The ceasefire started at 10.30 AM IST, and the first group of hostages will be released by Hamas around 7.30 pm IST, according to Qatar’s foreign ministry.

Tel Aviv: A four-day truce in the Israel-Hamas war came to an effect on Friday and exchange of hostages is expected to take place later in the day, mediator Qatar said. Notably, the four-day truce in fighting comes after nearly seven weeks of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas.

The ceasefire started at 10.30 AM IST, and the first group of hostages will be released by Hamas around 7.30 pm IST, according to Qatar’s foreign ministry. The “first batch” of hostages would consist of 13 women and children from the same families. However, the number would rise up to 50 over the four days, according to the deal brokered by Qatar and the US.

In the meantime, Israel sounded sirens in two villages near the Gaza Strip, and warned of possible Palestinian rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled enclave just minutes after a truce came into force.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli official told CNN that the truce will begin at 10 am local time on Thursday, followed by the release of at least 50 women and children among the more than 230 people being held prisoner in Gaza. However, those preparations were postponed late Wednesday, just hours before the cease-fire was supposed to begin.

“Nothing is finalised until it’s actually happening. And even amid the process, changes might occur at any moment,” Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in his daily press briefing on Thursday.

According to CNN, Hagari asserted that the Israeli army continues to fight in the Gaza Strip “at this hour,” pointing out that once the pause goes into effect, the soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces will be stationed along the “truce lines” established inside the territory.

The conflict in Gaza escalated after the October 7 attack by Hamas, where about 2,500 terrorists breached the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to casualties and the seizure of hostages.

Hamas terrorists seized about 240 hostages during the assault when they surged across Gaza’s militarised border into southern Israel to kill around 1,200 people, mostly civilians who were massacred at their homes and at a music festival amid brutal atrocities, The Times of Israel reported.

The hostages were of all ages and including young children and elderly people, as well as Thai and Nepali nationals.