Ceasefire begins in Gaza, three ministers leave Israeli government

(Patria) - A ceasefire has begun between Israel and Hamas, and a cessation of hostilities in Gaza has been reached.

The ceasefire ends more than 15 months of war in which nearly 47,000 Palestinians were killed.

The agreement was approved after more than 460 days of war in which Israeli forces killed more than 46,788 Palestinians and wounded 110,453.

Numerous Palestinians are celebrating the ceasefire in the streets, and many have already headed towards Gaza.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and two other ministers from his nationalist-religious party have resigned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, their party announced.

The Otzma Yehudit party is no longer part of the ruling coalition but said it would not try to bring down Netanyahu's government.

An Israeli official confirmed that the names of the first hostages to be released have been received.

One of them is British-Israeli citizen Emily Damari, and the other two are Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher.

The ceasefire agreement comes in three phases. In the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, 33 hostages are to be released over six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The remainder will be released in the second phase. The 98 hostages - some of whom are believed to be dead - include four people taken hostage in 2014 and 2015.