Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire deal that would bring about a much-needed pause in fighting in Gaza after 15 months of war and secure the release of 33 hostages held there, the governments of Qatar and the United States announced on Wednesday.
The deal—which is based on a proposal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden in May 2024—will see an initial six-week cessation in fighting and a surge of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
Israel and Hamas have reached a cease-fire deal that would bring about a much-needed pause in fighting in Gaza after 15 months of war and secure the release of 33 hostages held there, the governments of Qatar and the United States announced on Wednesday.
The deal—which is based on a proposal put forward by U.S. President Joe Biden in May 2024—will see an initial six-week cessation in fighting and a surge of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave.
Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons will be released in the exchange. The agreement will also see the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, with the broader goal of laying the groundwork for a permanent end to the fighting under the second and third phases of the deal.
The agreement is expected to come into force on Sunday, Jan. 19, on the eve of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
“At long last, I can announce a cease-fire and hostage deal has been reached,” said Biden, who spoke to the press flanked by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris in what is likely to be his last major foreign-policy speech as president.
“The road to this deal has not been easy,” said Biden, whose senior officials have made dozens of trips to the region over the past 15 months in a bid to secure a deal.
The president cited the storied U.S. diplomat George Mitchell, who once described diplomacy as “700 days of failure and one day of success.”
Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim confirmed to Foreign Policy that a deal had been reached.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday that remaining details of the deal were still being finalized. Israel’s security cabinet is set to meet at 11 a.m. local time on Thursday to approve the deal, according to reports in the Hebrew press. The agreement would then go to the country’s parliament for a vote.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog called for the government to approve the deal in a speech on Wednesday.
Herzog met on Wednesday with Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Red Cross, which will facilitate the handover of hostages.
Previous attempts to secure a cease-fire deal in recent months have fallen apart at the eleventh hour as Hamas and Israeli officials struggled to reach an agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Senior U.S. officials have been signaling since Monday that a deal was imminent.
Trump, who warned Hamas that there would be “hell to pay” if hostages weren’t released by his inauguration on Jan. 20, became the first leader to confirm that an agreement had been reached in a post on Truth Social. “WE HAVE A DEAL FOR THE HOSTAGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY. THANK YOU!” Trump said.
In a speech announcing the deal, Qatari rime Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani—whose country has brokered talks between Israel and Hamas—said that negotiators had seen momentum start to build toward securing a deal in the past month.
Al Thani said that the involvement of Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was a “clear signal” of enduring U.S. interest in reaching an agreement, and the Qatari official credited officials from both administrations for the deal.
A monitoring mechanism based in Cairo and led by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States will observe and report on any violations of the agreement, Al Thani said.
The cease-fire, which is poised to bring about the first break in the fighting in more than a year, is expected to play out in three phases. Biden emphasized in his remarks on Wednesday that there are a number of details to be negotiated to move from phase one to phase two.
“But the plan says if negotiations take longer than six weeks, the cease-fire will continue as long as the negotiations continue,” the president added. Phase two will see all remaining living hostages released and all remaining Israeli forces withdrawn from the enclave. Additional negotiations during this stage will focus on bringing about a “permanent end to the war,” Biden said. The final phase will involve discussions on Gaza reconstruction efforts and the return of the remains of dead hostages.
More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the enclave. Some 98 hostages are believed to still be held in Gaza, and Israeli officials estimate that around half are alive.
Biden also said he was “confident” that the deal would hold, despite the many challenges that lay ahead in terms of maintaining peace between two bitter enemies with fundamentally conflicting visions for the future of Gaza.
At the end of a press conference, a reporter asked Biden whether he or Trump deserved credit for the deal. Biden turned and smiled. “Is that a joke?” he said.
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