First hostages held in Gaza set to be released as Israel and Hamas pause fighting

The latest:

Israel and Hamas began a four-day truce on Friday morning with Palestinian militants set to release a first group of 13 Israeli women and child hostages later in the day, the first break in a war that has devastated the besieged Gaza enclave.

The truce went into effect at 7 a.m. local time and involves a comprehensive ceasefire in north and south Gaza, followed by the release of some of the more than 200 hostages taken Oct. 7, when Hamas led a surprise attack inside Israel, mediators in Qatar said.

But fighting raged on in the hours leading up to the truce, with officials inside the Hamas-ruled enclave saying a hospital in Gaza City was among the targets bombed. Both sides also signalled the pause would be temporary before fighting resumes.

Additional aid is set to start flowing into Gaza and the first hostages including elderly women are due to be freed at 4 p.m., with the total number rising to 50 over the four days, Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in Doha.

The first group of 39 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are then expected to be released at 8 p.m, with at total of 150 Palestinians set to be freed over the course of the truce.

Egypt said 130,000 litres of diesel and four trucks of gas will be delivered daily to Gaza when the truce starts, and that 200 trucks of aid would enter Gaza daily.

Within minutes of the truce deadline passing, rocket sirens sounded in two villages near the Gaza Strip, warning of possible Palestinian rocket attacks from the Hamas-ruled enclave. There was no immediate confirmation that rocket attacks had occurred or caused any damage. 

Janice Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, said it's not unexpected that there could be artillery fire for the first few hours after the truce went into effect. 

"That's what you normally see," Stein told CBC The National's Adrienne Arsenault.  

But she is "optimistic" the temporary truce will hold for the four days.

Hamas earlier confirmed on its Telegram channel that all hostilities from its forces would cease.

But Abu Ubaida, spokesperson for Hamas's armed wing, later referred to "this temporary truce" in a video message that called for an "escalation of the confrontation with [Israel] on all resistance fronts," including the Israeli-occupied West Bank where violence has surged since the Gaza war erupted almost seven weeks ago.

Israel's military said its troops would stay behind a ceasefire line inside Gaza, without giving details of its position.