Various of landscape, trees, houses of Gaza Strip in distance Gaza City, Gaza Strip - Jan 16, 2025 (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland) 2. Various of destroyed buildings, displaced people FILE: Doha, Qatar - Date Unknown (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland) 3.

If successful, the cease-fire deal would cap over a year of stop-start talks and lead to the biggest release of Israeli hostages since the early days of the conflict, when Hamas freed about half of its prisoners in exchange for 240 Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

The Gaza Strip ceasefire should begin on Sunday as planned, despite the need for negotiators to tie up a "loose end" at the last minute, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.

The anticipated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began at 11:15 local time (09:15 GMT), nearly three hours after initially scheduled. Ahram Online provides live coverage of the events, which could signal the start of the end of 470 days of a genocidal Israeli war that killed and wounded nearly 10 percent of the 2.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza

US President Joe Biden said Monday that a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Hamas and Israel was "on the brink" of being finalised, even as heavy fighting rocked the Palestinian territory.

Qatar says it is hopeful that a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal could be agreed "very soon", with negotiators from Israel and Hamas beginning a "final stage" of indirect talks in Doha.

Qatar on Monday presented Israel and Hamas with a final draft of a deal to end the Gaza war, following a midnight breakthrough in talks attended by

Rockets fired from Gaza and intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system over Israeli skies are seen from Gaza City, on May 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File) DOHA, Qatar — Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal to pause the devastating war in the Gaza Strip,

The deal promises the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and would flood badly needed humanitarian aid into a devastated territory.

President Joe Biden and his top diplomats, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, had sought closure during his term.