The truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to have expired Friday with no immediate sign of an agreement being reached to further extend the hostage deal to an eighth day.
It is not yet clear whether this means that fighting will resume in the Gaza Strip, which suffered extensive damage and loss of life during seven weeks of Israeli bombardment.
An hour before Friday’s deadline was set to expire Israel’s aerial defense system intercepted one rocket launched from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said. There was no indication of who launched the single rocket.
The truce, which started last Friday, was expected to expire at 7 a.m. local time (12 a.m. ET). An agreement to extend to a seventh day came down to the wire on Thursday.
Some context: Egyptian and Qatari negotiators had been pushing to extend the pause in fighting in Gaza for an extra two days to facilitate the release of further hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and to allow more aid into the strip, according to Egypt’s State Information Service.
Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that a condition of any extension to the pause in fighting is that Hamas must release 10 Israeli women and children held hostage per day.
Under the terms of the deal, Israel freed three Palestinians for every Israeli hostage released.
As the truce expiration loomed both Israel and Hamas have indicated they’re prepared for fighting to resume.
“We should be prepared for a quick transition into full scale fighting at any point, today, tomorrow, at any moment. As soon as we maximize the move to return hostages we will resume fierce fighting across the whole Gaza Strip,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday.
Hamas’ military wing on Thursday asked its forces to maintain a high-combat readiness posture.
In the seven-day pause in fighting, 80 Israelis — primarily women and children and some of whom are dual citizens — and another 24 foreign nationals have been released. Another Israeli dual citizen was also freed outside of the agreed-upon deal.
As of Thursday, 240 Palestinians had been freed from Israeli prisons — mainly women and minors.
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