Israel's government has voted to back a deal for Hamas to free 50 women and children held as hostages in Gaza in exchange for a four-day pause in fighting, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Officials from Qatar, which has been mediating secret negotiations, as well as the US, Israel and Hamas have for days been saying a deal was imminent.
Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
A statement by Mr Netanyahu's office said 50 women and children will be released over four days, during which there will be a pause in fighting.
For every additional ten hostages released, the pause would be extended by another day, it said, without mentioning the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange.
"Israel's government is committed to return all the hostages home. Tonight (Tuesday), it approved the proposed deal as a first stage to achieving this goal," said the statement, released after hours of deliberation that were closed to the media.
Hamas said the 50 hostages would be released in exchange for 150 Palestinian women and children who are held in Israeli jails. The truce deal will also allow hundreds of trucks of humanitarian, medical and fuel aid to enter Gaza, it said in a statement.
Israel had committed not to attack or arrest anyone in all parts of Gaza during the truce period, it added.
The Qatari government said 50 civilian women and children hostages would be released from Gaza in exchange for the release "of a number of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons".
The starting time of the truce would be announced within the next 24 hours, it said in a statement.
A senior US official said that the truce should allow for the release of more than the 50 hostages, which both sides said would be freed by Hamas.
"We do anticipate it'll be more than 50, but I just don't want to put a number on it," the official said.
"We believe there are more than 50 women and children being held and the whole concept here is to have them all come out," the official added.
The accord is the first truce of a war in which Israeli bombardments have flattened large swathes of Gaza, killed 13,300 civilians in the tiny densely populated enclave and left about two-thirds of its 2.3 million people homeless, according to authorities in Gaza.
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Before gathering with his full government last night, Mr Netanyahu met with his war cabinet and wider national security cabinet over the deal.
Ahead of the announcement of the deal, Mr Netanyahu said the intervention of US President Joe Biden had helped to improve the tentative agreement so that it included more hostages and fewer concessions.
But Mr Netanyahu said Israel's broader mission had not changed.
"We are at war and we will continue the war until we achieve all our goals. To destroy Hamas, return all our hostages and ensure that no entity in Gaza can threaten Israel," he said in a recorded message at the start of the government meeting.
Hamas said in its statement: "As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look out to defend our people and defeat the occupation."
Release to begin tomorrow
Three Americans, including a three-year-old girl whose parents were among those killed during the 7 October attack, are expected to be among the hostages to be released, a senior US official said.
In addition to Israeli citizens, more than half the hostages held foreign and dual citizenship from some 40 countries including the US, Thailand, Britain, France, Argentina, Germany, Chile, Spain and Portugal, Israel's government has said.
Also believed to be among the hostages is the nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl Emily Hand.
Israeli media said the first release of hostages was expected tomorrow. Implementing the deal must wait for 24 hours to give Israeli citizens the chance to ask the Supreme Court to block the release of Palestinian prisoners, reports said.
Qatar's chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, Minister of State at the Foreign Ministry Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, said that the International Committee of the Red Cross would be working inside Gaza to facilitate the hostages' release.
"(It's) going to be an intensive period where we're going to be 24/7 in direct communication with the ICRC and the two parties making sure that we perfect the release of the hostages," Mr Al-Khulaifi said.
He said that the truce means there would be "no attack whatsoever. No military movements, no expansion, nothing".
Hei added that Qatar hopes the deal "will be a seed to a bigger agreement and a permanent cease of fire. And that's our intention".
Hamas has to date released only four captives: US citizens Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, on 20 October, citing "humanitarian reasons," and Israeli women Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on 23 October.
The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the 7 October raid with Hamas, said last night that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since 7 October had died.
"We previously expressed our willingness to release her for humanitarian reasons, but the enemy was stalling and this led to her death," Al Quds Brigades said on its Telegram channel.
As attention focused on the hostage release deal, fighting on the ground raged on. Mounir Al-Barsh, director-general of Gaza's health ministry, told Al Jazeera TV that the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City.
Israel claimed militants were operating from the facility and threatened to act against them within four hours, he said.
Yesterday, Israel also said its forces had encircled the Jabalia refugee camp, a congested urban extension of Gaza City where Hamas has been battling advancing Israeli armoured forces.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said 33 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli air strike on part of Jabalia.
In southern Gaza, Palestinian media said 10 people were killed and 22 injured by an Israeli air strike on an apartment in the city of Khan Younis.
Reuters could not immediately verify the accounts of fighting on either side.
