Category World News

Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire deal built off United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan aimed at ending Israel’s war on Gaza.

“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line”, Trump said on his Truth Social platform, announcing the ceasefire agreement late on Wednesday.

Under the first phase of the plan, Hamas and other Palestinian factions are required to release 20 Israeli captives held in Gaza who are believed to be alive, and the bodies of 28 others in the Palestinian territory. Israel is required to release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners it holds in its jails, based on a list shared by Hamas. This includes hundreds of people from Gaza whom Israel has arrested since the start of the war in October 2023.

In a separate phone interview with Fox News on its Hannity programme, Trump said Israeli captives held in Gaza could be released on Monday.

Israel and Hamas subsequently confirmed the agreement, though key differences remain over their interpretations of how Trump’s broader plan is to unfold.

The announcement followed three days of indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Senior officials from Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt and the US had joined the delegations from Israel and Hamas on Wednesday for those talks.

The ceasefire has not come into force yet, but the announcement of the deal prompted messages of congratulations and hope from regional and world leaders.

Here are some of them:

US President Donald Trump

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” Trump said on Truth Social, soon after he received a note from Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the middle of a press briefing, telling the president that a deal was close to being struck.

“All Parties will be treated fairly! This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”

Speaking to Sean Hannity on the phone on Fox News, Trump claimed that the world will see “people getting along and Gaza will be rebuilt”, adding that it is going to be a “different world” and that there will be “wealth spent in Gaza”.

“I’m very confident there’ll be peace in the Middle East.”

Trump has hinted that he might travel to Egypt as soon as this weekend.

“I may go there sometime toward the end of the week, maybe on Sunday,” he told reporters at the White House earlier on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

“A big day for Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement from his Jerusalem office.

“Tomorrow I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home,” he said, thanking Israeli soldiers for “their courage and sacrifice”.

He extended his “heartfelt thanks” to Trump and his team “for their dedication to this sacred mission of freeing our hostages”.

“With God’s help, together we will continue to achieve all our goals and expand peace with our neighbors”.

Hamas

“We highly appreciate the efforts of our brothers and mediators in Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, and we also value the efforts of US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war completely and achieving a full withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.

“We call on President Trump, the guarantor states of the agreement, and all Arab, Islamic, and international parties to compel the occupation government to fully implement its obligations under the agreement and to prevent it from evading or delaying the implementation of what has been agreed upon.

“We salute our great people in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and throughout our homeland and the diaspora, who have demonstrated unparalleled honor, courage, and heroism — confronting the fascist occupation projects that targeted them and their national rights. These sacrifices and steadfast positions have thwarted the Israeli occupation’s schemes of subjugation and displacement.

“We affirm that the sacrifices of our people will not be in vain, and that we will remain true to our pledge — never abandoning our people’s national rights until freedom, independence, and self-determination are achieved.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

“I welcome the announcement of an agreement to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza, based on the proposal put forward by President Donald J Trump. I commend the diplomatic efforts of the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in brokering this desperately needed breakthrough,” Guterres said in a statement.

“I urge all concerned to abide fully by the terms of the agreement. All hostages must be released in a dignified manner. A permanent ceasefire must be secured. The fighting must stop once and for all.”

The leader of the UN stressed the need for “immediate and unimpeded entry of humanitarian supplies and essential commercial materials into Gaza” so that the suffering could end.

“The United Nations will support the full implementation of the agreement and will scale up the delivery of sustained and principled humanitarian relief, and we will advance recovery and reconstruction efforts in Gaza,” Guterres added.

He mentioned how the peace talks should be the starting point to “achieving a two-state solution that enables Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security”.

“I urge all stakeholders to seize this momentous opportunity to establish a credible political path forward towards ending the occupation, recognizing the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people … The stakes have never been higher.”

Qatar

Qatar has led mediation efforts to end the war over the past two years. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani headed to Egypt to participate in the ceasefire talks, underscoring the urgency of efforts to end the war.

“The mediators announce that tonight an agreement was reached on all the provisions and implementation mechanisms of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to ending the war, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of aid,” Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said after the announcement of the ceasefire deal.

Talking about the agreement, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said on X that “details will be announced later”.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Starmer urged that the agreement on the first stage of Trump’s plan for Gaza must be implemented in full without delay.

“I welcome the news that a deal has been reached on the first stage of President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. This agreement must now be implemented in full, without delay, and accompanied by the immediate lifting of all restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza,” he said in a statement.

We welcome the agreement on the first phase of President Trump’s peace plan. This is also a reflection of the strong leadership of PM Netanyahu.

We hope the release of hostages and enhanced humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza will bring respite to them and pave the way…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Modi welcomed the first phase agreement, calling it a step towards lasting peace in the region.

“We welcome the agreement on the first phase of President Trump’s peace plan. This is also a reflection of the strong leadership of PM Netanyahu,” Modi said in a post on X.

