{"id":118017,"date":"2025-10-12T20:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T20:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/118017\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T20:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T20:50:08","slug":"ceasefire-holds-in-gaza-in-advance-of-hostage-release-and-donald-trumps-visit-to-israel-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/118017\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceasefire holds in Gaza in advance of hostage release and Donald Trump\u2019s visit to Israel \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas<\/a> held in Gaza<\/a> for a third day in advance of the expected release of Israeli<\/a> hostages and Palestinian <\/a>prisoners and an address by US president Donald Trump<\/a> to Israel<\/a>\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n

Thousands of Palestinians continued to travel north towards Gaza City, the focus of Israeli attacks over the past two months, hopeful the ceasefire would bring an end to the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of joy among the people,\u201d said Abdou Abu Seada, adding that the joy was tempered by exhaustion after two years of war that have destroyed much of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s hostages co-ordinator Gal Hirsch, in a letter to relatives of the captives seen by Reuters, said it was expected that hostages would start being released on Monday. <\/p>\n

US vice-president JD Vance confirmed that Mr Trump would meet Israeli hostages following their release on Monday.<\/p>\n

Under the ceasefire agreement, Hamas is due by noon on Monday to release the remaining hostages, taken captive on October 7th, 2023, when the group\u2019s militants launched the surprise attack on Israel that ignited the war. Mr Hirsch on Thursday said a taskforce would be formed to help find the remains of any dead hostages that Hamas could not locate. Twenty of the 48 hostages are known to be alive.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump is due to arrive in Israel on Monday to address the Knesset, the parliament, before travelling to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt<\/a> for a world leaders\u2019 summit on ending the Gaza war.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner addressed a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday, which many Israelis hoped would be the final one urging the release of hostages and end to the war. The United States, along with Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, mediated what has been described as a first phase agreement between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas and prisoners and detainees by Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor two years we [have been] waiting for this day, for this moment … All of us feel happy for the family, for the hostages, that finally .. we will see them,\u201d said demonstrator Dalia Yosef, thanking Mr Trump.<\/p>\n

The Israel Prison Service said it had transferred some Palestinian prisoners to other facilities in advance of their expected release. The Israeli ministry of justice has released the names of 250 Palestinians, convicted of murder and other serious crimes, who are to be freed under the deal.<\/p>\n

The list does not include senior Hamas commanders that the Islamist militant group had sought to free, or prominent figures from other factions Marwan Barghouti<\/a> or Ahmed Saadat.<\/p>\n

However, that was not expected to derail the agreement.<\/p>\n

Israel is also to release 1,700 Palestinians who have been detained in Gaza since October 7th, 2023 and 22 Palestinian minors, along with the bodies of 360 militants.<\/p>\n

Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said that once the hostages were returned, the military would destroy underground tunnels in Gaza built by Hamas. Palestinians returning to northern Gaza have described widespread devastation. Rescue workers warned there could be unexploded ordnance and bombs in the area.<\/p>\n

Amjad Al Shawa, who heads a Palestinian organisation co-ordinating with aid groups, estimated 300,000 tents were needed to temporarily house 1.5 million displaced Gazans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t believe the destruction we have seen,\u201d Rami Mohammad-Ali (37) said by phone after walking 15 kilometres with his son from Deir Al Balah to Gaza City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are joyful to return to Gaza [City] but at the same time we have bitter feelings about the destruction,\u201d he said, describing seeing human remains scattered along roads. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held in Gaza for a third day in advance of the expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,3761,6,71,3857,11,12,15,16,5,72,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-118017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-palestine","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}