GAZA, Palestinian Territories — Gaza’s civil defence agency said Thursday that Israel has pounded several areas of the Palestinian territory since the announcement of a ceasefire deal, killing at least 73 people and wounding hundreds.
“Since the ceasefire agreement was announced, Israeli occupation forces have killed 73 people, including 20 children and 25 women,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that another 230 people were wounded in the “bombardments that are continuing”, a day after the truce announcement.
Israel’s cabinet was expected to meet Thursday to approve a ceasefire and hostage-release deal with Hamas, Israeli media reported, a day after mediators announced an agreement they hope will lead to a permanent end to the Gaza war.
Meanwhile, an initial World Health Organization assessment said that at least $10 billion will likely be needed to rebuild Gaza’s devastated health system over the next five to seven years.
“The needs are massive,” the UN health agency’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, told reporters. The initial assessment of the cost to rebuild just the health sector was “for even more than $3 billion for the first 1.5 years and then actually $10 billion for the five to seven years.”
The chief of the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees called on Wednesday for “rapid and unhindered” aid access to Gaza after Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire deal.
“What’s needed is rapid, unhindered and uninterrupted humanitarian access and supplies to respond to the tremendous suffering caused by this war,” Philippe Lazzarini, chief of UNRWA, wrote on X.
Mediator Qatar said Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza starting on Sunday and a hostage and prisoner exchange after 15 months of war.
Thirty-three Israeli hostages will be released in the first phase of the agreement that could become a “permanent ceasefire”, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said.
“The two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap, and (the mediators) announce a ceasefire in the hopes of reaching a permanent ceasefire between the two sides,” he said.
“We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement,” the prime minister added.
Joint mediators Qatar, the US and Egypt will monitor the ceasefire deal through a body based in Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed said, urging “calm” in Gaza before the agreement comes into force.
“We hope that over the next few days there will not be any aggressions or any military operations,” he said.
There was “a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three”, and that the details of the agreements would be published “in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised”, Sheikh Mohammed added.
