Israel said Thursday that all parties have signed the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, adding that the release of the captives would “bring the end to this war”.
The agreement in Egypt follows a 20-point peace plan for Gaza announced last month by US President Donald Trump, after more than two years of war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
US envoy Steve Witkoff said the American leader would travel to Egypt next week for an event celebrating the conclusion of the agreement, with Trump himself saying: “I’m going to try and make a trip over… We’re working on the timing, the exact timing.”
Despite celebrations in Israel and Gaza and a flood of messages from world leaders hailing the deal, numerous issues remain unsettled in the negotiations, including the plan’s call for Hamas to disarm and a proposed interim “Board of Peace” led by Trump himself to oversee Gaza’s administration.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the Palestinian Islamist movement rejected the planned transitional authority.
“No Palestinian would accept this. All the factions, including the Palestinian Authority, reject this,” Hamdan told Qatar-based broadcaster Al Araby.
Trump said the issue of Hamas surrendering its weapons would be addressed in the second phase of the peace plan.
“There will be disarming,” he told reporters, adding there would also be “pullbacks” by Israeli forces.
A ceasefire was to take hold in devastated Gaza within 24 hours of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convening his security cabinet for a meeting that was scheduled to begin at 1400 GMT, the government said.
“The final draft of phase one was signed this morning in Egypt by all parties to release all the hostages,” government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists.
“All of our hostages, the living and the deceased, will be released 72 hours later, which will bring us to Monday,” she said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the release of the hostages “should bring the end to this war”, speaking in an interview with Fox News.
At 1500 GMT, Israel’s full cabinet was set to meet to approve the deal, under which the military should withdraw from Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages.
A source within Hamas told AFP the group would exchange 20 living hostages all at the same time for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal’s first phase.
The deal also envisions a surge of aid into Gaza, where the UN has declared famine.
– ‘Tears of joy’ –
The announcement sparked joy in Gaza, much of which has been flattened by bombardment and most of whose residents have been displaced at least once over the past two years.
“Honestly, when I heard the news, I couldn’t hold back. Tears of joy flowed. Two years of bombing, terror, destruction, loss, humiliation, and the constant feeling that we could die at any moment,” displaced Palestinian Samer Joudeh told AFP.
In Israel, thousands of people gathered in a Tel Aviv square to celebrate, some holding photos of hostages still in Gaza and waving Israeli and US flags.
Many wore stickers reading: “They’re coming back.”
“We have been waiting for this day for 734 days. We cannot imagine being anywhere else this morning,” said Laurence Ytzhak, 54.
The deal was thrashed out in indirect negotiations behind closed doors in a conference centre in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh.
While Arab leaders including Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said they hoped the ceasefire would lead to a permanent solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, there was no indication the talks were addressing any of the deeper issues at stake.
– ‘Convince Israelis to deescalate’ –
Hamas has submitted a list of Palestinian prisoners it wants released from Israeli jails in the first phase.
The list names 250 Palestinians sentenced to life imprisonment and 1,700 others arrested by Israel since the war began, according to the Hamas source.
High-profile inmate Marwan Barghouti — from Hamas’s rival, the Fatah movement — is among those the group wanted to see released, according to Egyptian state-linked media.
However, Israel said Barghouti would not be part of the exchange.
The talks were taking place under the shadow of the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 people hostage into Gaza, where 47 remain, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 67,194 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.
The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under Hamas’s authority, reported several strikes on the territory after the announcement of the deal.
AFP journalists and witnesses said more explosions and artillery fire could be heard Thursday evening in southern and central Gaza.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said mediators must “endeavour to convince the Israelis to deescalate or cease fire until the agreement we reached is signed”.
Pressure to end the war has escalated massively in recent weeks, and a UN probe last month accused Israel of genocide, a charge the government rejected as “distorted and false”.
Hamas has also been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Countries around the world welcomed the deal, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying: “The fighting must stop once and for all.”
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