The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas officially begins at 8:30 a.m. local time, which is 11:30 p.m. ET on Saturday evening. In addition, three of the 33 hostages set to be released in the “first phase” of the hostage deal are set to be released later on Sunday.
All three of the hostages who are expected to be released are presumed to be female, though Hamas has yet to give Israel a confirmed list of those who are to be freed — a breach of the agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to cancel the deal if Hamas does not comply with its terms. However, the political pressure in Israel to follow through is intense, despite some opposition to the deal.
In exchange for the release of the hostages, Israel will pull back from some positions in the Gaza Strip, though Netanyahu has said that Israel will not give up control of the strategic Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border.
In a national address on Saturday evening, Netanyahu told the Israeli people: “We promised in the agreement that Israel would keep full control in the Philadelphi Corridor and the security buffer around the entire Gaza Strip. We will not allow war materiel to be smuggled in, nor will we allow our hostages to be smuggled out.”
Israel has also agreed to release over 1,900 Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons over the course of the six-week deal.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The post Gaza Ceasefire Begins: First 3 Female Hostages Set to Be Released appeared first on Breitbart.
