Israel’s security cabinet recommends approving a hostage and ceasefire deal with Hamas

Israel’s security cabinet on Friday recommended approving a cease-fire and hostage-taking deal with Hamas, leaving no other step until it goes into effect. The agreement still needs to be approved by Israel’s full cabinet, and is expected to come into force on Sunday.

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza continued overnight on Friday, and the Hamas-run civil defense organization said 113 Palestinians had been killed since a cease-fire and hostage-taking deal was announced on Wednesday night.

Huda Matrabie, a Palestinian woman in northern Gaza, told the CBS News network that the prospect of a deal gave her hope, but “with this hope comes real fear” that the deal could fall apart.

“Fear is not only of existential danger, but emotional stress: constant uncertainty and the ever-present feeling that our lives are not really ours,” she said.

The families of the hostages gathered in Tel Aviv on Friday to call for an agreement to be reached.

“This agreement comes too late for my son Guy, whose life will not be saved. But he can be brought home to be buried here,” said Michel Illouz, whose 26-year-old son was kidnapped at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023 and is believed to have died in Gaza, he told the gathered crowd. “Our work is not done. We will not rest until every hostage is home, the living and the dead. They all need to return to us, to their families.”

Israel’s security cabinet met early Friday to discuss the deal with the Israeli delegation sent to the talks in Qatar. A broad group of Israeli cabinet ministers was originally scheduled to hold its own separate vote on the deal on Saturday, but it was brought up on Friday afternoon.

Preparations were continuing on Friday to receive the hostages who will be released under the agreement in different hospitals in Israel.

At the Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, a private ward was set up for comfort, and a special diet menu was prepared. The hospital was putting up barriers to privacy. The plan was for the kidnappers to arrive by helicopter.

At Sheba Hospital, plans were being made for professional staff to support the hostages arriving there, and new clothes and toiletries were being prepared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that, subject to security cabinet and government approval, the implementation of the Gaza hostage release program and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners to Israel could begin on Sunday.

The first phase of that plan will last 42 days and include a ceasefire and the exchange of 33 hostages in Gaza for up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. It has also seen the drawdown of Israeli troops in Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid.