Middle East War/ Netanyahu: Agreement reached for hostage release

2025-01-17 07:49:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Middle East War/ Netanyahu: Agreement reached for hostage release

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said an agreement had been reached to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip, after previously stating there were last-minute obstacles to finalizing a ceasefire that would pause the 15-month war.

Netanyahu said he will convene his security cabinet later on Friday and then the government will approve the long-awaited deal to release the hostages.

Netanyahu's statement appears to pave the way for Israel to approve the deal, which calls for a pause in fighting in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages held by radical fighters in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The deal would also allow hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their homes in Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister said he has instructed a special task force to prepare to receive the hostages who will be returned from Gaza, and their families have been informed that an agreement has been reached.

On Thursday, Israel postponed a vote on the ceasefire, blaming Hamas - the Palestinian group designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union - for last-minute disagreements, as rising tensions within Netanyahu's ruling coalition added to concerns about the agreement's implementation.

On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden and the mediator, Qatar, announced that the deal was complete.

Netanyahu's office accused Hamas of rejecting parts of the deal in an attempt to extract further concessions. At a press conference on Thursday, Israeli government spokesman David Menzer said Hamas had made new demands. According to him, these demands concerned the deployment of Israeli forces in the Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow strip of land on the border with Egypt that Israeli troops took control of in May last year.

Hamas rejected these accusations, and Izzat al-Rishq, a senior official in the group, stated that Hamas is "committed to the ceasefire agreement, which was made public by the mediators."

The ceasefire deal has faced fierce resistance from Netanyahu's coalition partners, on whom his stay in power depends. On Thursday, hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign from the government if Israel approved the ceasefire deal.

The ceasefire agreement would pause the 15-month war, which has roiled the Middle East and sparked protests around the world.

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and kidnapping nearly 250 others.

Israel responded with a devastating offensive that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

What is known about the ceasefire agreement?

The details of the agreement have not yet been officially announced, but there is an overview of what it will look like according to comments from officials and media reports based on published drafts of the agreement.

The first phase will begin with a six-week ceasefire, during which Israeli troops will gradually withdraw from central Gaza.

During this phase, Hamas will release 33 hostages – expected to be mostly women, the elderly and the sick – in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Some hostages were released in November 2023 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas still holds 94 hostages, but Israel believes only 60 of them are still alive.

Palestinians displaced by the war will be allowed to return to their homes in the first phase of the deal, while humanitarian aid will begin to enter the Hamas-run enclave. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents were forced to flee their homes during the war.

Further negotiations for the second and third phases of the agreement will begin on the 16th day of the agreement's implementation, and analysts say this could be the first real challenge to the longevity of the ceasefire.

The second phase of the agreement includes the release of the remaining hostages and, most importantly, the end of the war./REL