HAMAS and Israel have agreed to extend their truce for another day just MINUTES before the fighting was set to resume.
Israel has already received the new list of 10 hostages to be released in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners today.
10 Israeli hostages were released last night along with two Russians and four thais
Footage shows brave hostage, Rimon Kirsht, staring back at the Hamas terrorist
Israel’s military has said the truce with Hamas will continue “in light of the mediators’ efforts to continue the process of releasing hostages, and subject to the terms of the agreement”.
In the hours before, Hamas had blamed Israel for the possible end to the truce, accusing them of “refusing to receive seven women and children” held as hostages.
The terror group warned their armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, to be ready for battle when the ceasefire did not look set to be renewed.
Prolonging the truce will see 10 more Israeli hostages released and allow more aid to reach bomb-blitzed Gaza before Israel begins its final showdown with the terror group in the south.
The initial four-day truce agreement started last Friday and was extended by 48-hours to last until early Thursday – pausing the deadliest fighting between Israel and Palestinians in decades.
Now, it should hold for one more day.
This morning, gunmen opened fire at Jerusalem bus stop killing two, Israeli police say.
A 24-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man were reportedly killed in the attack.
“Two terrorists arrived at the scene in a vehicle armed with weapons fired at civilians at a bus stop, and they were neutralized by security forces and a civilian who were nearby,” Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service.
Last night, the sixth group of Israeli and foreign hostages were released, which included 10 Israeli children and women.
A fearless Israeli hostage was filmed staring down her gun-toting Hamas captor as she was released to the Red Cross in Gaza.
Rimon Kirsht, 36, stood tall and defiant in the moments before she finally reach safety.
Two Russians and four Thai nationals were also released by the terror group.
The two Russians were let go as a gesture to Russian President Vladimir Putin unrelated to Hamas’ truce deal with Israel, Israeli media reported.
Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to resume the war with full force as soon as the truce expired.
“From the beginning of the war, I set three goals: the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our abductees, and to ensure that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel.
“These three goals remain in place.”
“There is no way we are not going back to fighting until the end,” he added.
However, Israel is facing mounting international pressure to spare southern Gaza a devastating ground offensive like the one that has demolished much of the north.
The IDF’s next assumed target is Gaza’s second largest city of Khan Younis, which has become a giant refuge for displaced Palestinians escaping the fighting.
The city has swelled to twice its normal size of 200,000, with most crammed into makeshift shelters and camps.
Israel believes Hamas will make its final stand in Khan Younis after becoming a hiding spot for “Gaza’s Bin Laden”, Yahya Sinwar, and other terror chiefs.
Meanwhile, the shattered family of Hamas’s youngest hostage, baby Kfir Bibas, have broken their silence as Israel probes a shocking claim by the terror group that the 10-month-old is dead.
Kfir’s relatives revealed they are aware of the allegations he died alongside his mum and brother in an Israeli airstrike, but hope they are untrue.
Hamas’s military wing alleged that Kfir, his brother Ariel, four, and mum Shiri, 32, were all killed before the period of ceasefire began on Friday.
This claim has not yet been officially verified.
It followed Israel’s reports that Hamas “no longer had control” of baby Kfir after trading him with another terror group as a “trophy”.
The family was snatched from Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’s cross-border October 7 attack into southern Israel that saw 1,200 slaughtered and some 240 hostages dragged into Gaza.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry estimates 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory pounding of the enclave, while three out of every four Gazans have been driven from their homes.
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