The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Israel have agreed on the “basic points” to reach a 40-day truce, including the exchange of 40 Israeli hostages for 404 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, Palestinian and Egyptian sources close to the talks in Cairo told EFE on Tuesday.

So far, both parties have reached an agreement in which the truce would last 40 days, a period in which 40 Israeli hostages would be released, including women, children and men over 60 years of age, in exchange for the release of 404 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, according to Palestinian and Egyptian security sources, who requested anonymity since negotiations are still ongoing in the Egyptian capital.

Within this framework agreement, the withdrawal of Israel from the city centers of the entire Gaza Strip would have also been agreed in a first phase and allow the displaced in the Palestinian city of Rafah, in the extreme south of the enclave and border with Egypt, return to the northern and central regions of the Palestinian enclave. Likewise – the sources indicate – within these basic points would also be the entry into the Strip of at least 500 trucks of humanitarian aid every day.

Always according to the sources, since Hamas and Israel have not officially commented on this information so far, Israel does not want to make any promises not to invade Rafahand added that an agreement is expected to be reached that will come into force next Friday, March 8, just before the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

discordant points

Despite agreement on these basic points, there would be others discordant that prevent a truce pact from being announced. The sources assured that different points usually appear each day of the negotiations and, for example, one of the informants indicated that Hamas called for the return of “families” and not of “people” towards the northern part of the territory.

Likewise, the sources did not detail whether the hostages who would be “released” included captives who had died, and whose corpses remain under the control of the Palestinian factions, or if they are alive. They recalled that one of the points of conflict remains the names on the lists, since Hamas cannot provide all the names of the captives since other factions also have them held in Gaza.

One of them is the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) faction. that Egypt – a mediating country along with Qatar and the United States – has invited people to come to the Egyptian capital for these negotiations that have been taking place for two days in the Arab country, but so far said group has not sent any delegation.

Israel has not sent any delegation to Cairo either since, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it would only send a team to negotiate in the Egyptian capital. if Hamas released the list of hostages still alive since his kidnapping on October 7, when more than 250 people were taken captive. Hamas raises the number of hostages killed “by Israeli bombings” to 70, although Israel has only confirmed the death of thirty, of the 130 still inside.