President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas had “signed off” on the first phase of a peace plan in Gaza following negotiations in the Egyptian Red Sea city of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The Israeli government ratified the deal on Thursday, after which a ceasefire came into effect on Friday.

Phase one of the deal will see all remaining hostages returned from Gaza, a number of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails and the partial withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces inside the strip.

Trump said the agreement represented “the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”

Intense and deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza City — the largest urban area in the Gaza Strip — and elsewhere in the devastated Palestinian territory continued into Thursday.

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