Gaza ceasefire under way ahead of hostage release

A ceasefire in Gaza that had been delayed after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Hamas to provide a list of the hostages who were to be released has come into effect.

The ceasefire began at 0915 GMT (8.15pm AEDT) Sunday - almost three hours after its scheduled start.

An Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement at 0630 GMT (5.30pm AEDT) on Sunday, when the ceasefire was meant to take effect, that Hamas was not meeting its obligations and that Israel would continue to attack as long as Hamas did not meet its demands.

The highly-anticipated ceasefire could open the way to a possible end to a 15-month war that has upended the Middle East.

Netanyahu announced one hour before the ceasefire was meant to take effect that it would not begin until Hamas provided a list of the first three hostages who were meant to be released on Sunday.

“The prime minister instructed the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that the ceasefire, which is supposed to go into effect at 8.30am, will not begin until Israel has the list of released abductees that Hamas has pledged to provide,” his office said on Sunday.

Hamas affirmed its commitment to the Gaza ceasefire deal and said the the delay in disclosing the names of hostages to be released in first phase was due to “technical field reasons”, without elaborating.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it had struck “terror targets” in northern and central Gaza.

The Palestinian civil emergency service said Israeli military strikes had killed at least eight Palestinians across the Gaza Strip amid the ceasefire delay.

Israeli forces started withdrawing from areas in Gaza’s Rafah to the Philadelphi corridor along the border between Egypt and Gaza early on Sunday, pro-Hamas media reported.

Israel’s military warned Gaza residents not to approach its troops or move around the Palestinian territory ahead of the ceasefire deadline, adding when movement was allowed “a statement and instructions will be issued on safe transit methods”.

The three-stage ceasefire agreement follows months of on-off negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US and came just ahead of Monday’s inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages - women, children, men older than 50, the ill and wounded - will be released in return for almost 2000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

They include 737 male, female and teenage prisoners, some of who are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.

Three female hostages are expected to be released on Sunday afternoon through the Red Cross, in return for 30 prisoners each.

After Sunday’s hostage release, the accord calls for four more female hostages to be freed after seven days, followed by the release of three further hostages every seven days thereafter.

During the first phase the Israeli army will pull back from some of its positions in Gaza and Palestinians displaced from areas in northern Gaza will be allowed to return.

US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal over the line.

Israel has vowed it will not allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large stretches of ground inside Gaza, in a step widely seen as a move towards creating a buffer zone that will allow its troops to act freely against threats in the enclave.

Hardliners in Netanyahu’s government have already threatened to quit if the war on Hamas is not resumed, leaving him pressed between Washington’s desire to see the war end, and his far-right political allies at home.

The war has sent shockwaves across the region, triggering a war with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its arch-foe Iran for the first time.

More than a year later, the Middle East has been transformed.

Iran has seen its “Axis of Resistance” wrecked and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.

Hezbollah has been humbled, with its top leadership killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed, and the decades-long Assad regime in Syria has been overturned, leaving Israel’s military effectively unchallenged in the region.

The war was triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which 1200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza since.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed almost 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble.