Israeli government approves Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson, and in the early hours of Saturday, the 18th of January, these are our main stories. The Israeli cabinet has voted to approve a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. The Chinese social media platform TikTok is to be banned from Sunday. So what's the reaction from influencers?
And to the US government, I'm never forgiving you for this. And I'm never going to trust you ever again because you just, like that, took away millions of people's income and livelihood.
President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration is to be held indoors because of the cold. Also in this podcast, police officers in Malaysia are being told to slim down or not be promoted. And the Italian orchestra reviving unusual instruments from a century ago. The Israeli cabinet has voted to approve a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says the first hostages will be released as early as Sunday. The deal has three stages, with the latter phases aiming to bring a permanent end to the conflict. Some Israeli ministers had threatened to quit if the ceasefire was approved, saying it rewarded Hamas. From Jerusalem, here's our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson.
The ceasefire deal has now passed the final hurdle in Israel's political process and is set to begin on Sunday with the first in a series of prisoner exchanges. Two ministers from far-right parties in the coalition voted against the deal, but the promise of bringing home 33 Israeli hostages won over many others in the cabinet, like Culture Minister Miki Zohar.
We came here. to vote forward to the deal to bring back our hostages. It's a very hard decision, but we decided to support it because it's very important to us to see all of our children, men and women, back home. We hope that in the future we will be able to finish the job in Gaza. This is something that we want to do. But now we want to bring our people back home.
While the three-stage structure of this deal has reassured some politicians, it has caused division and anxiety among some of the hostage families, some fearing that their relatives will be abandoned in Gaza after the first phase is done, others beginning to imagine that their relatives might come home. Daniel Lifshitz's grandfather Oded is one of those due to be released.
It's a lot of stress, some anxiety when things are changing. It's hard, it's complicated, but I receive it with a blessing, with love, because that's the moment we've been waiting for. And I really hope it's a start of a new era for us.
Israel says three hostages are expected to be released on Sunday, the first day of the ceasefire, with more small groups freed at regular intervals over the next six weeks. It's also named the first group of Palestinians due to be freed from Israeli jails in return. The deal that hung for so long on politics and logistics, now peopled with names and faces.
Lucy Williamson. As the deal was discussed in Jerusalem, the fighting continued on the ground in Gaza. Hamas officials say more than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since the deal was first announced on Wednesday. From Jerusalem, our correspondent Fergal Keane reports.
The people of Gaza know how suddenly the living can become the dead. It happens in the split second of a bomb blast, a bullet striking a vital organ, the collapse of a building on its inhabitants. This is what the experience of the last 15 months of war has taught them. So they are clear that in the hours and minutes that are left before the ceasefire, fear will accompany hope.
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