What 15 months of war has done to Gazapublished at 08:44 Greenwich Mean Time 18 January

08:44 GMT 18 January

By Nick Eardley & Matt Murphy

BBC Verify has been analysing the scale of the damage caused by the 15-month conflict which has devastated Gaza.

Swathes of infrastructure across the strip has been levelled and more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The verified image below shows a neighbourhood in Jabalia, northern Gaza, before the conflict and last week.

Rebuilding infrastructure - from homes to public facilities - will be a key challenge in the coming years. In May, the UN estimated it could cost $40bn (£32.8bn) to rebuild the strip.

It also estimated that 68% of the road network in the strip had been damaged or destroyed.

• Read more about the damage to Gaza's infrastructure here

While aid workers in Gaza welcome the ceasefire agreement, they say the situation for those displaced in Gaza "remains dire".

Rosalia Bollen, from the UN children's charity Unicef, tells the BBC that thousands are living in "utter deprivation".

Bollen describes unsanitary conditions in makeshift tents and crowded shelters where diseases are "rampant": "It's not just the bombs and the bullets - it's these living conditions."

She says it's critical that the ceasefire allows aid to be delivered - but that a market economy needs to be re-established in Gaza so people can rebuild their lives.

• For context: Qatari mediators, when outlining the finer details of the ceasefire agreement, said that as part of the first phase there'd be a surge in humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, with hundreds of lorries allowed in each day, as well as the rehabilitation of hospitals, clinics and bakeries.

Image source, Getty Images

It comes in three stages. The first six-week phase of the deal will see 33 hostages - including women, children and elderly people - exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli forces will also withdraw to the east away from densely populated areas of Gaza, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries will be allowed into the territory each day.

Negotiations for the second phase - which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to "sustainable calm" - are then due to start on the 16th day.

The third and final stage involves the return of any remaining hostages' bodies and the reconstruction of Gaza - something which could take years.

But unanswered questions remain - including which hostages are alive or dead, or whether Hamas knows the whereabouts of all those who remain unaccounted for.

• More: What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal

That update we just brought you comes from Majed Al Ansari, the spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry.

Here's what he said in full, in a post on X:

"As coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 08:30am on Sunday, January 19, local time in Gaza.

"We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources."

• For context: Qatar, along with the US and Egypt, has played a key role in the mediation talks between Israel and Hamas.

We're just hearing that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is officially due to begin tomorrow morning - at 08:30 local time (06:30 GMT).

The timing was announced by mediators in Qatar, who've played a key role in the talks.

We'll bring you what they said in full in our next post.

A struggle to get over the line, but the deal is donepublished at 07:09 Greenwich Mean Time 18 January

07:09 GMT 18 January

Jon Donnison
Reporting from Jerusalem

This deal was a struggle to get over the line until the very end. But it’s finally there.

Unusually, Israel’s government broke with normal protocol and worked late into the night - through the Jewish Sabbath to approve it - on the basis that lives are at stake.

One far right minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has said he will resign in protest - another, Bezalel Smotrich, has said he will quit if the war doesn’t resume in six weeks - at the end of the deal's first phase.

They accuse the government of doing a deal with the devil and say the main war aim of wiping out Hamas has not been achieved.

The ceasefire is due to come into effect on Sunday afternoon and it's expected that’s when the first three Israeli hostages held by Hamas will be handed over to the Red Cross.

Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails will be freed in exchange and Israel will begin pulling back its forces in Gaza.

But for now, the killing goes on. More than 100 Palestinians, including 30 children, have died in Israeli strikes since the deal was first announced on Wednesday, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Sam Hancock
Live page editor

With only a day to go until the historic ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas comes into place, we're resuming our live coverage of the situation in Gaza.

Israel's cabinet voted to approve the deal late on Friday, after hours of debate, with 24 ministers voting for it and eight opposing, according to local media.

The agreement - on track to take effect tomorrow - is split into three stages, and will see Hamas begin to release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Qatar - one of the key mediators in deal talks - says the Israeli hostages to be released during the first phase will include "civilian women, female soldiers, children, the elderly, and sick and wounded civilians". And overnight, Israel's justice ministry suggested as many as 737 detainees - men, women and children - could be freed.

We'll bring you more on what we know about the rest of the deal as the day goes on.

For now, let's focus on last night, when the deal was formally approved by the Israeli government. More on that to come from our team on the ground in the next post. Stay tuned.

