The Gaza ceasefire and hostage release agreemen t is expected to take effect as soon as Sunday. But the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in over a year of brutal war between Israel and Hamas is rife with risks and raises more questions than it answers.
The deal presented to the Israeli Cabinet Friday after months of complex negotiations mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar is ridden with diplomatic ambiguity, leaving the issues that most inflame tensions between Israel and Hamas up for more negotiation. That has stirred fears that, failing a second agreement, the war could resume within weeks.
In besieged Gaza, the prospect of more humanitarian aid and a respite from constant bombardment still has lifted Palestinians’ hopes after 15 months of suffering through an Israeli military campaign has killed over 46,000 people, both civilians and militants.
In Israel, families have eagerly prepared to welcome home relatives Hamas took captive during its Oct. 7 cross-border attack that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and resulted in the abduction of 250 others.
Even as Israel and Hamas quarreled over final sticking points earlier this week, American and Qatari officials said the first phase of the deal — lasting 42 days — should take hold first thing Sunday.
It involves the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza — women, children men over age 50 and sick or wounded people — in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Hamas has agreed to free three female hostages on Day 1 of the deal, four more on Day 7 and the remaining 26 over the following five weeks of this first stage.
The first stage also requires that 600 humanitarian relief trucks enter the enclave each day — a significant increase from the current trickle of aid deliveries decried by the United Nations as insufficient to cover people’s basic needs.
In Gaza, Palestinians can expect the fighting to stop and the Israeli army to withdraw to the east, away from populated areas, allowing civilians to return to their shattered homes. Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced.
The majority of Palestinian prisoners slated for release, according to a partial list released by the Israeli Justice Ministry on Friday, are women and minors jailed in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem for non-violent offenses.
Diplomats have sketched out further phases of the agreement in hopes that the immediate ceasefire can allow Israel and Hamas to work toward a lasting end to the war and the reconstruction of devastated Gaza.
The second phase of the deal is meant to be worked out before the first one ends. To convince both sides to sign on to the ceasefire, foreign mediators seem to have left that second phase particularly ambiguous.
The broad outline says all remaining hostages in Gaza, both alive and dead, are to be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the strip and a “sustainable calm.”
The talks are bound to be tricky, given the participants’ antagonisms and sharply different goals.
Israel says it won’t agree to a complete withdrawal until Hamas’ military and political capabilities are eliminated, ensuring it can no longer rule.
Hamas is badly battered but still controls much of Gaza and has said that it will only agree to a deal that permanently ends the war. It has refused to hand over the last Israeli hostages — around 100 are still in Gaza — until Israel removes all of its troops.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping to persuade his far-right allies to remain in his wobbly governing coalition despite their opposition to a ceasefire, has offered the public no guarantees that Israel will make it to Phase 2. That leaves many families afraid that loved ones still in Gaza will be left behind.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the hardline minister for national security, announced Thursday night that his ultranationalist Jewish Power party would quit the government over the ceasefire, and only return if fighting resumed. Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also demanded that Netanyahu promise to continue the war in Gaza after freeing some of the hostages as a condition of Smotrich’s Religious Zionism staying in the government.
Few believe that the ceasefire will address the underlying causes of the war.
“No one can promise that Hamas will keep its word and execute the second stage,” Amos Harel, a military affairs columnist for the Israeli paper Haaretz, wrote on Friday. “And many are suspicious of Netanyahu’s intentions.”
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