Cairo, Nov 23, (dpa/GNA) – Qatar said on Thursday that the exact time the truce between Israel and Hamas is set to begin, will be announced “within hours,” after a several-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, initially expected to begin in the morning, failed to materialize.
Talks, held by Qatar and Egypt, about details of the implementation of the humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza are “continuing in a positive way,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid al-Ansari, told the Qatari News Agency.
He said Qatar is working with both sides as well as Egypt and the United States, to guarantee that the truce begins quickly, and that everything is provided to ensure, that both sides commit to the deal.
The truce, to let aid into Gaza and to free dozens of hostages after nearly seven weeks of war, was due to begin on Thursday at 10 am (0800 GMT), according to Hamas, but delays have emerged, and the exact timing remained unclear as Israel, has not yet said when it will pause its air and ground offensive in the coastal area.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Thursday morning said their air force has struck more than 300 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip within one day.
Hamas targets struck from the air, included “military command centres, underground terror tunnels, weapon storage facilities, weapon manufacturing sites, and anti-tank missile launch posts,” the IDF said in a post on X, adding that Israeli forces also continued their offensive on the ground.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
The Israeli army has been pounding Gaza with airstrikes, ever since the unprecedented Hamas attacks on Israeli border towns on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and some 240 taken hostage to the Palestinian coastal area. The IDF also launched a ground advance into Gaza that has so far focused on the north, including Gaza City.
According to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 14,500 civilians have been killed in the war so far. Schools, hospitals and ambulances have also been hit, according to the UN.
The IDF has repeatedly told civilians in the north to evacuate to southern Gaza, but the south of the sealed-off, densely populated coastal territory is not deemed safe either.
According to an analysis by the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group (DDMG), between 56,000 and 74,000 buildings have been damaged in Gaza, since the beginning of the war on October 7.
The US scientists, who are using publicly available satellite data to investigate the attacks, said 40 to 50% of all buildings in northern Gaza are now damaged. While recorded damage is less significant in the south, 5 to 8% of all buildings are also damaged there, and the figure is expected to rise, they said.
The ceasefire agreement, which foresees a pause in fighting for a maximum of 10 days to allow for the delivery of aid into Gaza, also includes a deal to exchange up to 100 hostages from Israel, for up to 300 Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons.
An Israeli army spokesman said the process of returning hostages from the Gaza Strip to Israel is complex, and not yet concrete.
The military is preparing the implementation of this first phase of the hostage exchange agreement, spokesman Daniel Hagari said late on Wednesday. However, the repatriation of the people abducted to the sealed-off coastal strip could take time and take place in several stages, he said.
“The release of hostages will begin according to the original agreement between the parties, and not before Friday,” Israel’s security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi was quoted by newspapers Haaretz and the Times of Israel and the N12 channel as saying.
The Times of Israel cited an Israeli official saying that both Israel and the Islamist Hamas, must first sign a document ratifying the agreement before it can come into force. The document would hopefully be signed within the next 24 hours so that the first hostages could be released on Friday, he said.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on Thursday equated the expected pause in fighting with a victory “for the Palestinian people and the resistance.”
“The powerful people of Palestine have truly shown that they are self-confident people,” Raisi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. “While standing against the crimes against humanity, they have created a golden scene of resistance before the eyes of the world.”
The president went on to say that Israel, had not achieved its goal of occupying Gaza and had only incurred the hatred of the world.
Iran considers itself Israel’s arch-enemy, and backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, which has repeatedly been launching attacks on Israel from the north over the past weeks.
GNA