Israel’s military confirmed on Thursday that a truce with Hamas will continue, allowing further hostage and prisoner releases and the possibility of more a durable pause in hostilities, writes The Guardian.

There were frantic diplomatic efforts through the night to prolong the six-day halt to fighting in Gaza which was set to end at 7am local time (5am GMT) on Thursday. The current extension appears to be only for 24 hours, though this has yet to be explicitly confirmed by all parties.

The Israeli military’s confirmation came just minutes before the ceasefire was due to expire.

Just over an hour later, a statement from the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu office said the war cabinet had come close to ending the truce after unanimously deciding “that if an acceptable list of further prisoners to be released was not delivered by 07:00 this morning [Thursday], fighting would resume at once”.