Alys Davies
Live reporter

Image source, Reuters

Israeli ministers debated whether to approve a ceasefire agreement for hours before coming to their decision, to accept the deal, in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The deal - which will come into effect on Sunday - was voted through by 24 ministers, with eight opposing, according to Israeli media reports.

It is unclear who voted against the deal, but far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had said he would oppose it, threatening to quit the government in the event that it was approved.

The agreement had been voted through by Israel's security cabinet earlier on Friday.

The agreement is split into three stages, and will see Hamas begin to release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

While many Gazans wait in anticipation of the ceasefire on Sunday, Israeli bombardment of the territory has continued, with 116 people, including 65 women and children, killed since the deal was announced, the Hamas-run civil defence agency says.

Palestinians and Israelis alike must now wait to see if the ceasefire goes to plan.

We're pausing our live coverage, but you can read our full story on the Israeli government's approval of the deal here.

For more on the story:

• Gazans anxiously await ceasefire, fearing last-minute catastrophes
• On board aid convoy on its way to offer hope for Gaza
• Bowen: Israel has changed since Donald Trump's last term - has he?

Objections of far-right ministers not enough to vote down dealpublished at 23:30 Greenwich Mean Time 17 January

23:30 GMT 17 January

Jonah Fisher
Reporting from Jerusalem

Israel’s government debated the ceasefire agreement into the early hours of Saturday morning. But as expected, it did give the deal with Hamas its approval. The objections of far-right ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition were not enough to vote it down.

Implementation should now start as planned on Sunday. And more details have been emerging of exactly how that will work.

The names of the 33 Israeli hostages that Hamas will release have been published. As expected they’re mostly women – children and the elderly.

In return for each hostage Israel gets back – dozens of Palestinian prisoners will be released – and we now have the names of the first 95 of them.

If all goes according to plan – and that is still a big if – the Israeli strikes will stop and hostage and prisoner releases will take place, every few days, over a six week period.

Israel's government has approved the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, paving the way for the first phase of the agreement to come into effect on Sunday.

The deal will see Hamas release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a boost of aid to Gaza, the return of displaced people to the north of the territory, and Israeli troops withdrawing from populated areas, according to mediators Qatar and the US.

The approval of the deal by Israel's government comes hours after the country's security council also recommended approving the agreement.

Image source, Reuters

We're still waiting for Israel's government to decide whether or not to approve the ceasefire deal. Full details of the deal have not been officially announced, but a broad outline was announced on Wednesday by Qatar, external.

The deal will in effect pause the war while its terms are carried out, which includes Hamas releasing hostages, Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

However, it's unclear if the deal will mean the war is over for good.

One of Israel's key war aims has been to destroy Hamas's military and governing capabilities and while Israel has severely damaged it, Hamas still has some capacity to operate and regroup.

It's also unclear which hostages are alive or dead, or whether Hamas knows the whereabouts of all those who remain unaccounted for.

Hamas has demanded the release of some prisoners which Israel says it will not free. This is believed to include those who were involved in the 7 October attacks.

It is also not known whether Israel will agree to pull out of the buffer zone by a certain date, or whether its presence there will be open-ended.

Ceasefires between Israel and Hamas, which have halted previous wars, have been shaken by skirmishes and have eventually broken down.

The timetable and complexity of this ceasefire means even a small incident could turn into a major threat.

• Get up to speed on what we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal with our summary.

Mallory Moench
Live reporter

Image source, ​​Saba Nahed Alnajjar

​​Saba Nahed Alnajjar, 18, who lives in southern Gaza's Khan Younis, tells the BBC she felt “excited” but “afraid" when she received the news of the agreement on a ceasefire.

​“Relief because this tragedy and the brutal war of annihilation and bloodshed would end. Excitement that I might embrace my dreams and future after the end of the war. And fear of the feeling of missing those I lost in this war who will not return and those I will lose in what remains,” she says. ​​

She says there is a feeling of anxiety about what happens on Sunday, when the deal is set to come into effect.

​​Saba was supposed to enrol in a university in Algeria to study medicine the same month the war broke out. She lives with her family in a partially destroyed home, having evacuated multiple times. ​​

Image source, Reuters

Israel's government cabinet has been meeting for several hours to ratify the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal.

Some ministers in favour of the deal have voted early, including Israel's Education Minister Yoav Kisch, who says the cost is "very heavy, but we have an ultimate moral obligation to return our brothers and sisters home".

He says the goals of the war, including the collapse of Hamas and the elimination of any threat from Gaza to Israel as well as the return of hostages, had not changed.

