotiations between the two sides.

"An agreement has been reached with the brothers in Qatar and Egypt to extend the temporary humanitarian truce by two more days, with the same conditions as in the previous truce," a Hamas official said in a phone call with Reuters.

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On Monday, Israel said 11 Israelis had returned to the country from the Gaza Strip, bringing to 69 the total of Israeli and foreign hostages Hamas has freed since Friday under the four-day truce, including a 4-year-old Israeli-US girl released on Sunday.

The Israel Prison Service said 33 Palestinian prisoners were released on Monday from Israel's Ofer prison in the West Bank and from a detention centre in Jerusalem, bringing the total number of Palestinians it has freed since Friday to 150.

The initial four-day truce was due to end on Monday night.

According to Israeli tallies, Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, and seized about 240 hostages when they burst across the border fence into southern Israel on 7 October.

In response to that attack, Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas militants who run Gaza, raining bombs and shells on the enclave and launching a ground offensive in the north.

To date, more than 15,000 people, almost 6,000 of them children, have been killed, Gaza's Hamas-run government says, and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Hamas is a Palestinian military and political group that has gained power in the Gaza Strip since winning legislative elections there in 2006.

Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state, while refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas, in its entirety, is designated as a terrorist organisation by countries including Australia, Canada, the UK and the US while

New Zealand and Paraguay list only its military wing as a terrorist group.

Other countries voted against a UN resolution condemning Hamas in its entirety, as a terrorist organisation.

Wide areas of Gaza have been flattened by Israeli air strikes and artillery bombardments, and a humanitarian crisis has unfolded as supplies of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine run out.

The truce agreement also allowed for aid trucks to enter Gaza.

The United Nations thinks $1.2 billion will be needed to rebuild the Gaza Strip and Oxfam Australia is calling for the government to lift its contribution from the previously-committed $25 million.

Each day since the truce started on Friday, Hamas has released some hostages while Israel has freed some Palestinians it holds. Of the 69 hostages freed by Hamas, 51 are Israelis and 18 foreigners.

There is no limit in the deal on the number of foreigners it can release.

About 200 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid, cooking gas and fuel enter the Gaza Strip during the humanitarian pause between Israel and Hamas in Gaza City on Monday. Source: Getty / Ashraf Amra

Israel previously said it would extend the truce by one day for every 10 more hostages released, providing some respite to Palestinians in the Mediterranean seaside strip from the war.

Israel has not commented on any agreement to extend the truce but, in what may be an implicit confirmation, the Israeli prime minister's office said Israel's government approved the addition of 50 female prisoners to its list of Palestinians for potential release if additional Israeli hostages are freed.

With additional reporting by Reuters and AAP.