The Israeli hostages who’ll be freed by Hamas as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal include the youngest and oldest hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, according to a list published by Israel.
Israel’s official X account , externalshared an image with the names of the first 33 hostages that are expected to be released.
Kfir Bibas was nine-months-old when he was first taken and has now had two birthdays whilst in captivity. Shlomo Mantzur, 86, is the oldest hostage to have been kidnapped and is expected to be in the first wave of hostages to be released.
Meanwhile, the far-right Jewish Power party has announced that it’s leaving the Israeli government in protest at the ceasefire deal, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with just a razor-thin parliamentary majority left.
National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, along with Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Amichai Eliyahu, submitted their letters of resignation this morning.
Ben-Gvir has long been a vocal opponent of the ceasefire deal, and has pushed for Israel to continue its military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
Writing to Netanyahu to announce his resignation, Ben-Gvir said he would not work to overthrow the government, but called the ceasefire agreement a “complete victory for terrorism”.
Details of ceasefire
After 15 months of fighting, and a three-hour delay to the original start time, the Gaza ceasefire has begun.
It means the fighting between Israel and Hamas will stop and Israeli hostages being held by Hamas will be released, in phases, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.
There’s been a lot of information to digest this morning – here are the key things you need to know:
The ceasefire began at 11:15 local time (09:15 GMT) – it had been due to start three hours earlier but Israel said it could not go ahead until Hamas had delivered a list of names of the hostages it planned to release.
Hamas blamed “technical reasons” for the delay, but went on to release the names of the three people it says will be the first to be freed: Doron Steinbrecher, 31, Dual British-Israeli national Emily Damari, 28, and 24-year-old Romi Gonen.
After the delay this morning, Israeli air strikes continued in Gaza, killing at least 19 according to figures from the Hamas-run civil defence agency.
We don’t currently know how the delay this morning will impact timings for the first exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners – which had been due to take place at 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT).
Hundreds of aid trucks are now waiting to cross into Gaza – their entry is a condition of the ceasefire deal and is something humanitarian workers have been calling for for months.
And since it became clear the ceasefire would take effect today, far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir has resigned from the government, branding the truce a “victory for terrorism”.
