A FOUR-DAY pause in the Gaza fighting between Israel and Hamas is due to begin on Friday morning, according to Qatar, a day later than originally announced.

The Qatari Foreign Ministry said that work was continuing on the final details of the deal, which is intended to lead to Hamas releasing dozens of hostages and Israel freeing Palestinian political prisoners.

This follows a briefing to the United Nations security council that more than two-thirds of the Palestinians killed in the relentless bombardment of Gaza were women and children.

The diplomatic breakthrough to secure a pause in the fighting, which has killed more than 14,000 Palestinians and about 1,400 Israelis, promised some relief for the 2.3 million Gazans who have endured weeks of Israeli bombardment, as well as families in Israel fearful for the fate of their loved ones taken hostage during Hamas’s cross-border attack on October 7.

Today, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, which played a key role in mediating with Hamas, announced that the temporary truce would start on Friday at 7am local time.

He said the two sides had exchanged lists of those to be released, and that the first group of hostages held by Hamas, which includes 13 women and children, would be freed this afternoon. 

Increased aid for Palestinians will start to enter Gaza “as soon as possible,” Mr Ansari said.

With the truce likely to allow more light to be shed on the level of destruction in the coastal enclave, the UN security council heard today of the particular toll that the conflict is having on women and children.

UN Women executive director Sima Sami Bahous told diplomats that women and girls pay the highest price when armed conflict erupts. 

She said that 67 per cent of the more than 14,000 people killed in Gaza since October 7 are estimated to be women and children.  

“That is two mothers killed every hour and seven women every two hours,” she said. 

She told the security council: “Women in Gaza have told us that they pray for peace, but that if peace does not come, they pray for a quick death, in their sleep, with their children in their arms.  

“It should shame us all that any mother, anywhere, has such a prayer.”

UN children’s fund Unicef executive director Catherine Russell called for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire, saying that pauses are not enough for children to survive.

Ms Russell described Gaza as the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.