Is­rael and Hamas agreed at the last minute Thurs­day to ex­tend their cease-fire in Gaza by an­oth­er day. But any fur­ther re­new­al of the deal that has seen dozens of hostages and pris­on­ers re­leased could prove more chal­leng­ing since Hamas is ex­pect­ed to de­mand greater con­ces­sions for many of the re­main­ing cap­tives.

As word of the ex­ten­sion came, gun­men opened fire on peo­ple wait­ing for bus­es along a main high­way en­ter­ing Jerusalem, killing at least three peo­ple and wound­ing sev­er­al oth­ers, ac­cord­ing to po­lice.

The two at­tack­ers, broth­ers from a Pales­tin­ian neigh­bor­hood in an­nexed east Jerusalem, were killed. Hamas said they were mem­bers of its armed wing and cel­e­brat­ed the as­sault, but called it “a nat­ur­al re­sponse” to Is­rael’s ac­tions in Gaza and else­where. It was un­clear if the at­tack had been or­dered by Hamas’ lead­ers or if it would have an im­pact on the truce.

In­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure has mount­ed for the cease-fire to con­tin­ue as long as pos­si­ble af­ter near­ly eight weeks of Is­raeli bom­bard­ment and a ground cam­paign in Gaza that have killed thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans, up­root­ed more than three-quar­ters of the pop­u­la­tion of 2.3 mil­lion and led to a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken, who is on his third vis­it to the re­gion since the start of the war, said “my heart goes out” to the vic­tims of the Jerusalem at­tack. Blinken is ex­pect­ed to press for fur­ther ex­ten­sions of the truce and the re­lease of more hostages.

“This process is pro­duc­ing re­sults. It’s im­por­tant, and we hope that it can con­tin­ue,” he said.

The talks ap­pear to be grow­ing tougher, how­ev­er, with Hamas hav­ing al­ready freed most of the women and chil­dren kid­napped dur­ing the dead­ly Oct. 7 at­tack on Is­rael that trig­gered the war. The mil­i­tants are ex­pect­ed to make greater de­mands in re­turn for free­ing men and sol­diers.

Qatar, which has played a key role in me­di­at­ing with Hamas, an­nounced that the truce was be­ing ex­tend­ed Thurs­day. In the past, Hamas has re­leased at least 10 Is­raeli hostages per day in ex­change for Is­rael’s re­lease of at least 30 Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lowed a last-minute stand­off, with Hamas say­ing Is­rael had re­ject­ed a pro­posed list that in­clud­ed sev­en liv­ing cap­tives and the re­mains of three who the group said were killed in Is­raeli airstrikes. Is­rael lat­er said Hamas sub­mit­ted an im­proved list, but gave no de­tails.

Is­rael says it will main­tain the truce un­til Hamas stops re­leas­ing cap­tives, at which point it will re­sume mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions aimed at elim­i­nat­ing the group. The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion has told Is­rael that it must op­er­ate with far greater pre­ci­sion if it ex­pands the ground of­fen­sive to the south, where many Pales­tini­ans have sought refuge.

IN­CREAS­ING­LY TENSE HOSTAGE TALKS

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu is un­der in­tense pres­sure from fam­i­lies of the hostages to bring them home. But his far-right gov­ern­ing part­ners are al­so push­ing him to con­tin­ue the war un­til Hamas is de­stroyed, and could bolt his coali­tion if he is seen as mak­ing too many con­ces­sions.

The ini­tial truce — which be­gan Fri­day and has now been ex­tend­ed twice —called for the re­lease of women and chil­dren. Is­raeli of­fi­cials say Gaza mil­i­tants still hold around 30 women and chil­dren, who would all be re­leased in a few days if the swaps con­tin­ue at the cur­rent rate.

It’s not clear how many of the women might be sol­diers. For sol­diers and the men still in cap­tiv­i­ty, Hamas is ex­pect­ed to push for com­pa­ra­ble re­leas­es of Pales­tin­ian men or promi­nent de­tainees, a deal Is­rael may re­sist.

Is­rael says around 125 men are still held hostage, in­clud­ing sev­er­al dozen sol­diers. Thus far, Hamas has re­leased some men — most­ly Thai la­bor­ers.

