Israel and Hamas extend the truce 'in extremis' for another day, until Friday morning

The truce will last one more day, until Friday morning, when the ceasefire marks a week. After hours and hours of negotiations and when the threat to resume the bombings reached the end of the agreed agreement, Israel and Hamas announced early on Thursday (around six in the morning in mainland Spain) that they were extending the ceasefire by 24 hours. They were also reported by the Qatari Foreign Ministry. This is the second time that the cessation of hostilities has been extended, which was initially four days (from Friday to Monday), to which two more days (Tuesday and Wednesday) were added.

Negotiators from Qatar and Egypt are rushing the hours gained from the conflict to try to scrape a new extension, in this case for two days, according to official Egyptian sources. The night from Wednesday to Thursday has already passed in the midst of the efforts of the negotiating countries with Qatar as the main stage to iron out the differences between the main actors in the war that has been waged since October 7.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Jerusalem, on his third visit to Israel since the start of the war, and told President Isaac Herzog on Thursday: "The process is yielding results. It's important and we hope it continues."

Subsequently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Blinken for his "support from the beginning" in the war to end Hamas and free the more than 240 hostages that the fundamentalist movement took hostage to Gaza. Netanyahu asked the top U.S. diplomat to address the "next phase" of the conflict without specifying what he was referring to. Blinken will then travel to Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank and the seat of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).

The announcement of the extra day of truce coincides with an uptick in violence in both Jerusalem and the West Bank. In Jerusalem, a Hamas gunshot attack near a bus stop killed three pedestrians and two attackers, according to emergency services and police sources. The two were brothers, residents of East Jerusalem, prisoners in Israeli prisons and members of Hamas, according to Israel's secret services. It was a "response to the unprecedented crimes committed by the occupation," according to the fundamentalist movement's claim of responsibility for the operation.

As for the West Bank, the Israeli army carried out a raid on Tulkarem and its refugee camp this morning. Troops entered with bulldozers, damaging homes and vehicles, deployed soldiers with canine units and positioned snipers in some buildings, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

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Breaking news of the Israel-Gaza war

The Government of Israel has announced that it will continue to deliver weapons to civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in a statement on the social network Telegram. "It's a measure that has proven itself time and time again in the war against murderous terrorism," he said after some citizens used their firearms to confront the attackers in Jerusalem.

Earlier, the Minister of National Security, the far-right Itamar Ben Gvir, after visiting the site of the attack, has already insisted on his proposal to deliver more weapons to the population, something he has been doing in recent weeks. "Citizens who neutralize terrorists will no longer have their weapons confiscated thanks to my reform," he wrote on his profile on the social network X (formerly Twitter). "Too many heroes who killed menacing terrorists had their guns revoked. Citizens who stand up for themselves deserve a prize! Not confiscation," he added. Ben Gvir is one of the most extremist members and most critical of the truce in Netanyahu's cabinet.

The truce, however, is still ongoing. The Israeli military said in a statement early Thursday: "In light of the efforts of the mediators to continue the process of releasing the hostages and in accordance with the terms of what was agreed, the operational pause will continue." That will allow eight more hostages, all women and minors, to be released from those held by the jihadists on Thursday.

Obstacles had surfaced throughout the night, as the bell hour had moved on, giving way to the possibility of further attacks. The fundamentalist movement had announced that Israel refused to accept seven more hostages, women and children, along with the three bodies of its citizens — also women and children from the same family that it left for dead on Wednesday — according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. That was their offer as a guarantee for that added day of ceasefire.

Those three bodies belong to Shiri Bibas, 32, and her sons, Ariel, four, and Kfir, 10, whose death in an Israeli bombardment Hamas announced on Wednesday. On Thursday, another hostage, Ofir Tzarfati, who was kidnapped at the Supernova festival on October 7 and whose death has been reported to the family by the authorities, joins that list.

A Seventh Hostage-Prisoner Exchange

The further extension of the ceasefire will allow for a seventh hostage-for-prisoner swap and give Gazans a few more hours of respite. Thus, the fear that many of them defined on social networks as a "nightmare" has been, if not dispelled, at least postponed, with the announcement of the new commitment. The terms of the agreement are similar to those that have been in force these six days and its main points remain, in addition to the cessation of bombing, the release of hostages held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip. Around 145 hostages remain in the Palestinian Mediterranean enclave.

The swap initially included only women and children on both sides, and a good number of them — 75 — have already been released since last Friday, as have foreign men whose release has taken place outside the swap between Hamas and Israel. Among the discussions on the table was the possibility that Hamas would be required to start handing over Israeli male hostages and male and female soldiers.

While continuing to negotiate the extension of the truce, the Israeli government continued to insist on its intention to continue its offensive against Gaza, where the army has already killed nearly 15,000 Gazans, according to the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry.

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