Kisch also says the incoming US President Trump will "do great things for the security and future of the State of Israel".

The first three Israeli hostages are due to be released on Sunday, under the terms of the ceasefire deal agreed between Hamas and Israel. But what else should we expect in the first phase of the agreement?

• Full and complete ceasefire for six weeks

• Thirty-three Israeli hostages to be freed in total, with three on Sunday and the rest later, starting first with women and children and then men over 50

• Israel to pull out its troops from all populated areas of Gaza and allow in 600 aid lorries per day
• Thirty Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails to be released for every civilian hostage
• Israel to free 50 Palestinian detainees for every female Israeli soldier
• Israel to release all Palestinian women and children under 19 detained since 7 October 2023
• On day 16, detailed negotiations on the second and third stages begin

Image source, Reuters

We're still waiting for Israel's cabinet to formally approve the deal, as is widely expected, but another minister has confirmed how he will vote.

Israel's foreign minister says he backed the ceasefire deal during this afternoon's security cabinet meeting, and will do so again in the wider government vote.

In a post shared on Facebook, Gideon Sa'ar also writes that fellow Knesset member Ze'ev Elkin is also voting for the agreement.

"At the point in time we are in, we have to make this decision," Sa'ar says. "First and foremost to save Jews and Israelis. This is the essence of the role of the State of Israel.

"The release of our hostages is one of the goals of the war. Today we are 15 months and 10 days after the kidnapping. There is urgency."

Rushdi Abualouf
BBC News Gaza correspondent

A meeting has been held in Cairo to discuss mechanisms for implementing the ceasefire in Gaza, a senior Egyptian official has told the BBC.

The source says all necessary arrangements were agreed - including the formation of a joint operations room in Cairo - to follow up on the implementation of the procedures in the deal.

He added that the operations room will include representatives from Egypt, the Palestinian territories, Qatar, the United States and Israel to ensure effective coordination and follow up on compliance with the terms of the agreement.

The official indicated that this agreement comes within the framework of efforts made to ensure the cessation of escalation and achieve long-term stability in the Gaza Strip.

The official said they witnessed a positive atmosphere at the meeting and consensus among all parties.

The head of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) says a ceasefire is "only the starting point".

Speaking after a briefing with the UN Security Council on Friday,, external Philippe Lazzarini says: "We need rapid, unhindered and uninterrupted humanitarian access to respond to the tremendous suffering in Gaza.

"A ceasefire is only a starting point," he adds.

Lazzarini says Unwra is ready to scale up aid delivery, resume education and continue to provide primary healthcare in Gaza, after calling on "all parties to ensure the deal is fully implemented".

But he warns that pending Israeli legislation to end Unrwa's operations in the region on 28 January will be "catastrophic" - you can read more about this here.

Joel Gunter
Reporting from Jerusalem

Image source, EPA

Dr Abdallah Shabir is among the Gazans anxiously awaiting a ceasefire after 15 relentless months of war, as Israel's cabinet meets in Jerusalem to vote on whether to approve the deal.

"Time is moving slower than ever," the 27-year-old emergency doctor at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City says.

"Any moment you can lose your life," he adds. "Sitting at home, walking in the street - there is no warning."

Dr Shabir was on shift at the hospital on Wednesday night when the news of the ceasefire agreement came through.

He notes that there was a brief moment of joy but less than an hour separated the announcement from the beginning of a wave of air strikes that sent a flood of dead and wounded to the Baptist.

Every member of staff was summoned. "It was as bad as we have ever seen," Dr Shabir says. "Severe injuries, severe burns. Many dead, of course."

French President Emmanuel Macron says two French-Israeli citizens are among the first group of hostages due to be freed by Hamas if the ceasefire is approved by Israel's government, as expected.

Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are among the 33 hostages expected to be released in the first phase of the deal, Macron says in a post on X.

The ceasefire, if approved, will come into effect on Sunday and will also see the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails.

Three hostages are set to be released straight away, a Palestinian official previously told the BBC, with the rest of the exchange taking place over the six weeks.

Special complexes near the border with the Gaza Strip, have been set up to receive freed Israeli hostages, reports the Times of Israel's Emanuel Fabian., external

He says they'll be met by members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), doctors, psychologists and mental health specialists at one of the bases, either at Re'im, the Kerem Shalom Crossing, or the Erez Crossing.

From there, they will be taken to hospital where they will be able to meet their families, writes Fabian.

• As we reported a little earlier, the Israeli health ministry is also making preparations to treat returning hostages both short and long term