United States President Donald Trump has announced that Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of a peace framework that aims at a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The announcement follows from Trump\u2019s 20-point plan to end the war on Gaza, which he announced last week, and which Israel, Hamas and most of the world broadly welcomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 67,000 people have been killed in Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, described by many international rights organisations and a United Nations commission as genocidal in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is what we know about the ceasefire agreement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What happened on Wednesday?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump said Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first step of his Gaza ceasefire plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a post on Truth Social at 23:17 GMT, he wrote that all captives would be released \u201cvery soon\u201d and that Israel would pull its troops back to an agreed line as part of the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just hours earlier, Trump had told reporters he was ready to travel to the Middle East as soon as this weekend to help push the plan forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had first unveiled his 20-point proposal on September 29, following a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, framing it as a roadmap to end the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That possibility grew more concrete during a White House event on Wednesday, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the room and handed him a note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After reading it, Trump told reporters: \u201cI was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we\u2019re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they\u2019re going to need me pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concluding the event, Trump said, \u201cI have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a photograph, the note urged the president to sign off on a Truth Social post so he could be the first to announce the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, in his Truth Social post, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump also thanked mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The announcement represents the most significant breakthrough Trump has achieved regarding the war, after eight months of attempts at brokering an end to the conflict. During his re-election campaign, he had described ending the war in Gaza as one of his foreign-policy priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deal has raised hopes of ending the war, but crucial details are still unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Al Jazeera\u2019s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said \u201csome serious disagreements\u201d remain between Israel and Hamas, and crucial details are yet to be hammered out. They include the timing and the extent of an Israeli withdrawal, the makeup of the post-war administration for the Gaza Strip and the fate of Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou could say that the initial phase of the initial phase is working out,\u201d Bishara said. According to him, both sides appeared to agree on \u201csome sort of parameters\u201d for a captive-prisoner exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAccording to the [Trump] plan \u2026 after Hamas hands over the captives, then the war should be over,\u201d Bishara said. But, he added, \u201cIsrael says no, the war will be over only after Hamas disarms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Wednesday that the captives could be released on Monday, including the bodies of those who have died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Hamas source said the surviving captives would be released within 72 hours of the Israeli government\u2019s approval of the deal. Israeli officials indicated the process could be expected to start on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump said he believed Iran would be part of \u201cthe whole peace situation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About 20 Israeli captives are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian factions had taken about 250 captives on October 7, 2023, when they attacked Israel. More than 1,100 people died during that attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it \u201ca great day for Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI offer my heartfelt thanks to President Trump and his team for their dedication to this sacred mission of freeing our hostages,\u201d Netanyahu said in a statement late on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith God\u2019s help, together we will continue to achieve all our goals and enhance peace with our neighbours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hamas released a statement, saying the agreement stipulated \u201can end to the war on Gaza, the occupation\u2019s withdrawal from it, the entry of aid and a prisoner exchange\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It thanked Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye and Trump for their mediation efforts, and it also called on the US and other parties to \u201ccompel the occupation government to fully implement the agreement\u2019s requirements and not allow it to evade or delay the implementation of what has been agreed upon\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe salute our great people in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank, who have demonstrated unparalleled pride, heroism, and honour,\u201d Hamas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese great sacrifices and stances have thwarted the Israeli occupation\u2019s plan for subjugation and displacement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement said Hamas \u201cwill not abandon our people\u2019s national rights: to achieve freedom, independence, and self-determination\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, have expressed a mix of jubilation and caution, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Abu Azzoum said families cheered when they heard the news of the ceasefire after two years of devastation, destruction, displacement and broken promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople are desperately waiting to be reunited with loved ones and even to have a moment to mourn what they have lost. But this ceasefire has not taken effect so far, and caution is highly required among civilians regarding the return to homes in areas that are still classified as an active red zone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaders and groups around the world celebrated the negotiators signing off on the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI commend the diplomatic efforts of the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in brokering this desperately needed breakthrough,\u201d UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n British Prime Minister Keir Starmer <\/strong>welcomed the news and urged that the agreement on the first stage of Trump\u2019s plan for Gaza must be implemented in full without delay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Advertisement <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n India\u2019s Prime Minister Narendra Modi <\/strong>said he hoped \u201cthe release of hostages and enhanced humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza will bring respite to them and pave the way for lasting peace\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters <\/strong>said, while this is \u201can essential first step\u201d to achieve peace, \u201cHamas needs to release all of the hostages and Israel must withdraw their troops to the agreed-upon line\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu said he will bring the agreement to his cabinet on Thursday for approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the vote is passed, the Israeli military will pull back. Seventy-two hours after that, Hamas is expected to begin releasing captives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HA Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera that the \u201ccrucial point now is how much pressure\u201d will continue, especially on Israel, to ensure the ceasefire holds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump is expected to travel to Egypt in the coming days. Netanyahu has also invited him to address Israel\u2019s parliament, and Trump told\u00a0AXIOS he is \u201clikely\u201d to make the trip to deliver that address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next stage of Trump\u2019s plan calls for the creation of an international body, the Board of Peace, to oversee Gaza\u2019s post-war administration. Trump will chair the board, which will include other world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But experts warn that what comes next could prove far more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHamas has been offering all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war almost since the beginning,\u201d said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of Israel-Palestine at the US-based rights group Dawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIsrael has deliberately, openly and brazenly broken every ceasefire that was achieved up until this point,\u201d Omer-Man added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEnsuring that they comply by the terms, that they don\u2019t go back to the fighting and reimpose the siege \u2013 that they actually allow not only aid but commercial goods and people to flow across the border \u2013 is going to be something that I think we are not quite there yet,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" United States President Donald Trump has announced that Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of a peace framework that aims at a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners. The announcement follows from Trump\u2019s 20-point plan to end the war on Gaza, which he announced last week, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international","8":"category-muslim-world","9":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qeyadat.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What exactly did Trump say they agreed to?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What remains uncertain?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How soon could the captives be released?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How did Israel react?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How did Hamas react?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How did people in Gaza react?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How did world leaders react?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What happens next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n