An Is­raeli of­fi­cial in­volved in hostage ne­go­ti­a­tions said talks on a fur­ther ex­ten­sion for the re­lease of civil­ian men and sol­diers were still pre­lim­i­nary, and that a deal would not be con­sid­ered un­til all the women and chil­dren are out. The of­fi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause talks were on­go­ing.

So far, most Pales­tini­ans re­leased have been teenagers ac­cused of throw­ing stones and fire­bombs dur­ing con­fronta­tions with Is­raeli forces. Sev­er­al were women con­vict­ed by Is­raeli mil­i­tary courts of at­tempt­ing to at­tack sol­diers. Pales­tini­ans have cel­e­brat­ed the re­lease of peo­ple they see as hav­ing re­sist­ed Is­rael’s decades­long mil­i­tary oc­cu­pa­tion of lands they want for a fu­ture state.

With Wednes­day’s re­leas­es, a to­tal of 73 Is­raelis, in­clud­ing dual na­tion­als, have been freed dur­ing the six-day truce, most of whom ap­pear phys­i­cal­ly well but shak­en. An­oth­er 24 hostages — 23 Thais and one Fil­ipino — have al­so been re­leased.

Be­fore the cease-fire, Hamas re­leased four hostages, and the Is­raeli army res­cued one. Two oth­ers were found dead in Gaza. On Thurs­day, the mil­i­tary con­firmed the death of Ofir Tzarfati, who was be­lieved to be among the hostages, with­out pro­vid­ing any fur­ther de­tails. Is­raeli me­dia say the 27-year-old at­tend­ed a mu­sic fes­ti­val where at least 360 peo­ple were killed and sev­er­al oth­ers were kid­napped on Oct. 7.

Hamas and oth­er Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tants killed over 1,200 peo­ple — most­ly civil­ians — in their wide-rang­ing at­tack across south­ern Is­rael that day and cap­tured around 240. Au­thor­i­ties have on­ly ever pro­vid­ed ap­prox­i­mate fig­ures.

Is­rael’s bom­bard­ment and ground in­va­sion in Gaza have killed more than 13,300 Pales­tini­ans, rough­ly two-thirds of them women and mi­nors, ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which does not dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants.

The toll is like­ly much high­er, as of­fi­cials have on­ly spo­rad­i­cal­ly up­dat­ed the count since Nov. 11. The min­istry says thou­sands more peo­ple are feared dead un­der the rub­ble.

Is­rael says 77 of its sol­diers have been killed in the ground of­fen­sive. It claims to have killed thou­sands of mil­i­tants, with­out pro­vid­ing ev­i­dence.

IN GAZA, AN ANX­IOUS RESPITE

Dur­ing the pause in fight­ing, Pales­tini­ans in Gaza have been con­sumed by the search for aid and hor­ror at the ex­tent of de­struc­tion.

Res­i­dents de­scribed en­tire res­i­den­tial blocks as lev­eled in Gaza City and sur­round­ing ar­eas in the north. The smell of de­com­pos­ing bod­ies trapped un­der col­lapsed build­ings fills the air, said Mohmmed Mat­tar, a 29-year-old res­i­dent of the city who along with oth­er vol­un­teers searched for the dead.

In the south, the truce has al­lowed more aid to be de­liv­ered from Egypt, up to 200 trucks a day. But hu­man­i­tar­i­an of­fi­cials say it is not enough, giv­en that most now de­pend on out­side aid. Over 1 mil­lion dis­placed peo­ple have sought refuge in U.N.-run shel­ters, with many forced to sleep out­side in cold, rainy weath­er be­cause of over­crowd­ing.

At a dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter in Rafah, large crowds line up dai­ly for bags of flour but sup­plies run out quick­ly.

“Every day, we come here,” said one woman in line, Naw­al Abu Na­mous. “We spend mon­ey on trans­porta­tion to get here, just to go home with noth­ing.”

Jobain re­port­ed from Rafah, Gaza Strip, and Chehayeb from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Matthew Lee in Tel Aviv, Is­rael, Josef Fe­d­er­man in Jerusalem and Jon Gam­brell in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, con­tributed.

BY NA­JIB JOBAIN, MELANIE LID­MAN AND KA­REEM CHEHAYEB

JERUSALEM (AP)