A deal to release hostages held by Hamas and establish a cease-fire in Gaza was approved Thursday by Israel’s government. A host of details still need to be resolved in a subsequent phase of the agreement,

Medical teams at an Israeli hospital awaiting the arrival of hostages expected to be released from Gaza are "prepared for anything," Noa Eliakim Raz, head of the Returning Hostages Unit at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, told NBC News.

The Qatari prime minister told The New York Times that Gaza war mediators decided to delay talks on more difficult issues so a hostage-prisoner swap could be concluded quickly.

Now he was sitting with his fellow ministers to discuss how to bring to an end two years of hostilities that had reduced much of Gaza to a charred wasteland—but had left Hamas still standing.At Netanyahu’s invitation,

Israel's cabinet has approved the first stage of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal with Hamas — a move aimed at ending the two-year war in Gaza and freeing hostages on both sides.

It is unclear if disagreement over the list of Palestinian prisoners will affect the release of hostages within the agreed 72 hours.

President Donald Trump insisted "the war is over" between Israel and Hamas and that he believed the ceasefire deal between the two would hold

Israel assesses that Hamas may not be able to find and return all the remaining dead hostages in Gaza, according to three Israeli sources, a fact that may complicate efforts to reach a deal to end the war.