After 15 months of devastating war, Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a ceasefire deal that would end the conflict in Gaza and secure the release of the remaining 98 hostages held by the militants in the Strip.
The multi-phase agreement — brokered and guaranteed by the US, Egypt and Qatar — will mark the first ceasefire since a week-long ceasefire in November 2023. It is due to take effect on Sunday.
If implemented in full, it would permanently end the war that began with Hamas’ attack on the Jewish state on October 7, 2023.
How will the ceasefire begin?
The agreement calls for an initial six-week ceasefire, in which both sides stop fighting. The Israeli army will begin moving east from urban centers across Gaza, the agreement says, into what Israel has described as “buffer zones” it will hold on the Palestinian side of the border.
More critically, by the end of the first phase, the agreement also calls for Israeli troops to leave a critical route known as the Netzarim Corridor that cuts through the strip from north to south, and to leave Gaza’s border with Egypt within 50 days.
According to the conditions, the reopening of the Rafah border crossing that connects Gaza with Egypt, which Israel captured last May and mostly destroyed, is expected. This would revive the belt’s only connection to the outside world that was not directly under Israeli control before the war.
Will the Palestinians be allowed to go home?
Gazans will be allowed to return to what remains of their homes, including Palestinians displaced from northern to southern Gaza during the war, a population estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.
An Israeli official said Israel insisted that “security arrangements” run by an unnamed private company be established at checkpoints running from south to north. They aim to ensure that militants cannot return to the northern Gaza Strip, where Hamas carried out much of its attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
The deal also requires Israel to allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid into the devastated territory each day, half of which would be allocated to northern Gaza, where people are suffering from acute hunger, according to international monitors.
The north has been hardest hit by Israel’s devastating revenge offensive, which has killed more than 46,000 people and reduced much of the strip to rubble, according to health authorities in Hamas-controlled territory.
International aid groups say the infrastructure to deliver food, medicine, fuel and other goods to Gaza will need to be significantly increased, as the amounts specified in the deal would increase the amount entering the Strip at least threefold.
Which hostages held in Gaza will be freed?
For Israel, a key victory in the first phase of the deal is the return of 33 hostages still held by Hamas, including children, civilian women, soldiers, those over 50 and the wounded.
It remains unclear how many people who meet these criteria remain alive, although an Israeli official said this week that “many of them, most of them” are still alive.
According to the agreement, the three female hostages are to be released on Sunday, and after that at least three more captives every seven days. Crucially for Israel, the living hostages will be released first, followed by the deceased towards the end of the six-week period.
What about Palestinian prisoners?
For every civilian hostage freed, Israel pledged to release 30 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, increasing the number to 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier. During this phase, the emphasis will be on the release of Gazans who were detained during the war but were not involved in the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.
More than 100 Palestinians serving life sentences on charges of murder and terrorism will also be released, and some will be deported to third countries.
Between 1,000 and 1,650 Palestinians are expected to be freed during this phase of the deal, depending on the number of hostages alive who are eventually freed from Gaza.
Need to agree more details?
No later than the 16th day of the ceasefire, the parties are supposed to begin negotiations on the second — and possibly 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 withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent cease-fire.
The number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for each Israeli soldier is likely to be far higher in this second phase, which is expected to last six weeks.
Negotiators also discussed a potential third phase of the deal, in which the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinian militants would be returned, and the reconstruction of Gaza it will start under the supervision of Qatar, Egypt and the UN. However, there is an increasing possibility that the second and third phases will be merged, analysts say.
Could the ceasefire fail?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he is not willing to fully end the war until he achieves “total victory” and the complete “destruction” of Hamas.
This makes continued fighting after the initial six-week truce a distinct possibility.
Still, international pressure — potentially including from the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, who has taken credit for the truce — could force the veteran Israeli leader to continue implementing the ceasefire agreement beyond the first phase and end the war altogether.
Cartography and Data Visualization, Aditi Bhandari
