A deal to extend the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas by two days has been agreed after a frantic dash by mediators with just over 12 hours remaining before hostilities in Gaza were due to resume.
Hamas said it had agreed to the extension of the four-day truce by 48 hours after the intervention of Qatar and Egypt, the principal mediators for the initial agreement, and with the same conditions.
There was no immediate confirmation from Israel, but António Guterres, the UN secretary general, hailed the extension as “a glimpse of hope and humanity in the middle of the darkness of war”.
There are widespread fears that any break in the conflict that has devastated swaths of Gaza and killed many thousands of civilians will only be brief.
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, told troops on Monday that when fighting recommenced its “strength will be greater, and it will take place throughout the entire strip”. “You now have a few days, we will return to fighting, we will use the same amount of power and more,” Gallant said.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has pledged to crush Hamas.
International pressure for an extension of the ceasefire had been intense, with the US, the UN and the EU’s most senior diplomat calling on Israel not to restart its offensive in Gaza when the current truce was due to expire on Tuesday morning.
The likely terms of any extension were the daily release of 10 Israeli hostages from among those seized by Hamas during its assault on southern Israel last month and of 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, officials close to the talks said earlier on Monday. Also, desperately needed humanitarian aid would continue to flow into Gaza.
Eleven Israeli hostages were released late on Monday night – nine children and two mothers – bringing the total number Hamas has released since Friday to 58, including foreigners. Qatar said the newly released hostages included three with French citizenship, two with German citizenship and six Argentine citizens.
According to some reports, six Thai hostages, farm workers seized with Israelis, were due to be released too.
Late on Monday evening it was reported 33 Palestinians had been released from Israeli prisons. Reuters, citing Hamas-affiliated media, reported that 30 children and three women were freed. It brings the total number of Palestinians released to about 150.
The White House welcomed the agreement to extend the truce. Joe Biden said the deal had been achieved “through extensive US mediation and diplomacy”, adding: “We are taking full advantage of the pause in fighting to increase the amount of humanitarian aid moving into Gaza, and we will continue our efforts to build a future of peace and dignity for the Palestinian people.”
The US national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters: “We would of course hope to see the pause extended further, and that will depend upon Hamas continuing to release hostages.”
Guterres pushed on Monday for a full humanitarian ceasefire instead of a temporary truce, which Israel has so far resisted. His spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said: “The dialogue that led to the agreement must continue, resulting in a full humanitarian ceasefire, for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and the wider region.”
Guterres again called for the hostages held by Hamas to be released immediately and unconditionally, Dujarric said. Hamas had been reported to be seeking a four-day extension while Israel wanted day-by-day extensions. Splits within the militant organisation have complicated talks, as have difficulties communicating with leaders in Gaza.
“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.
Another suggested that the militant Islamist organisation might be ready to negotiate the release of some of the military personnel seized last month. The future of these hostages has not previously been discussed.
Earlier, an Israeli official reiterated Israel’s position that it would agree to an extra day of truce for the release of each group of 10 hostages. In exchange, three times the number of Palestinian prisoners would be released each time. The limit would be five days, the official added.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said an extension could allow the international community to work on a political solution to the conflict.
The war was triggered when Hamas broke through the perimeter fence around Gaza on 7 October and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians in their homes or at a music festival. More than 240 people were abducted, including infants, elderly people, disabled people, soldiers and foreign farm workers.
Between 13,000 and 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli offensive launched after the Hamas attack, roughly two-thirds of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. More than 1 million people have been forced from their homes.
The White House said US officials hoped two American women would be among those freed from Gaza, where it believes eight or nine US citizens are being held.
Qatar has said Hamas needs to find dozens of hostages in order to extend the truce. Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said at least 40 women and children were being detained in Gaza but were not being held by Hamas.
“If they get additional women and children, there will be an extension,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “We don’t yet have any clear information how many they can find because … one of the purposes [of the pause] is they will have time to search for the rest of the missing people.”
Many hostages are believed to be in the hands of other armed factions or civilians who followed Hamas militants into Israel on 7 October. At least two of the Israeli hostages released on Monday were held by another unidentified organisation in Gaza, Israeli military officials said.
The truce has allowed significant quantities of aid to reach Gaza for the first time since the war began. But agencies say much more is needed to deal with the consequences of the fighting, massive bombardment, mass displacement and the almost total blockade imposed by Israel on fuel, food, medicine and other essentials.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in hugely overcrowded UN shelters, hospitals and private homes. In southern Gaza, salt has become a rarity, bread is cooked on metal sheets over wooden fires and donkeys are used for transport, according to some displaced people spoken to.
The UN said the truce had made it possible to increase the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the start of the war. On Monday, Israeli authorities said 200 trucks had entered Gaza from Egypt, though this is still fewer than half what Gaza was importing before the fighting, while humanitarian needs have soared.
On Sunday, Hamas freed 17 people, including a four-year-old Israeli-American girl abducted after seeing her parents shot dead. “They are in our arms. They are fine, in good condition and they are smiling,” said Inbar Goldstein after her sister-in-law Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, was released with three of her four children: Agam, 17, Gal, 11, and Tal, eight.
Palestinians released from prison by Israel have been greeted by jubilant crowds in the occupied West Bank. In Ramallah, freed prisoners carried on the shoulders of their supporters and draped in the Hamas flag said they prayed for “God to give strength to the resistance”, referring to Hamas and the other armed groups in Gaza.
The crowd shouted: “They say Hamas are terrorists but we are all Hamas.”
Omar Abdullah al-Hajj, 17, released on Sunday, said he had no idea about events in Gaza or Israel while in prison. “We were 11 people crammed into a single room where usually there are six. There was never enough food and I was never told how long I was going to stay,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m free now – but my joy is incomplete because we still have our brothers who remain in prison.”
Israel’s justice ministry accused him of belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group and posing an unspecified security threat.
There are still more than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, many of them far more prominent than the children and women freed so far. Their freedom is thought to have been one of the main objectives of last month’s attacks. Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, was released by Israel in 2011 after 23 years behind bars in an exchange of more than 1,000 prisoners for a single Israeli soldier.
