Israel’s government has backed a breakthrough deal for Palestinian Hamas militants to free 50 women and children held as hostages in Gaza in exchange for a four-day ceasefire.

The vote was confirmed in a statement from the Israeli government on Wednesday afternoon (Australian time).

It came after officials from Qatar, which has been mediating negotiations, as well as the US, Israel and Hamas had said for days that a deal was close.

The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also offered the potential for the truce to extend beyond the original four-day period. An extra day would be added for each 10 additional hostages available for release, it said.

“The release of every additional 10 hostages will result in one additional day in the pause,” it said.

But it also made it clear that Israel plans to resume its air and ground campaign once the hostage releases are over.

“The government of Israel, the IDF [Israeli military] and the security services will continue the war in order to return home all of the hostages, complete the elimination of Hamas and ensure that there will be no new threat to the State of Israel from Gaza,” it said.

The statement made no mention of the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. However, it is understood that this is also a key part of the deal.

Earlier reports suggested about 150 Palestinian prisoners — also predominantly women and children — would be released.

The deal was approved by the Israeli cabinet by a significant majority, a government source told CNN.

It is the first truce of a war in which Israeli bombardments have flattened swathes of Hamas-ruled 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.

Hamas is believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, taken when its fighters surged into Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people, according to Israeli tallies.

Before gathering with his full government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday with his war cabinet and wider national security cabinet.

Ahead of the announcement of the deal, 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 he 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.

A US official briefed on the discussions said ahead of the deal that it would include the exchange of 150 Palestinian prisoners.

The pause would also allow for humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The first release of hostages was expected on Thursday. 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.

Hamas has to date released only four captives: US citizens Judith Raanan, 59, and her daughter, Natalie Raanan, 17, on October 20, citing “humanitarian reasons,” and Israeli women Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, on October 23.

A senior US official has said they expect at least three American citizens – including a three-year-old child – to be among the hostages released by Hamas in the coming days.

The official said the child, named Abigail, will turn four on Friday. Her parents were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack.

The releases are expected to take place over up to five days.

The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which participated in the October 7 raid with Hamas, said late on Tuesday that one of the Israeli hostages it has held since the October 7 attacks had died.

– with AAP