“We hope the release of hostages and enhanced humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza will bring respite to them and pave the way for lasting peace.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters

“Hamas needs to release all of the hostages and Israel must withdraw their troops to the agreed-upon line,” Peters said in a statement.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Seated next to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a visit to the United Kingdom in September, United States President Donald Trump made clear he was eyeing a plot of land his country’s military once controlled nearly 8,000km (4,970 miles) away: Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

“We gave it to [the Taliban] for nothing. We want that base back,” he said. Two days later, this time opting to express his views on social media, Trump wrote: “If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram air base back to those that built it, the United States of America, bad things are going to happen!”

The Taliban, predictably, bristled at the demand and stressed that under “no circumstances” will Afghans hand over the base to any third country.

On Tuesday, the Taliban, who have ruled Afghanistan since their takeover of Kabul in August 2021, won a remarkable show of support for their opposition to any US military return to the country, from a broad swath of neighbours who otherwise rarely see eye-to-eye geopolitically.

At a meeting in Moscow, officials from Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan joined their Taliban counterparts in coming down hard on any attempt to set up foreign military bases in Afghanistan. They did not name the US, but the target was clear, say experts.

“They called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability,” said the joint statement (PDF) published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 7 at the conclusion of the seventh edition of what are known as the Moscow Format Consultations between Afghanistan’s neighbours.

Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran had opposed “the reestablishment of military bases” in a similar declaration last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. But the Moscow communique brought together a much wider range of nations – some with competing interests – on a single page.

India and Pakistan have long vied for influence over Afghanistan. India also worries about China’s growing investments in that country. Iran has often viewed any Pakistani presence in Afghanistan with suspicion. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have long feared violence in Afghanistan spilling over into their territory. And in recent years, Pakistan has had tense relations with the Taliban – a group that it supported and sheltered for decades previously.

The confluence of these countries, despite these differences, into a unanimous position to keep the US out of the region reflects a shared regional view that Afghan affairs are a “regional responsibility”, not a matter to be externally managed, said Taimur Khan, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).

“Despite their differences, regional countries share a common position that Afghanistan should not once again host a foreign military presence,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

That shared position, articulated in Moscow, also strengthens the Taliban’s hands as it seeks to push back against pressure from Trump over Bagram, while giving Afghanistan’s rulers regional legitimacy. Most of their neighbours are deepening engagements with them, even though Russia is the only country that has formally recognised them diplomatically as the Afghan government.

A symbolic, strategic prize

The groundwork for the Afghan Taliban’s return to power was laid in Doha in January 2020, under Trump’s first administration; they ultimately took over the country in August 2021, during the tenure of the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Yet in February this year, a month after taking the oath for his second term, Trump insisted: “We were going to keep Bagram. We were going to keep a small force on Bagram.”

Bagram, 44km (27 miles) north of Kabul, was originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. The base has two concrete runways – one 3.6km long (2.2 miles), the other 3km (1.9 miles) – and is one of the few places in Afghanistan suitable for landing large military planes and weapons carriers.

It became a strategic base for the many powers that have occupied, controlled and fought over Afghanistan over the past half-century. Taken over by US-led NATO forces after the invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, Bagram was a central facility in Washington’s so-called “war on terror”.

Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous terrain means there are limited sites capable of serving as large military logistics hubs. That scarcity is why Bagram retains its strategic significance, four years after the US withdrew from the country.

Kamran Bokhari, senior director at the Washington, DC-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, said he was sceptical about the US seriously planning any redeployment of forces to Afghanistan, despite Trump’s comments.

“The new US geostrategy is about military retrenchment. There is no appetite in Washington for any such military commitment, which would be a major logistical undertaking,” Bokhari told Al Jazeera. “Even if the Taliban were to agree to allow the Americans to regain Bagram, the cost of maintaining such a facility far outstrips its utility.”

At the same time, Bokhari said that the Moscow meet worked as an opportunity for Russia to show that it retains influence in Central Asia, a region in which its footprint has been eroded by the war in Ukraine and by China’s rising geoeconomic presence.

But the concerns about any renewed US footprint in Afghanistan aren’t limited to Russia, or even China, America’s biggest long-term rival. Amid heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Iran will not want an American military presence in Afghanistan.

But the concerns about any renewed US footprint in Afghanistan aren’t limited to Russia, or even China, America’s biggest long-term rival. Amid heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Iran will not want an American military presence in Afghanistan.

Other regional nations – India and Pakistan among them – are also eager to show that the neighbourhood can manage the vacuum created in Afghanistan by the withdrawal of US security forces, Bokhari said. Though a close partner of the US, India’s ties with Washington have frayed during Trump’s second term, with the American president imposing 50 percent tariffs on imports from India, in part because of New Delhi’s continued purchase of oil from Russia.

And then there are the Central Asian countries that share long, porous borders with Afghanistan – and fear their soil might be used by violent groups energised by any return of the US, militarily, to Bagram.

Central Asia’s security calculus

The four Central Asian countries that were part of the Moscow Format – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – together with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, form a bloc of six landlocked nations whose geography gives them a unique vantage point in regional politics, while also compelling them to seek access to warmer waters for trade.

Analysts argue an American presence in the region would be “undesirable” for many of these nations.

“This is not knee-jerk anti-Americanism,” Kuat Akizhanov, a Kazakh analyst and deputy director of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute (CAREC) said.

