Israel and Hamas on Wednesday agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza, set to start Sunday, with mediators confirming the deal features a hostage launch after 15 months of devastating battle within the Palestinian enclave.
The complicated phased accord outlines a six-week preliminary cease-fire with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, the place tens of 1000’s have been killed.
Hostages taken by the resistance group Hamas can be freed in alternate for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
At a news convention in Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani mentioned the cease-fire would take impact Sunday. Negotiators are working with Israel and Hamas on steps to implement the deal, he mentioned.
“This deal will halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much-needed humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity,” U.S. President Joe Biden mentioned in Washington.
Despite the breakthrough, residents mentioned Israeli airstrikes continued Wednesday night in Gaza, the place greater than 46,700 individuals have been killed within the battle, based on native well being authorities. Strikes on Gaza City and northern Gaza killed no less than 32 individuals, medics mentioned.
A Palestinian official near the talks mentioned mediators had been attempting to get each side to cease hostilities earlier than the truce begins Sunday.
Palestinians responded to news of the deal by celebrating within the streets of Gaza, the place they’ve confronted extreme shortages of meals, water, shelter and gas. In Khan Younis, throngs clogged the streets amid the sounds of horns as they cheered, waved Palestinian flags and danced.
“I am happy. Yes, I am crying, but those are tears of joy,” mentioned Ghada, a displaced mom of 5.
In Tel Aviv, households of Israeli hostages and their associates rejoiced on the news, saying in a press release they felt “overwhelming joy and relief (about) the agreement to bring our loved ones home.”
Israel’s acceptance of the deal won’t be official till it’s permitted by the nation’s safety cupboard and authorities, with votes slated for Thursday, an Israeli official mentioned.
The accord was anticipated to win approval regardless of opposition from some hardliners in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition authorities together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who repeated his condemnation of the settlement Wednesday.
Netanyahu known as Biden and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to thank them and mentioned he would go to Washington quickly, his workplace mentioned.
In a social media assertion saying the cease-fire, Hamas known as the pact “an achievement for our people” and “a turning point.”
Defusing regional tensions
If profitable, the cease-fire will halt preventing that has razed a lot of closely urbanized Gaza and displaced many of the tiny enclave’s pre-war inhabitants of two.3 million.
That, in flip, might defuse tensions throughout the broader Middle East, the place the battle has stoked battle within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out battle between arch-regional foes Israel and Iran.
Phase one of many deal entails the discharge of 33 Israeli hostages, together with all girls, youngsters and males over 50. Two American hostages, Keith Siegel and Sagui Dekel-Chen, had been amongst these to be launched within the first part, a supply mentioned.
The settlement requires a surge in humanitarian help to Gaza and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres harassed the “priority now must be to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict.”
Both the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross mentioned they had been making ready to scale up their assist operations massively.
The pact follows months of tortuous, on-off negotiations carried out by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with the backing of the United States, and comes simply forward of Trump’s presidential inauguration Monday.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi welcomed the settlement in a publish on X as did leaders and officers from Türkiye, Britain, the United Nations, Jordan, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, amongst others.
On his Truth Social media website, Trump mentioned the deal wouldn’t have occurred if he had not received the U.S. election in November.
Trump’s Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff was in Qatar together with White House envoys for the talks and a senior Biden administration official mentioned Witkoff’s presence was essential to reaching a deal after 96 hours of intense negotiations.
Biden mentioned that the 2 groups had “been speaking as one” although Trump’s administration will largely deal with the implementation of the accord.
Perilous path forward
The street forward is complicated, with political minefields possible. Israeli hostage households expressed concern that the accord will not be absolutely carried out and a few hostages could also be left behind in Gaza.
Negotiations on implementing the second part of the deal will start by the sixteenth day of part one, and this stage was anticipated to incorporate the discharge of all remaining hostages, a everlasting cease-fire and the entire withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The third stage is anticipated to handle the return of all remaining useless our bodies and the beginning of Gaza’s reconstruction supervised by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.
Trump mentioned he would use the cease-fire deal as momentum to broaden the Abraham Accords – U.S.-backed agreements struck throughout his first presidency in 2017-2021 that normalized Israel’s relations with a number of Arab nations.
If all goes easily, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel should nonetheless agree on a imaginative and prescient for post-war Gaza, a formidable problem involving safety ensures for Israel and plenty of billions of {dollars} in funding for reconstruction.
One unanswered query is who will run Gaza after the battle.
Israel has rejected any involvement by Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007 and is formally sworn to Israel’s destruction. But Israel has been virtually equally against rule by the Palestinian Authority, the physique arrange below the Oslo interim peace accords three many years in the past that has restricted governing energy within the West Bank.
Israel launched the genocidal battle after the Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, 2023, which precipitated 1,200 deaths and took 250 international and Israeli hostages, based on Israeli tallies.
Israel’s battle on Gaza, nevertheless, has since killed over 46,700 individuals, largely girls and youngsters, based on Gaza Health Ministry figures, with a whole lot of 1000’s of displaced individuals struggling by means of the winter chilly in tents and makeshift shelters.
Source: www.dailysabah.com