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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Israel and Hamas agree to ceasefire deal to pause Gaza war and release some hostages, mediators say

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
35 days ago
20250115
FILE - Demonstrators wave flags and signs during a protest demanding a cease-fire deal and the immediate release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Jan. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

FILE - Demonstrators wave flags and signs during a protest demanding a cease-fire deal and the immediate release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Jan. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

Ariel Schalit

Is­rael and Hamas agreed to a cease­fire deal, me­di­a­tors an­nounced Wednes­day, paus­ing a dev­as­tat­ing 15-month war in the Gaza Strip and rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wind­ing down the dead­liest and most de­struc­tive fight­ing be­tween the bit­ter en­e­mies.

The deal, com­ing af­ter weeks of painstak­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions in the Qatari cap­i­tal, promis­es the re­lease of dozens of hostages held by Hamas in phas­es, the re­lease of hun­dreds of Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers in Is­rael and would al­low hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple dis­placed in Gaza to re­turn to what re­mains of their homes. It al­so would flood bad­ly need­ed hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid in­to a dev­as­tat­ed ter­ri­to­ry.

Three of­fi­cials from the U.S. and one from Hamas con­firmed that a deal had been reached, while a se­nior Is­raeli of­fi­cial said de­tails are still be­ing ironed out.

All three U.S. of­fi­cials re­quest­ed anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the con­tours of the deal be­fore the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment by me­di­a­tors in Do­ha.

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden was prepar­ing to ad­dress the break­through agree­ment lat­er Thurs­day, of­fi­cials said.

Any agree­ment still needs to be ap­proved by Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s Cab­i­net but is ex­pect­ed to go in­to ef­fect in the com­ing days.

The deal is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er an ini­tial six-week halt to fight­ing that is to be ac­com­pa­nied by the open­ing of ne­go­ti­a­tions on end­ing the war al­to­geth­er.

Over six weeks, 33 of the near­ly 100 hostages are to be re­unit­ed with their loved ones af­ter months in in cap­tiv­i­ty with no con­tact with the out­side world, though it’s un­clear if all are alive.

It re­mained un­clear ex­act­ly when and how many dis­placed Pales­tini­ans would be able to re­turn to what re­mains of their homes and whether the agree­ment would lead to a com­plete end to the war and the full with­draw­al of Is­raeli troops from Gaza — key Hamas de­mands for re­leas­ing the re­main­ing cap­tives.

Many longer-term ques­tions about post­war Gaza re­main, in­clud­ing who will rule the ter­ri­to­ry or over­see the daunt­ing task of re­con­struc­tion.

Still, the an­nounce­ment of­fered the first sign of hope in months that Is­rael and Hamas may be wind­ing down the most dead­ly and de­struc­tive war they’ve ever fought, a con­flict that has desta­bi­lized the broad­er Mid­dle East and sparked world­wide protests.

Hamas trig­gered the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, cross-bor­der at­tack, which killed some 1,200 Is­raelis and took 250 oth­ers hostage. Is­rael re­spond­ed with a fierce of­fen­sive that has killed over 46,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials, dis­placed an es­ti­mat­ed 90% of Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion and sparked a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis.

More than 100 hostages were freed from Gaza in a week­long truce in No­vem­ber 2023.

The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, have bro­kered months of in­di­rect talks be­tween the bit­ter en­e­mies that fi­nal­ly cul­mi­nat­ed in this lat­est deal. It comes af­ter Is­rael and the Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah agreed to a cease­fire in No­vem­ber, af­ter more than a year of con­flict linked to the war in the Gaza.

Is­rael re­spond­ed with a bru­tal air and ground of­fen­sive that has killed over 46,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to lo­cal health of­fi­cials. They do not dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and mil­i­tants but say women and chil­dren make up more than half of those killed.

U.N. and in­ter­na­tion­al re­lief or­ga­ni­za­tions es­ti­mate that some 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 mil­lion peo­ple have been dis­placed, of­ten mul­ti­ple times. They say tens of thou­sands of homes have been de­stroyed and hos­pi­tals are bare­ly func­tion­ing. Ex­perts have warned that famine may be un­der­way in north­ern Gaza, where Is­rael launched a ma­jor of­fen­sive in ear­ly Oc­to­ber, dis­plac­ing tens of thou­sands of res­i­dents.

“The best day in my life and the life of the Gaza peo­ple,” Abed Rad­wan, a Pales­tin­ian fa­ther of three, said of the cease­fire deal. “Thank God. Thank God.”

Rad­wan, who has been dis­placed from the town of Beit Lahiya for over a year and shel­ters in Gaza City, said he will try to re­turn to his home­town, and “re­build my house, and re­build Beit Lahiya.”

He spoke to AP over the phone. His voice has been over­shad­owed by cel­e­bra­tions. “Peo­ple are cry­ing here. They don’t be­lieve it’s true.” —DO­HA, Qatar (AP)

_______

Sto­ry by NA­JIB JOBAIN, SAMY MAGDY and JOSEF FE­D­ER­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Josef Fe­d­er­man re­port­ed from Jerusalem. Samy Magdy re­port­ed from Cairo. Aamer Mad­hani, Zeke Miller and Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.


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