The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas officially begins at 8:30 a.m. local time, 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday night. In addition, three of the 33 hostages scheduled to be released in the “first phase” of the hostage deal are expected to be released later on Sunday.
All three hostages scheduled for release are believed to be women, but Hamas has not yet provided Israel with a final list of those scheduled for release, a violation of the agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to tear up the deal if Hamas did not comply with its terms. But despite some opposition to the deal, there is strong political pressure in Israel to implement it.
In exchange for the release of the hostages, Israel will withdraw from some positions in the Gaza Strip, but Netanyahu has said Israel will not relinquish control of the strategic Philadelphia Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border. said.
In his national address on Saturday night, Prime Minister Netanyahu told Israelis: “In the agreement, we promised that Israel would maintain full control of the security of the Philadelphia Corridor and the entire Gaza Strip. We will not tolerate the smuggling of war materials, and we will not tolerate the smuggling of hostages.”
Israel also agreed to release more than 1,900 Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons during the six-week agreement period.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. he is the author of Agenda: What should President Trump do in his first 100 days?available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of Trumpian Virtues: Lessons and Legacy of the Donald Trump Presidencynow available on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
