Israeli cabinet approves Gaza ceasefire accord, due to take effect Sunday

By James Mackenzie and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet approved a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday, a day ahead of the agreement’s scheduled start.

In the early hours of Saturday after meeting for more than six hours, the government ratified the agreement, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Under the deal, bitterly opposed by some cabinet hardliners, a six-week ceasefire is due to take effect on Sunday, with the first of a series of hostage-for-prisoner exchanges that could open the way to ending the 15-month war in Gaza.

Media reports said 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted in favour of the deal while eight opposed it.

On Friday, the Israeli security cabinet voted in favour of the ceasefire accord, the first of two approvals required.

The war between Israeli forces and Hamas has razed much of heavily urbanised Gaza, killed more than 46,000 people and displaced most of the enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million several times over, according to local authorities.

If successful, a ceasefire could ease hostilities in the Middle East, where the Gaza war spread to include Iran and its proxies – Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq as well as the occupied West Bank.

In Gaza on Friday, Israeli warplanes kept up heavy strikes, and the Palestinian civil emergency service said 116 Palestinians, almost 60 of them women and children, had been killed since the deal was announced on Wednesday.

Under the six-week first phase of the three-stage deal, Hamas will release 33 Israeli hostages, including all women (soldiers and civilians), children, and men over 50.

Israel will release all Palestinian women and children under 19 detained in Israeli jails by the end of the first phase.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem, Nidal Al Mughrabi in Cairo and Hatem Khaled in Gaza; Writing by Cynthia Osterman; Editing by David Gregorio)