Qatar proclaims that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will take effect at 1:30 a.m. ET on Sunday

The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel will come into force in lower than 24 hours, Qatar's foreign ministry said on Saturday.

In a post on He advised people to exercise caution because the agreement enters into force and wait for instructions from officials.

Early Saturday morning, Israel's Cabinet approved the agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza that might release dozens of hostages and pause the 15-month war with Hamas, bringing either side one step closer to an end to their deadliest and most destructive fighting ever.

Despite the ceasefire news, sirens blared across central Israel on Saturday. The army said it intercepted projectiles fired from Yemen. The Iran-backed Houthis have increased their missile attacks in recent weeks. The group says the attacks are a part of its campaign to pressure Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.

There have also been ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, not less than 23 people were killed yesterday.

Under the primary phase of the ceasefire, 33 hostages are to be released over the subsequent six weeks in exchange for lots of of Palestinians being detained by Israel. The rest, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase negotiated as a part of the primary. Hamas has said it can not release the remaining prisoners and not using a everlasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.

According to the ceasefire plan approved by the Cabinet and signed by Israel's national security adviser, the exchanges will begin at 4:00 p.m. local time (2:00 p.m. GMT) on Sunday. In each exchange, the prisoners are released by Israel after the hostages arrive safely.

The plan calls for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners to be released in phase one in exchange for 33 living and dead Israeli hostages. The prisoners include 1,167 Gazans who were held by Israel but weren’t involved within the Oct. 7 shooting. All Gazan women and kids under the age of 19 held by Israel can be released during this phase.

All Palestinian prisoners convicted of deadly attacks can be exiled either to Gaza or abroad and is not going to be allowed to return to Israel or the West Bank. According to the plan, some can be sent into exile for 3 years and others permanently.

But key questions remain in regards to the ceasefire – the second throughout the war – including the names of the 33 hostages set to be released and who of them remains to be alive.

Hamas agreed to release three female hostages on the primary day of the deal, 4 on the seventh day and the remaining 26 over the next five weeks.

Palestinian prisoners also needs to be released. Israel's Justice Ministry released an inventory of greater than 700 people to be released in the primary phase of the deal and said the discharge wouldn’t begin until 4 p.m. local time on Sunday. All people on the list are younger or female.

In addition, in the primary phase, Israeli troops are to withdraw right into a buffer zone roughly one kilometer wide throughout the Gaza Strip along the border with Israel.

This will allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including in Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip. With most of Gaza's population herded into huge, squalid tent camps, Palestinians are eager to return to their homes, although many have been destroyed or severely damaged by the Israeli campaign.

Humanitarian aid can be more likely to increase within the largely destroyed area. Trucks carrying aid supplies lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Friday. On Saturday, two Egyptian government ministers arrived within the northern Sinai Peninsula to oversee preparations for the delivery of aid and receive the evacuation of wounded patients, the health ministry said.

Hamas sparked the war with its cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and imprisoning about 250 others. Almost 100 hostages remain in Gaza.

Israel responded with a devastating offensive that killed greater than 46,000 Palestinians, in response to local health authorities, who don’t distinguish between civilians and militants but say greater than half of the dead were women and kids.

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