An agreement in extremis. The truce between Israel and Hamas will be extended by one day until Friday, Qatar, the mediator country, confirmed on Thursday, while a six-day humanitarian pause in the Gaza Strip was due to end at 7 a.m. (6 a.m. in Paris). "The Palestinian and Israeli sides have agreed to extend the humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip for another day," Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said in a statement.
قطر تعلن عن توصل الجانبين الفلسطيني والإسرائيلي لتمديد الهدنة ليوم إضافي
الدوحة - ٣٠ نوفمبر 2023
أعلن الدكتور ماجد بن محمد الأنصاري المتحدث الرسمي لوزارة الخارجية، عن توصل الجانبين الفلسطيني والإسرائيلي إلى اتفاق لتمديد الهدنة الإنسانية في قطاع غزة ليوم إضافي ( اليوم الخميس )...
— الخارجية القطرية (@MofaQatar_AR) November 30, 2023
Hamas had already announced early Thursday that it would extend the truce by one day, while the Israeli military said the truce would continue as negotiations continued. It is being carried out under the same conditions as the other pauses, namely the cessation of military activities and the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, Majed al-Ansari said. He added that the truce would take place "within the framework of the joint mediation of Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the United States."
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At the same time, the Israeli government announced that it had received a new "list" of names of women and children hostages to be released later today in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, in accordance with the truce agreement.
The war between Israel and Hamas was sparked by a bloody attack by the Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip, where it seized power in 2007. In retaliation, Israel, which has vowed to "annihilate" Hamas, relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip until a truce went into effect on November 24.