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.
Mediator Qatar says a truce between Israeli and Hamas forces in Gaza has been extended by two days, continuing a pause in seven weeks of warfare that has killed thousands and laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.
“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.
There was no immediate comment from Israel but a White House official confirmed agreement had been reached.
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.
None of the announcements specified how many hostages would be released but earlier the head of Egypt’s State Information Service, Diaa Rashwan, had said the deal being negotiated would include the release of 20 Israeli hostages from among those seized by Hamas during its October 7 assault on southern Israel.
In exchange 60 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails would be freed, he said.
The initial four-day truce was due to end on Monday night.
With the release of 11 Israeli hostages expected on Monday, negotiations remain ongoing for the release of 33 Palestinians, Rashwan added.
According to Israeli tallies, Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people 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, some 14,800 people, roughly 40 per cent of them children, have been killed, Palestinian health authorities said on Saturday.
Wide areas of the Hamas-ruled enclave 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.
On Sunday, Hamas freed 17 people, , bringing the total number the militant group has released since Friday to 58, including foreigners.
Israel freed 39 teenage Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, taking the total number of Palestinians freed under the truce to 117.
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, Gaza on 28 November 2023. Source: Getty / Ashraf Amra
Under the terms of the current deal, Hamas is due to release in total 50 Israeli women and children held hostage in Gaza.
There is no limit in the deal on the number of foreigners it can release.
An Israeli government representative said the total number of hostages still held in Gaza on Monday was 184, including 14 foreigners and 80 Israelis with dual citizenship.
