Ceasefire takes hold in Gaza ahead of hostage release; aid enters enclave.

On Friday, Israeli and Hamas troops reached a temporary truce in the Gaza Strip. This was the first respite in the fight that has ravaged the Palestinian enclave for the past 48 days, but both sides cautioned that the war was far from finished.

Although both Hamas and Israel accused each other of random shootings and other breaches, there were no significant bombs, artillery strikes, or rocket launches recorded.

The truce, which went into effect at 7:00 a.m. (05:00 GMT), calls for the release, later on Friday, of 13 Israeli women and children being held captive by Hamas in return for Palestinian inmates now being detained in Israeli jails. In the wake of weeks of Israeli shelling that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, further aid is expected to make its way into Gaza, which has been engulfed in a humanitarian catastrophe.

At the northern end of the Gaza Strip, where the journalists from Reuters were stationed, they watched Israeli tanks leaving the territory. In contrast, at the southern end, they saw relief trucks streaming in from Egypt. Above northern Gaza, there were no audible indications of Israeli air force action, nor were there any traces of the normal contrails caused by Palestinian rocket firing.

People are streaming out of their homes and shelters in the southern town of Khan Younis in Gaza, which is home to thousands of families that were displaced from the northern part of the territory.

“We are brimming with hope, optimism, and pride in our ability to fight. “Despite the suffering that this has caused, we are proud of our accomplishments,” a resident named Khaled Abu Anzah told Reuters.

Hamas has confirmed that its soldiers will stop all hostilities immediately. However, Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ military branch, made it clear afterward that this “temporary truce” was temporary.

He urged for an “escalation of the confrontation with Israel) on all resistance fronts” in a video message, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Additionally, Israeli military officials have stated that hostilities will restart very soon.

“This will be a short pause, at the conclusion of which the war and fighting will continue with great might and will generate pressure for the return of more hostages,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated, according to a statement released by the Defense Ministry. “This will be a short pause,”

In addition, the Israeli military warned Palestinians not to make any attempts to go back to their homes in the northern area of Gaza, which it referred to as a “dangerous war zone.”

According to Israeli counts, Israel began its assault on Gaza after Hamas forces breached the border barrier into southern Israel on October 7. This attack resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 people and the capture of approximately 240 hostages.

Since then, Israel has been dropping bombs on the enclave in Gaza that Hamas administers. According to Palestinian health authorities, these bombings have resulted in the deaths of around 14,000 Palestinians.

The conditions in Gaza are becoming increasingly dire, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have abandoned their homes to get away from the conflict. Food, drinking water, gasoline, and other essential supplies run low.

The Israeli-Palestinian war has been going on for a very long time, and this particular incident is the deadliest one yet. Israel has made it public that its goal is to destroy Hamas.

VERY QUIET ON THE FORWARD END

From southern Israel, across the border from the conflict zone in the northern section of the Gaza Strip, which has been the site of intensive ground warfare since the beginning of the month, Reuters noticed the silence after morning. A large number of Israeli military vehicles, including tanks, were observed leaving the Gaza Strip as they withdrew from the territory.

Residents of Gaza claimed that Israeli forces had dropped leaflets advising people not to travel to the north and had fired shots over the heads of several individuals who were attempting to return to Gaza City.

According to the Palestinian Press Agency SAFA, Israeli soldiers engaged in “intense shooting” to the east of Khan Younis and Rafah. SAFA is connected with Hamas. According to Al-Jazeera’s reporting, Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinian civilians, making their way back to the north of the occupied territory, causing the deaths of two Palestinians and the injury of another.

The Israeli military did not immediately address this matter. Warning sirens were activated in two Israeli communities located outside of the southern Gaza Strip in response to the possibility of Palestinian rocket fire. A representative for the Israeli government stated that Hamas had violated the ceasefire by firing rockets, although there were no reports of any damage being caused.

In the hours immediately up to the truce, fighting had been going on nonstop, and authorities from within the enclave said that a hospital in Gaza City was among the sites that had been hit.

According to reports from Gaza health officials, the Indonesian Hospital was functioning despite the lack of electricity. It was crowded with bedridden elderly patients and children who were too weak to be transported. Mounir El Barsh, the director of the Gazan health ministry, claimed to Al-Jazeera that one injured patient, a woman, passed away while three others suffered injuries.

Israel did not immediately state in response to the reported event.

Egypt has stated that it is continuing to communicate with both Israel and Hamas to strengthen the ceasefire and prevent breaches.

HOSTAGES WILL BE RELEASED, INCLUDING FEMALES AND CHILDREN.

The international community was concerned about the safety of the hostages and the predicament of Palestinian civilians who were confined in Gaza when the interim truce was agreed upon. Israel has resisted requests for a comprehensive ceasefire, citing concerns that it would aid Hamas, and the United States has endorsed Israel’s position.

Majed Al-Ansari, a spokeswoman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated in Doha that the first prisoners, who included elderly ladies, will be released at 4 p.m. (1400 GMT), with the total number of hostages reaching 50 over the next four days. All of them were taken during the initial attack that Hamas launched on southern Israel.

According to sources inside the Egyptian security apparatus, the captives were supposed to be given to the Red Cross and an Egyptian security team that traveled to Gaza on Thursday. Then, they were supposed to be transported out through Egypt for transfer to Israel.

In the occupied West Bank, Israel will release 39 Palestinian detainees in return for the freedom of 13 hostages who are scheduled to be released on Friday, according to a Palestinian official. Among those released will be 24 women and 15 minors.

If Hamas continues to free captives at a pace of at least ten per day, Israel has stated that the truce might be prolonged beyond the first four days it was agreed upon. According to a source from the Palestinian government, the number of prisoners freed might approach 100.

According to the agreement, aid that Gaza desperately needed began to arrive; by the middle of the morning, sixty vehicles carrying aid had entered the territory from Egypt through the Rafah crossing.

Two of the first vehicles to arrive wore banners saying “Together for Humanity.” Another person said, “For our brothers in Gaza.”

Egypt has stated that it will provide 130,000 liters of diesel and four trucks of gas to Gaza daily, as well as 200 trucks of assistance, and that these deliveries will reach Gaza daily.

The Israeli COGAT organization, which liaises with the Palestinians on civilian matters, said that four tanks of gasoline and four tanks of cooking gas were transported from Egypt to United Nations humanitarian agencies in southern Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

Several Palestinians who were living elsewhere at the time the conflict broke out took advantage of the ceasefire to make their way back to the Gaza Strip.

“People are leaving, and we are returning, despite the war, and despite everything, we are returning, because this is our country—it is logical—one only has one’s country,” Jamal Youssef Atiya, who had been living in Algeria, told Reuters at the Rafah border as he was headed home into Gaza. Atiya was returning to Gaza after spending some time in Algeria.