After 15 months of devastating war, Israel and Hamas on Wednesday agreed to a ceasefire deal that will halt the conflict in Gaza and secure the release of the remaining 98 hostages held by militants in the Strip.
The multi-stage agreement – brokered and guaranteed by the United States, Egypt and Qatar – will be the first ceasefire since a week-long truce in November 2023. It is scheduled to take effect on Sunday.
If fully implemented, it would permanently end the war that began with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on the Jewish state.
How will the ceasefire start?
The agreement calls for an initial ceasefire for six weeks, during which both sides stop fighting. The agreement stipulates that the Israeli army will begin redeploying eastward outside urban centers across Gaza to what Israel described as “buffer zones” that it will control on the Palestinian side of the border.
More importantly, by the end of the first phase, the agreement also calls for Israeli forces to leave the vital road known as the Netzarim Corridor that bisects the Strip from north to south, and to leave Gaza’s border with Egypt within 50 days.
Under the terms, the Rafah border crossing linking Gaza to Egypt, which Israel seized last May and destroyed most of, is expected to reopen. This would revive the Strip's only link to the outside world that was not under Israel's direct control before the war.
Will the Palestinians be allowed to return to their homes?
Gazans will be allowed to return to what remains of their homes, including Palestinians who were displaced from northern to southern Gaza during the war, and whose number is estimated at hundreds of thousands.
An Israeli official said that Israel insisted on putting in place “security arrangements” run by an unnamed private company at the checkpoints leading from south to north. These measures are intended to ensure that militants cannot return to northern Gaza, from where Hamas launched most of its attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
The agreement also requires that Israel allow 600 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid daily into the torn-torn territories, half of which will be allocated to northern Gaza, where people are suffering from acute hunger, according to international observers.
The north was hardest hit by Israel's devastating retaliatory attack, which killed more than 46,000 people, according to health authorities in Hamas-controlled territory, and turned much of the Strip into rubble.
International aid groups said the infrastructure needed to deliver food, medicine, fuel and other goods to Gaza would need to be significantly strengthened, because the quantities stipulated in the deal would at least triple the amount entering the Strip.
Who are the hostages held in Gaza who will be released?
For Israel, the decisive win in the first phase of the agreement is the return of 33 hostages still held by Hamas, including children, civilian women, female soldiers, the over-50s, and the wounded.
It remains unclear how many people who meet these criteria are still alive, although an Israeli official said this week that “many, most of them” were still alive.
Under the agreement, three hostages are scheduled to be released on Sunday, followed by the release of at least three more hostages every seven days. Crucially for Israel, the living hostages will be released first, followed by the deceased at the end of the six-week period.
What about Palestinian detainees?
For every civilian hostage that is liberated, Israel is committed to releasing 30 Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, with the number increasing to 50 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli female soldier. During this phase, the focus will be on releasing Gazans who were arrested during the war, but who were not involved in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
More than 100 Palestinians serving life sentences on murder and terrorism charges will also be released, with some exiled to third countries.
It is expected that between 1,000 and 1,650 Palestinians will be released during this phase of the deal, depending on the number of living hostages who will ultimately be released from Gaza.
Do more details need to be agreed upon?
No later than the 16th day of the ceasefire, the two sides are scheduled to begin negotiating the second – and likely to be more difficult – phase: the release of the remaining 65 hostages, all men under the age of 50, including soldiers, In exchange for a full Israeli release. Withdrawal from Gaza and permanent ceasefire.
The number of Palestinian prisoners scheduled to be released for every Israeli soldier is likely to be much higher in this second phase, which is expected to last six weeks.
Negotiators also discussed a possible third phase of the deal under which the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinian militants would be returned. Reconstruction of Gaza It will begin under Qatari, Egyptian and United Nations supervision. But analysts said there was a growing possibility that the second and third phases would merge.
Could the ceasefire collapse?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he is not willing to completely end the war until he achieves “complete victory” and the complete “destruction” of Hamas.
This makes the resumption of fighting after the initial six-week truce a distinct possibility.
However, international pressure – including from the incoming US administration headed by Donald Trump, who claimed credit for the ceasefire – may force the veteran Israeli leader to continue implementing the ceasefire agreement beyond the first phase and stop the war completely.
Mapping and data visualization by Aditi Bhandari
