The China Mail - Families forced to wait as Israel, Hamas truce deal delayed

The delay is the latest blow to the families desperate to see their loved ones return home, and to Gazans praying for an end to 47 days of war and deprivation.

The deal saw Israel and Hamas agree to the truce which could be extended and broadened.

It is also intended to provide aid to Gaza's 2.4 million residents struggling to survive with shortages of food, water and fuel.

Instead of a pause, fighting continued on Thursday. Explosions were heard on an AFPTV livecam followed by heavy grey clouds rolling over the territory's north, much of which has been reduced to rubble.

"We've already been on an emotional roller coaster for 47 days. Today is no different," said Eyal Kalderon, a cousin of Ofer Kalderon, who is among those held captive in Gaza.

Hamas and other Palestinian gunmen seized about 240 hostages during unprecedented raids into Israel on October 7 which Israel says killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

- Release 'will take place' -

The attack prompted a relentless Israeli campaign of bombing and a ground offensive in Gaza, where the Hamas government says more than 14,100 people, also mostly non-combatants, have been killed.

Israel's national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi indicated the phased release of at least 50 hostages in return for 150 Palestinian prisoners would still go ahead but not on Thursday as expected.

"The start of the release will take place according to the original agreement between the sides, and not before Friday," he said in a statement.

On both sides it would free mostly women and people aged 18 and under.

An Israeli official source, speaking to AFP Thursday on condition of anonymity, blamed the delay on "additional demands by Hamas", but did not give details.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of the negotiation process, who also asked not to be named, said the delay stemmed from "last minute" details over which hostages would be released and how.

The Palestinians are to be freed from three Israeli jails.

Nations around the world welcomed the deal, with some expressing hope it will lead to a lasting end to the war.

"This cannot be just a pause before the massacre starts all over again," Riyad Mansour, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council.

Israeli officials, however, say the truce will be only temporary.

"We are not ending the war. We will continue until we are victorious," Israel's chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, told troops he visited in Gaza, according to the army.

- Weeks of talks -

The president of Iran, which backs Hamas and is Israel's arch enemy, said on Thursday that Israel has already been "defeated" and "the Palestinian people and resistance won a great victory."

The holdup in implementing the release deal came after weeks of talks involving Israel, Palestinian militant groups, Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said Thursday that implementation of the accord "continues and is going positively".

Three Americans, including three-year-old Abigail Mor Idan, were among those earmarked to be freed.

Israel's aerial bombardment continued overnight Wednesday-Thursday on targets in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, sending red and yellow fireballs and immense columns of black smoke into the air.

Homes shook several kilometres (miles) away in Rafah, AFP journalists said.

"I think there are still about 20 people under the rubble," said one Palestinian looking for survivors under a destroyed building east of Khan Yunis.

Thousands of children have been killed in Gaza, "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child", said Catherine Russell, executive director of the UN children's fund, UNICEF.

Youngsters are among the estimated 1.7 million Gazans who, according to the UN, have had to flee their homes during the fighting.

Hospital patients have also been forced to move, the latest being 190 wounded and sick, along with their companions and medical teams, from Al-Shifa hospital on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

Under pressure to back up its claims that Hamas had a command centre under Al-Shifa, Israel's military on Wednesday escorted journalists to a tunnel shaft which soldiers said was part of a vast Hamas underground military network.

The army led reporters into underground facilities with air-conditioning, a toilet and what looked like a kitchenette.

Hamas and medical staff have denied a command centre is under Al-Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital.

Israeli forces arrested Al-Shifa's director Mohammad Abu Salmiya and other medical personnel, another doctor told AFP on Thursday.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began, deadly exchanges of fire have occurred across Israel's northern border, mainly between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

These clashes have raised fears of a broader conflagration.

- Tearful refuge -

Hezbollah said Thursday that its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, met with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to discuss "the efforts made to end the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip".

Further south, the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner in the Red Sea "shot down multiple one-way attack drones launched from Huthi-controlled areas in Yemen", United States Central Command said, referring to the Iran-backed rebel group.

Displaced Gazans remained sceptical about the Israel-Hamas deal.

Fatima Achour, a Palestinian lawyer in her 40s, burst into tears when she reached Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, becoming one of the few Gazans allowed to leave because she has a foreign passport.

"There's no city to go back to... There are no houses. Our lives have ended," she said. "This truce is not for us."

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