By Alexander Cornwell and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet has approved a deal with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to end the war and release hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday, a day before the deal was to begin.

Early Saturday after more than six hours of meetings, the government approved an agreement that could end the 15-month war in the Palestinian enclave, which is controlled by Hamas.

“The government has approved the plan to return the hostages. The plan for the release of the hostages will go into effect on Sunday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement.

In Gaza, Israeli warplanes have carried out numerous attacks since the ceasefire agreement. The hospital in Gaza said that an Israeli airstrike on Saturday morning killed five people in a tent in Mawasi area west of Khan Younis in the south of the province.

This brought to 119 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes since the agreement was announced on Wednesday.

After the approval of the Israeli cabinet, the US director general Brett McGurk said that the plan is moving forward.

The ceasefire will come into effect at 0630 GMT on Sunday, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar wrote on X. The White House hopes that the three women held captive in Israel will be released in the afternoon through the Red Cross.

“We’ve locked down everything in the deal. We’re confident … it’s ready to be implemented on Sunday,” McGurk told CNN from the White House.

Under the agreement, a three-phase ceasefire begins with an initial six-week phase during which Hamas hostages will be exchanged for prisoners and detainees in Israel.

Thirty-three of the remaining 98 Israelis, including women, children, men over 50 and sick and wounded slaves, are to be freed in this section. In return, Israel will release approximately 2,000 Palestinians from its prisons.

They include 737 male, female and juvenile prisoners, some of whom are members of Palestinian terrorist groups who have been involved in the attacks that have killed many Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza who have been imprisoned since the war began.

The Israeli Ministry of Justice published the details on Saturday, as well as the ceasefire agreement, which stated that 30 Palestinian prisoners would be released on Sunday for each female hostage.

After the release of the hostages on Sunday, McGurk said, the coalition is calling for the release of four more women seven days later, followed by the release of three more hostages every seven days.

THERE ARE ONLY THINGS THAT ARE AGAINST FIRE

With the deal heavily criticized by Israeli cabinet opponents, media reports say 24 ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government voted for the deal while eight opposed it.

The opposition said that the ceasefire agreement represented submission to Hamas. Defense Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if it was approved and urged other ministers to vote against it. However, he said he will not overthrow the government.

His stalwart counterpart, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has also threatened to quit the government if it does not return to fighting to defeat Hamas after the first phase of the six-week ceasefire.

After a last-minute delay on Thursday when Israel denounced Hamas, Israel’s defense minister voted Friday in favor of a ceasefire agreement, a requirement before a full cabinet vote.

Israel launched an attack on Hamas in Gaza after the group’s fighters entered Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

The war between the Israeli army and Hamas has destroyed many cities in Gaza, killing more than 46,000 people and displacing more than 2.3 million civilians, according to Gaza officials.

If successful, the ceasefire could end the war elsewhere in the Middle East, where the conflict has spread to include Iran and its proxies – Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and militias in Iraq – as well as the occupied West Bank.

The civilian population of Gaza has faced a humanitarian crisis due to hunger, cold and disease. The cease-fire agreement calls for more aid, and international organizations have aid trucks on the Gaza border to bring food, fuel, medicine and other essentials.

The Palestinian aid agency UNRWA said on Friday that it has 4,000 trucks, half of which are food, ready to enter the coastal areas.

Palestinians waiting for food in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday said they expected the chaos to mean hours of waiting for just one plate.

“I hope it will happen so that we will be able to cook in our homes and make whatever food we want, without going to the soup kitchen and exhausting ourselves for three or four hours trying to find (food) – sometimes without making it at home,” said Palestinian Reeham Sheikh al-Eid.