Israel’s National Security Advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, has stated that the release of the 50 hostages held in the Gaza Strip under the agreement reached with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) It won’t start until Friday. “The negotiations for the release of our hostages are constantly advancing,” Hanegbi added in a brief statement, as reported by ‘The Times of Israel’ newspaper.

Along these lines, the Qatari Government has confirmed that the announcement of the date of entry into force of the temporary humanitarian truce “It will be done in the next few hours”, and will not start this Thursday morning, as planned. This was expressed by the official spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, Majed al Ansari, which is why Friday is targeted as the start date of this humanitarian pause.

Qatar, the main mediator along with Egypt and the United States in the war, has assured that its conversations with Cairo on the “details of the executive plan” for the humanitarian truce agreement in Gaza “they continue and go in a positive way”. “Contacts continue with the two parties and with our partners in Egypt and the United States to guarantee the speed of the start of the truce and to do what is necessary to guarantee the parties’ compliance with the pact,” the statement concluded.

Hours before confirming this delay, a senior Hamas official, Musa abu Marzuk, had assured in statements to the Qatari television network Al Jazeera that the four-day humanitarian truce It would come into effect this Thursday around 10:00 a.m. (local time). Likewise, he stressed that the group “is prepared for a comprehensive ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners,” before detailing that “the majority” of the hostages that will be released “have foreign nationality.”

Under the agreement, the Palestinian militia will hand over 50 hostages and in exchange Israel will release 150 prisoners who are in their prisons, all of them women and children under 19 years of age. During the truce, Israeli authorities, who have pledged not to arrest or attack anyone in Gaza, will stop flying over the southern part of the enclave completely and the northern area for six hours a day.

The pact between the parties also includes the entry of a greater number of convoys with humanitarian aid, medical goods and fuel “to all areas of Gaza without exception”, as the militia explained in a statement.