By Maayan Lubell and Nidal al-Mughrabi
JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) – A cease-fire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is set to take effect on Sunday morning with the release of hostages to follow hours later, paving the way for a possible end to the 15-month war that has upended the Middle East.
The agreement followed months of negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the United States, and came shortly before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.
A three-phase ceasefire will come into effect at 06:30 GMT on Sunday.
Its first phase will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 98 hostages – women, children, men over 50, sick and wounded – will be released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
They include 737 prisoners, women and teenagers, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that have killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the war began.
The three hostages are expected to be released Sunday afternoon through the Red Cross, in exchange for 30 female prisoners each.
After Sunday’s hostage release, lead U.S. negotiator Brett McGurk said, the deal calls for the release of four more hostages after seven days, followed by the release of three more every seven days after that.
US President Joe Biden’s team worked closely with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to push the deal.
As his inauguration approached, Trump reiterated his demand that a deal be reached quickly, warning repeatedly that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released.
POST-WAR GAZA?
But what will come next in Gaza remains unclear in the absence of a comprehensive agreement on the enclave’s post-war future, which will require billions of dollars and years of work to rebuild.
And although the declared goal of the truce is a complete end to the war, it could easily unravel.
Hamas, which controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, survived despite losing its top leadership and thousands of fighters.
Israel has vowed not to allow Hamas to return to power and has cleared large swathes of land inside Gaza, in a move widely seen as a move to create a buffer zone that will allow its troops to operate freely against threats in the enclave.
In Israel, the return of the hostages could do little to ease public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Oct. 7 security lapse that led to the deadliest day in the country’s history.
But hardliners in his government have already threatened to leave if the war against Hamas does not continue, leaving him squeezed between Washington’s desire to see an end to the war and his far-right political allies at home.
And if the war continues, dozens of hostages could remain in Gaza.
MIDDLE EAST SHOCKWAVES
Outside of Gaza, the war has rocked the entire region, sparking a war with the Tehran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement and bringing Israel into direct conflict with its archenemy Iran for the first time.
More than a year later, the Middle East has been transformed. Iran, which has spent billions building a network of militant groups around Israel, saw its “Axis of Resistance” destroyed and was unable to inflict more than minimal damage on Israel in two major missile attacks.
Hezbollah, whose vast missile arsenal was once considered Israel’s greatest threat, has been humiliated, its top leadership killed and most of its missiles and military infrastructure destroyed.
In the aftermath, the decades-long Assad regime in Syria was toppled, removing another major Iranian ally and leaving Israel’s military virtually unchallenged in the region.
But diplomatically, Israel has faced anger and isolation over the death and destruction in Gaza.
Netanyahu faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges and separate charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Israel reacted furiously to both cases, dismissing the charges as politically motivated and accusing South Africa, which brought the original case to the ICJ as well as countries that joined it, of anti-Semitism.
The war was triggered by an October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. Since then, more than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting in Gaza.
Israel’s 15-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians, and left the narrow coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble.
Health officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says more than a third are fighters.
