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Hamas says alive hostages to be exchanged for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners within 72 hours of deal implementation – AFP

In the Gaza Strip, armed gunmen are heard firing into the air in celebration after the announcement of the war-ending agreement.

President Trump will arrive in Israel on Sunday and will address the Knesset following the signing of the deal, Ynet reports.

Photographs released from Cairo show members of the Israeli, American, and Qatari delegations embracing and shaking hands, signaling what appears to be a breakthrough after months of painstaking negotiations.

According to Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is set to be formally signed on Thursday at 12:00 noon.

Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu expressed optimism in a brief statement, writing, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.”

Israeli officials confirmed earlier that “the agreement will be signed later today, with the first release expected either on Shabbos or Sunday.”

A senior U.S. official told Channel 12 News reporter Barak Ravid on Wednesday night that “the war in Gaza is over.”

The same official added that the release of hostages will take place within 72 hours following the Israeli Cabinet’s ratification of the deal, a step expected to occur no later than Monday.

An Egyptian official involved in the talks told Sky News Arabia that “the agreement includes a complete ceasefire, a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli army from 70% of the Gaza Strip, and the simultaneous release of hostages and prisoners from both sides.”

A Palestinian Arab source quoted by the Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said, “The disputed points in the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh have been resolved, and Trump will announce the agreement soon.”

Amid the emotional anticipation surrounding the deal, Ditza Or—the mother of Avinatan, who remains captive in Gaza—shared a verse on social media from Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation.”

A Hamas insider told the Lebanese network Al-Mayadeen that the organization has formally accepted the terms, with the signing ceremony scheduled to take place today in Egypt.

Reflecting the tense hope gripping the nation, Yediot Achronot columnist Nadav Eyal wrote on X: “Israelis can’t sleep tonight. They wait, breath held, for the end of a nightmare that began two years ago. Above all, for the agreement that will bring all the hostages home.”

{Matzav.com}

President Trump revealed Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas have formally approved the initial stage of a peace framework aimed at halting the fighting in Gaza and securing the release of hostages held by the terror group.

“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump declared in a message on Truth Social.

The president went on to emphasize the broad scope of the agreement’s impact, writing, “All Parties will be treated fairly!” and hailing it as “a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America.”

During a public event later in the day, Trump interrupted his remarks after receiving a note from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “I was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East and they’re gonna need me pretty quickly,” the president told the audience.

In his post, Trump also expressed appreciation to the mediating nations that helped broker the deal, thanking “the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen.”

He concluded his statement with a flourish characteristic of his style: “BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

{Matzav.com}

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and U.S. President Trump spoke by phone, congratulating each other on tonight’s ceasefire and hostage deal in Egypt. Netanyahu thanked Trump for his leadership, while Trump praised Netanyahu’s actions, and Netanyahu also invited Trump to address the Knesset.

WATCH: Fox News’s Bret Baier reads President Trump’s post announcing the agreement on the first phase of his historic peace deal in Gaza.

Yesterday, the IDF carried out two separate strikes in southern Lebanon within an hour, killing two Hezbollah operatives. The first strike in the town of Deir Aames killed Ali Issa, who served as Hezbollah’s local representative in nearby Kfara and was responsible for coordinating with residents on both economic and military matters, the military says.

The Shin Bet security agency says it recently prevented an Iranian attempt to smuggle significant quantities of advanced weapons to terror operatives in the West Bank for use against Israeli targets.

Authorities in Beersheba are tearing down an apartment complex in the southern city that was directly struck by an Iranian ballistic missile during the closing hours of June’s 12-day war.

The New York Daily News editorial board ripped into NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani for his anti-Israel, antisemitic views, after the candidate’s statement on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre: On today’s two-year anniversary of the horrid Hamas Oct. 7 pogrom against Israel, there will be protests in New York both against and in support of Israel. It’s not hard to guess which protests will have the sympathy of mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani, whose deep animosity towards Israel is a problem for hundreds of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers. While Mamdani says he respects all New Yorkers of all faiths, his stance that Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state strikes at a core belief for many Jews. It is a position that smacks of antisemitism in its rejection of an article of faith held so dearly by so many. Don’t let his rhetoric about what’s going on in Gaza right now fool you: This is not about Bibi Netanyahu and the current policies of the incumbent Israeli government. It’s not about Gaza or the West Bank or the IDF or Jewish settlers. Many Israelis, in fact, oppose Netanyahu and his hard-right coalition. Americans like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer want Netanyahu out of office. But those foes of Netanyahu, Israeli or American, are not opposed to the existence of any Jewish Israeli government, like Mamdani is. Mamdani conflates political disagreement with a stance anathema to many New Yorkers. Those who he supports, who call opposition to a government’s policies “anti-Zionism,” willfully ignore the historical arc that led to the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the 20th century. Mamdani himself endorses the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, to cut off all economic relations with the Jewish state. He has said he discourages use of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” but refuses to condemn those who use it — even as it is used as a rallying cry to harm Jews. This is what he said when asked before the June primary about a Jewish state: “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else…. Equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That’s my belief.” However, with the exception of the United States and maybe France, just about every country in the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is based on ethnicity or religion or both: Ireland for the Irish, Poland for the Poles, Vietnam for the Vietnamese, Kuwait for Kuwaitis. The Jews are certainly a people, an ethnicity, as well as a faith. So should the Jews have a country? That is what Zionism is, national liberation for the Jewish people in their historic homeland. And that was the decision of the United Nations in 1947, that there be a Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine, along with an Arab state. Israel as a Jewish state, the world’s only Jewish state, is accepted by its Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Even the PLO accepts Israel (that was the core of the 1993 Oslo Accords). Israel is accepted by Russia, by India, by China and just about the whole world. But Israel is not accepted by Hamas, not by Hezbollah, not by […]

New video footage shows the moment Marco Rubio informed Trump that a peace agreement in Gaza was “very close.”

