As part of the cease-fire deal struck between Israel and Hamas to exchange Israeli hostages for imprisoned Palestinians, trucks were expected to deliver desperately needed fuel to Gaza each day over the four-day pause in fighting.
AMN
A group of Twenty-five hostages, including 12 Thai citizens and 13 other women and children, had been freed, Egypt said. At the start of a four-day cease-fire, no fighting was reported since the morning and dozens of trucks carrying aid, including fuel, entered Gaza.
The hostages were transferred to Egypt as part of a prisoner exchange that was set to see 39 Palestinian prisoners and detainees released from Israeli custody on the first day of a four-day truce, which could be the longest pause in fighting in the seven-week war between Israel and Hamas.
Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman for the Qatari foreign ministry, said in a post on the X platform that 39 Palestinian women and children had been released from Israeli prisons “in implementation of the commitments of the first day of the agreement.”
Humanitarian agencies preparing to go into Gaza continued to build up stocks of desperately needed aid for the war-torn enclave on Thursday, amid delays in the implementation of a temporary halt in fighting and the release of hostages held by Hamas militants.
According to media reports, ongoing negotiations over the Israel-Hamas agreement on a four-day humanitarian pause and the freeing of hostages held by the Palestinian armed group since its 7 October terror attacks indicated that the deal’s entry into force was believed to be unlikely before Friday.
Amid rising hunger, UN World Food Programme (WFP) chief Cindy McCain said that the agency was “rapidly mobilizing to scale up assistance inside Gaza” once safe access is granted. Her comments followed UN emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths’ statement on the Organisation’s readiness to increase the volume of aid brought into the enclave and distributed across the Strip.
Ms. McCain said that WFP trucks are “waiting at the Rafah crossing, loaded with food slated for families in shelters and homes across Gaza, and wheat flour for bakeries to resume operations”.
Latest UN humanitarian reports indicated that wheat flour is no longer available in markets in the north of Gaza and that no bakeries are funct