Aid agencies including Cafod welcomed news of a deal between Israel and Hamas which would pause fighting to allow the release of hostages and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Israeli government last night approved a deal under which 50 women and children held hostage in Gaza will be released over four days, while the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) hold an “operational pause”.
“The release of every additional ten hostages will result in one additional day in the pause,” the government said in a statement. Hamas took more than 240 hostages in its terror attack on Israel on 7 October.
Hamas announced that Israel had agreed to release 150 Palestinian women and children held in its prisons, and that the deal included expanded humanitarian provision for Gaza.
“For Palestinians in Gaza in desperate need of life-saving food, water and medicine this will bring some respite. For the released hostages and their families, this is such an important moment, and will give hope to those hostages that remain,” said Elizabeth Funnell, Cafod’s Middle East programmes representative.
However, she repeated the demand made by Cafod and other aid agencies for a permanent end to the fighting, as “only a full ceasefire will enable sufficient humanitarian assistance to reach the more than 2.5 million people in desperate need”.
“Only a permanent ceasefire will bring an end to the indiscriminate killing and injuring of civilians and the destruction of homes, schools and hospitals,” she said. “Four days is simply not enough to allow for the release of all hostages.”
Christian Aid said that the time limit on the deal “risks a pause, bomb, pause, bomb scenario” which would extend the conflict.
William Bell, the charity’s head of Middle East policy and advocacy, said it was “absolutely wrong that all hostages have not been immediately released” and that a limited humanitarian pause “is dehumanising, unacceptable and offers little room for hope or the conditions to achieve a lasting peace”.
“Christian Aid maintains that only a permanent ceasefire can safely deliver the scale of humanitarian aid required for the millions who have been displaced, without medical relief and are dealing with the traumatising effects of this siege,” he said.
Following the Israeli government meeting which confirmed the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the military campaign would resume once the deal ended.
“We are at war, and we will continue the war,” he said. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.”
Fighting continued overnight and on Wednesday, with the IDF unable to confirm when the pause would begin.
On Wednesday morning, Pope Francis again appealed for peace in the Holy Land at his general audience.
“This is not war, this is terrorism,” he said. “Let us pray for the Palestinian people, let us pray for the Israeli people, so that peace may come.”
Earlier in the morning he had met two delegations, one of Israelis with relatives held hostage by Hamas and the other of Palestinians with relatives in Gaza. The latter was accompanied by Fr Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza.
“They suffer so much. I heard how they both suffer,” said Francis in his general audience address.
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