Israel and Hamas reach a Gaza ceasefire agreement

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Israel and Hamas have reached an agreement on a multiphase ceasefire that commits them to end the war in Gaza, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch said at Sen. Marco Rubio's confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of state.

"I've just been advised that there's been a ceasefire announced in Gaza. Before we all celebrate, though, obviously we're all going to want to see how well that executes," Risch said.

The deal comes after weeks of intensive rounds of indirect negotiations in the Qatari capital Doha between Israel and Hamas, mediated by facilitators from the U.S., Egypt and Qatar. In an unusual twist, envoys from both President Biden's administration and President-elect Donald Trump's team were also there, pressuring the sides to close a deal.

Relatives and supporters of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip rally outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem on Jan. 14.

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Jamal Awad

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Xinhua via Getty Images

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Neither Israel nor Hamas have immediately confirmed the deal, but both sides had reached a tentative ceasefire intended to end more than 15 months of the heaviest fighting ever between the two sides, officials close to the negotiations told NPR.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there remained "several unresolved points," but hoped "the details will be finalized tonight."

Several technical details about the agreement remain unclear, including its start date, and it will require formal ratification by Israel's cabinet before it can take effect. Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said he was cutting short a trip to Europe to return to Israel for a government meeting on the ceasefire, expected to take place Thursday.

The country's culture and sports minister, Miki Zohar, said in a statement he would vote on the agreement Thursday with his cabinet colleagues. "It is the duty of every government minister to vote in favor of the deal," Zohar said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hamas had issued a statement that described a meeting between one of its senior leaders, Mohammed Darwish, and Ziad al-Nakhalah, the head of another armed faction that operates inside Gaza, the Islamic Jihad group. The statement said the two men's discussion had involved "stressing the exertion of all efforts to make this round of negotiations a success."

A deal in three phases

Many obstacles remain though, with fighting still ongoing. Palestinian officials reported Israeli attacks killed more than 50 people on Wednesday. But if all goes as planned, the deal is expected to take effect within days and play out in three phases over an extended period.

In the first phase, lasting six weeks, Hamas promises to release 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for a far greater number of Palestinian detainees. It's not clear how many are involved, since the group wants more detainees per each hostage freed alive, but has not said how many are still living. Most, but not all, are believed to be alive, according to Israeli officials.

The total number of Palestinians released from Israeli custody is expected to be around 1,000, according to a Palestinian official who was not authorized to speak to the media.

Israel will reduce — but not end — its military presence in Gaza during the first phase. Hamas will not release the final hostages and Israel will not fully withdraw from Gaza until a later phase. The timeframes involved were not immediately clear.

President-elect Trump commented on his social media platform that there was a deal involving hostages. "THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY," he wrote on his Truth Social network.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Israeli President Isaac Herzog published a photograph on social media that showed Herzog meeting at his presidential residence in Jerusalem with the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, in what the spokesperson said was "part of preparations for the hostage deal."

It's the first truce since November 2023

This would be the first formal ceasefire since a one-week truce in November 2023, which included an exchange of about 100 Israeli hostages held in Gaza and 240 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons. Subsequently, other hostages in Gaza were rescued or found dead.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages into Gaza.

The war has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who said the majority were women and children. The Israeli military says 405 soldiers have been killed in fighting since it invaded Gaza.

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