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• Prisoners to be freed within 72 hours
• Truce announcement sparks joy in Gaza
• Trump believes deal will lead to ‘lasting peace’, eyes Egypt trip
• Netanyahu faces scepticism
JERUSALEM: Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas signed an agreement on Thursday to cease fire and free Israeli prisoners in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, in the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the two-year war in Gaza that has upended the Middle East.
Israelis and Palestinians alike rejoiced after the deal was announced, the biggest step yet to end two years of war in which over 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, and return the last prisoners held by Hamas.
Hamas’ exiled Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya said he had received guarantees from the United States and other mediators that the war was over.
Israel’s government, meanwhile, was due to ratify the agreement, which would allow the ceasefire to take effect. Under the deal, fighting will cease, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza and Hamas will free all remaining prisoners in exchange for hundreds of prisoners held by Israel.
At the White House, Trump said he believed it would lead to “lasting peace”.
Fleets of trucks carrying food and medical aid would be allowed to surge into Gaza to relieve civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been sheltering in tents after Israeli forces destroyed their homes and razed entire cities to dust.
Hurdles remain
The accord, if fully implemented, would bring the two sides closer than any previous effort to halt a war that has evolved into a regional conflict, drawing in Iran, Yemen and Lebanon, and deepened Israel’s international isolation.
Much could still go wrong. Even after the deal was signed, a Palestinian source said the list of Palestinians to be released had yet to be finalised. The group is seeking freedom for some of the most prominent Palestinian convicts held in Israeli jails, as well as hundreds of people detained during Israel’s assault.
Hamas has submitted a list of Palestinian prisoners it wants released from Israeli jails in the first phase. The list names 250 Palestinians sentenced to life imprisonment and 1,700 others arrested by Israel since the war began, according to the Hamas source.
High-profile inmate Marwan Barghouti — from Hamas’s rival, the Fatah movement — is among those the group wanted to see released, according to Egyptian state-linked media.
However, Israel said Barghouti would not be part of the exchange.
Further steps in Trump’s 20-point plan have yet to be discussed, including how the shattered Gaza Strip is to be ruled when the fighting ends, and the ultimate fate of Hamas, which has so far rejected Israel’s demands that it disarm.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan said the Palestinian movement rejected the planned transitional authority. “No Palestinian would accept this. All the factions, including the Palestinian Authority, reject this,” Hamdan told Qatar-based broadcaster Al Araby.
Trump said the issue of Hamas surrendering its weapons would be addressed in the second phase of the peace plan. “There will be disarming,” he told reporters, adding there would also be “pullbacks” by Israeli forces.
Moreover, the US president, who had previously floated plans to forcibly displace the residents of Gaza, maintained that under the current framework, no Palestinians will be forced to leave. “Nobody is going to be forced to leave,” he said during a meeting with the president of Finland.
On the possibility of a Palestinian state in the future, which the 20-point plan suggests could happen if the right conditions are met, Trump said, “We’re going to see how it all goes. There’s a point at which we may do something that would be a little bit different, and maybe very positive for everybody.”
“We’ll be looking at that at the time,” he added. “I think we will get to that.”
Meanwhile, Netanyahu also faces scepticism from within his coalition. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would vote to bring down the government if Hamas is not dismantled. He also said he would vote against the deal, as expected.
But the announcement of an end to fighting and the return of prisoners was greeted with jubilation.
‘Tears of joy’
The announcement sparked joy in Gaza, much of which has been flattened by bombardment and most of whose residents have been displaced at least once over the past two years.
“Honestly, when I heard the news, I couldn’t hold back. Tears of joy flowed. Two years of bombing, terror, destruction, loss, humiliation, and the constant feeling that we could die at any moment,” displaced Palestinian Samer Joudeh told AFP.
“Thank God for the ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing,” said Abdul Majeed Abd Rabbo in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. “I am not the only one happy, all of the Gaza Strip is happy, all the Arab people, all of the world is happy with the ceasefire and the end of bloodshed.”
In Israel, thousands of people gathered in a Tel Aviv square to celebrate, some holding photos of prisoners still in Gaza and waving Israeli and US flags. Many wore stickers reading: “They’re coming back.”
“We have been waiting for this day for 734 days. We cannot imagine being anywhere else this morning,” said Laurence Ytzhak, 54.
However, Israeli strikes and shooting continued in Gaza on Thursday before the official start of the ceasefire. The Gaza health ministry said at least three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire during the day after reporting nine killed in the previous 24 hours.
There were already signs on the ground of Israeli troops preparing to pull back. An eyewitness near Nusseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip told Reuters that he had seen the Israeli army blow up an abandoned troop position and lower a crane used for surveillance in the area.
Near the Netzarim corridor, the main staging area for Israeli troops in central Gaza, the army fired dozens of smoke grenades, typically used to provide cover for troops on the move.
Prisoners to be freed within 72 hours
An Israeli government spokesperson said the ceasefire would go into force within 24 hours of government approval of the deal. After that 24-hour period, the prisoners held in Gaza would be freed within 72 hours.
Twenty Israeli prisoners are still believed to be alive in Gaza, while 26 are presumed dead, and the fate of two is unknown. Hamas has indicated that recovering the bodies of the dead may take longer than releasing those who are alive.
Trump said he would head to the region hopefully to attend a signing ceremony in Egypt and address the Israeli Knesset, its legislative body.
The deal received support from Arab and Western countries and was widely portrayed as a major diplomatic achievement for Trump, who cast it as a first step towards reconciliation in the wider Middle East.
Successful completion of the deal would mark a significant accomplishment for the Republican president, who has struggled to quickly deliver on his promises to bring peace to the Gaza conflict and to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Western and Arab countries were meeting in Paris on Thursday to discuss an international peacekeeping force and reconstruction assistance for Gaza once the fighting stops.
Netanyahu called the deal “a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel”.
But far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have long opposed any deal with Hamas. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Hamas must be destroyed once the prisoners are returned.
Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2025
