Gaza Jan 15: Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages, two officials involved in the talks said on Tuesday.Mediator Qatar said the negotiations were at the “closest point” yet to sealing a deal.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposed agreement, and an Egyptian official and a Hamas official confirmed its authenticity. An Israeli official said progress has been made, but the details are being finalized. The plan would need to be submitted to the Israeli Cabinet for final approval.
All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent the past year trying to mediate an end the 15-month war and secure the release dozens of hostages captured in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack that triggered it.
Some 100 Israelis are still captive inside Gaza, and the military believes at least a third them are dead.
Officials have expressed mounting optimism that they can conclude an agreement ahead of the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, whose Mideast envoy has joined the negotiations.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said at a weekly briefing Tuesday that the ongoing negotiations are positive and productive, while declining to get into the details of the sensitive talks.
“Today, we are at the closest point ever to having a deal,” he said.
Hamas, meanwhile, said in a statement that the ongoing negotiations had reached their “final stage”.
The offensive has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, with hundreds of thousands packed into tent camps along the coast where hunger is widespread.
Israeli strikes across Gaza overnight and into Tuesday killed at least 18 Palestinians, including two women and four children, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired two missiles at Israel, setting off sirens and sending people racing into shelters. No one was wounded by the projectiles.
A three-phase agreement
The three-phase agreement — based on a framework laid out by US President Joe Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council — would begin with the gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children, older adults and wounded civilians in exchange for potentially hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.
Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each of whom would be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 convicted militants who are serving life sentences. By the end of the first phase, all civilian captives — living or dead — will have been released.
During this first, 42-day phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from population centers, Palestinians would be allowed to start returning to their homes in northern Gaza and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid, with some 600 trucks entering each day.
Details of the second phase still must be negotiated during the first. Those details remain difficult to resolve — and the deal does not include written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue until a deal is reached. That leaves the potential for Israel to resume its military campaign after the first phase ends.