The assailant in last week’s attack on a shul in the northwest of England that left two dead pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, police said Wednesday. The attacker, Jihad Al-Shamie, called emergency dispatchers during his deadly attack on Oct. 2. to express his commitment to the terror group, Counter Terrorism Policing North West said in a statement. Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by police outside the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester after he rammed a car into pedestrians, attacked them with a knife and tried to force his way into the building. Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said that minutes after Greater Manchester Police were alerted to the attack and as firearms officers were making their way to the scene, Al-Shamie called 999 — the U.K.’s emergency phone number — claiming responsibility for the attack. “He also pledged allegiance to Islamic State,” Potts said. Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, died in the Yom Kippur attack. Police say Daulby was accidentally shot by an armed officer as he and other congregants barricaded the shul to block Al-Shamie from entering. Three other men remain hospitalized with serious injuries. “This has been a week of deep trauma and mourning for the Jewish community at a time when they should have been observing one of the holiest periods in the calendar of their faith,” Potts said. Police have revealed that Al-Shamie was on bail over an alleged assault on a woman at the time of the attack, but hadn’t been charged. However, police have said he had never been referred to the authorities for exhibiting extremist views. Potts said that “at this stage of our investigation, we are more confident that he was influenced by extreme Islamist ideology. The 999 call forms part of this assessment.” As police work to determine whether or not the attacker acted alone, they have arrested three men and three women in the greater Manchester area on suspicion of the “commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.” A court on Saturday granted police five more days to hold four of the suspects: men ages 30 and 32, and women ages 46 and 61. An 18-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man were released over the weekend with no further action, and two further releases are planned for later Wednesday, police said. Police haven’t identified those arrested or disclosed their links to Al-Shamie. The attack has devastated Britain’s Jewish community and intensified debate about the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. Recorded antisemitic incidents in the U.K. have risen sharply since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to Community Security Trust, a charity that provides advice and protection for British Jews. (AP)

Today, on the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, 1,200 chairs—each bearing a photo of a victim murdered that day—were placed at the center of Columbia University’s campus.

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf came under heavy fire after appearing to draw a parallel between imprisoned bnei yeshiva and the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The controversy erupted following a letter he sent to Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu.

In his letter, Goldknopf praised the progress being made toward a hostage release deal but said he wished “to take the opportunity” to remind Netanyahu of the bnei Torah currently jailed in Israel “during these holy holidays,” imprisoned for what he called “the crime of Torah learning.”

“I request that you act immediately to release them from prison, still during these holidays, so they can celebrate with their family members during Sukkos,” Goldknopf wrote.

The comments come amid an intensifying national debate over the chareidi draft issue.

Goldknopf’s letter immediately provoked sharp backlash from across the political spectrum, with critics condemning the perceived comparison between the jailed bnei yeshiva and the hostages in Gaza.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett blasted the statement, calling it “simply disgraceful.” He denounced what he described as the government’s “dark alliance of [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich-Netanyahu-Goldknopf, which is currently educating hundreds of thousands of children with the same distorted anti-Zionist worldview.”

“Very soon, we will replace this group, this government of failure and decay, and open a new and wonderful chapter for the people of Israel,” Bennett added, referencing his party “Bennett 2026,” which plans to run in the next elections.

Gadi Eisenkot, former IDF chief of staff and head of the Yashar! Party, also condemned Goldknopf’s comments, describing them as “a manifestation of what will no longer happen in a renewed, decent Israel.”

He added that Goldknopf should “disappear from our public life and be replaced by young men and women, servants of this nation, who are committed to it and worthy of it.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) was equally scathing, saying, “Goldknopf and his whole bunch have lost their minds.”

“The hostages are dying, while he [Goldknopf] and his chareidi draft-dodging followers are a group of spoiled privileged people who somehow think they have the right to evade military service, while the IDF fights to protect their lives, cushioned by government budgets,” Lapid charged.

The newly established Reservists Party, founded by reserve soldiers advocating for universal conscription, also issued a strong rebuke.

“Instead of issuing a letter of gratitude to the tens of thousands of reservists who will once again spend the Sukkos holiday guarding the country’s borders, so that you and your draft-dodging friends can celebrate, you ask the prime minister to release the ‘prisoners of the world of Torah’ so they can celebrate at home,” the party said in a statement.

“These are fateful days for the State of Israel, and you and your colleagues are doing everything possible to prevent the enlistment of the chareidim, to avoid easing the burden on reservists, and to strengthen draft dodgers, criminals who break the law,” the statement continued.

{Matzav.com}