More Israeli hostages, detained Palestinians expected to be freed after Gaza truce extended

Israeli forces and Hamas fighters appeared to be abiding by a truce for a fifth morning on Tuesday, after a four-day ceasefire was extended at the last minute for at least two days to let more hostages go free.

Both sides reported some Israeli tank fire in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City in the morning, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defence Forces said:

"After suspects approached IDF troops, an IDF tank fired a warning shot."

During the truce, Hamas fighters released 50 Israeli women and children as young as toddlers from among the 240 hostages they captured in southern Israel during a deadly rampage on Oct. 7. Hamas also separately released 19 foreign hostages, mainly Thai farmworkers, under separate deals parallel to the truce agreement.

Israel released 150 security detainees from its jails, all women and teenagers.

Israel has said the truce could extend indefinitely as long as Hamas continues to release at least 10 hostages per day. But with fewer women and children left in captivity, keeping the guns quiet beyond Wednesday could require negotiating to free at least some Israeli men for the first time.

Israel added an additional 50 Palestinian women to its list of 300 detainees cleared for release under the truce, seen as a sign it was prepared to negotiate for more hostages to go free under further extensions.

Israeli security cabinet minister Gideon Saar told Army Radio that the two-day extension had been agreed to under the terms of the original offer, and Israel remained willing to extend the truce further if more hostages were released. Israelis would know when the truce was over because the fighting would begin again.

"Immediately upon the completion of the hostage-recovery framework, the warfighting will be renewed," he said. "We have every intention of implementing the goals of the war as it applies to toppling Hamas in Gaza."

The truce so far has brought the first respite to the Gaza Strip in seven weeks, during which Israel bombed swaths of the territory, especially the north, including Gaza City, into a desolate moonscape.

More aid was able to reach the territory, which had been under a total Israeli siege.

Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, after its gunmen burst across the fence and went on a spree, killing around 1,200 people, including several Canadians.

Since then, Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say about 15,000 people have been confirmed killed in Israel's bombardment, around 40 per cent of them children, with many more dead feared to be lost under rubble.

More than two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million people have lost their homes, trapped inside the enclave with supplies running out, with thousands of families sleeping rough in makeshift shelters with only the belongings they can carry.