WORLD
60-day ceasefire looms
Hamas will swap 10 living hostages and nine bodies for Palestinian prisoners during the first week of the ceasefire.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said Thursday it was reviewing a new Israeli-approved United States plan for a Gaza truce lasting 60 days.
Bassem Naim of Hamas’ political bureau made the statement.
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff submitted the ceasefire proposal to Hamas, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
The 60-day truce, potentially extendable to 70 days, is in exchange for the swapping of 10 living hostages and nine bodies for Palestinian prisoners during the first week, according to two sources close to the negotiations.
It also involves a second exchange of the same number of living and dead hostages during the second week, according to the sources.
The same sources said Hamas had agreed last week to two exchanges on the same terms, but one during the first week of the truce and the other during the final week.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli attacks killed 44 people on Thursday, including 23 in a strike on a home in the center of the Palestinian territory.
“Forty-four people have been killed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip,” civil defense official Mohammad al-Mughayyir told Agence France-Presse.
“Twenty-three people were killed, others injured and several (are) missing following an Israeli strike on the Qreinawi family’s home east of Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.”
The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Thursday after air raid sirens sounded in the center of the country and explosions were heard over Jerusalem.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” said an army statement.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed they fired a “hypersonic ballistic missile” at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.