“A US base would put host states on the front line of US-Russia-China rivalry. Moscow and Beijing have both signalled opposition to any renewed US presence, and aligning with that consensus reduces coercive pressure and economic or security retaliation on our much smaller economies,” Akizhanov told Al Jazeera.

He added that regional actors now prefer regional groupings such as the Moscow Format, or even the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) led by Moscow and Beijing, for cooperation on security and the neighbourhood’s stability, to any US presence.

What do the Taliban and Afghanistan’s other neighbours fear?

Many of Afghanistan’s bigger neighbours have their own concerns.

“They fear that a revived US military presence could potentially reintroduce intelligence operations, fuel instability, and once again turn Afghanistan into a proxy battleground,” Khan from the Islamabad-based ISSI said.

“This is the lens from which regional countries now view Afghanistan: a space that must be stabilised through regional cooperation and economic integration, and not through renewed Western intervention or strategic containment efforts,” he added.

For the Taliban, meanwhile, Trump’s Bagram demands pose a dilemma, say experts.

Ibraheem Bahiss, a Kabul-based senior analyst for Crisis Group, said he believed that Trump’s Bagram demand was primarily driven by the US president’s “personal inclination” rather than any consensus within the US strategic establishment. “There might be a sense that Afghanistan remains an unfinished business for him,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.

For the Taliban, surrendering Bagram is unthinkable. “Kabul cannot offer Bagram as it would antagonise their own support base and might lead to resistance against their own government if [the] US comes here,” Bahiss said.

At the same time, Bokhari, of the New Lines Institute, said that the Taliban know international sanctions are a major obstacle to governance and economic recovery, and for that, they will need to engage the West, and especially the US.

“The Taliban are asking for sanctions relief, but the question is, what do they offer? Washington is more interested in Central Asia, to which it does not have easy access to. The region is otherwise blocked by Russia, China and Iran,” he said.

Trump has cited Bagram’s proximity to China and its missile factories as a reason for wanting to take back control of the base. Bagram is about 800km (about 500 miles) from the Chinese border, and about 2,400km (about 1,500 miles) from a missile facility in Xinjiang.

“It is not in the US interest in allowing China to monopolise the region,” Bokhari said.

Against that backdrop, the Bagram demand might be a signal from the US that it is eager to explore new ways to do business with the Taliban, Bokhari and Bahiss agreed.

Washington isn’t the only one reaching out to the group, which until a few years ago was largely a global pariah. In fact, the US is late – the Taliban have already been making major headways, diplomatically, in its neighbourhood.

Engagement, not recognition

Since taking control of a country of more than 40 million people in August 2021, the Taliban have faced international scepticism over their style of governance.

Afghanistan’s rulers have imposed a hardline interpretation of Islam and have placed several restrictions on women, including limits on working and education.

International sanctions have further weakened an already fragile economy, while the presence of multiple armed groups – including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – continues to alarm neighbouring states. The Taliban insist that they do not support the use of Afghan soil to attack neighbours.

Pakistan, once seen as the primary benefactor of the Taliban, says it has grown increasingly frustrated over the past four years at what it sees as the Afghan government’s inability to clamp down on militants.

The year 2024 was one of the deadliest for Pakistan in nearly a decade, with more than 2,500 casualties from violence, many of which Islamabad attributes to groups that it says operate from Afghan soil, allegations rejected by Kabul.

On Wednesday, several soldiers were killed in an ambush by the TTP near the Afghan border in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Still, Pakistan upgraded diplomatic ties with the Taliban in May. That month, Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi hosted his counterpart from Pakistan, spoke on the phone with India’s foreign minister, and flew to Iran and China for summits.

Muttaqi was in Moscow for the recent regional consultations that produced the criticism of Trump’s Bagram plans, and on Thursday is due to arrive in New Delhi for a historic, weeklong visit to India, a country that viewed the Taliban as a Pakistan proxy – and an enemy – until a few years ago.

Bahiss said the compulsion for regional nations to deal with the Taliban is driven by shared, pragmatic goals, which include keeping borders calm, guaranteeing counterterrorism assurances, and securing trade routes.

Akizhanov, the CAREC analyst, meanwhile, said that the wider regional interaction with Afghan officials “normalise working channels [with the Taliban] and reinforces their narrative that regional futures will be decided locally, not by outside militaries”.

However, “legitimacy remains conditional in capitals of each country, hinging on counterterrorism guarantees, cross-border security, economic connectivity, and basic rights, especially for women and girls,” said the analyst, who is based in Urumqi, China.

ISSI’s Khan agreed.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that Israel and Hamas have agreed on the first phase of a peace framework that aims at a Gaza ceasefire and the release of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.

The announcement follows from Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war on Gaza, which he announced last week, and which Israel, Hamas and most of the world broadly welcomed.

More than 67,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, described by many international rights organisations and a United Nations commission as genocidal in nature.

Here is what we know about the ceasefire agreement:

What happened on Wednesday?

Trump said Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first step of his Gaza ceasefire plan.

In a post on Truth Social at 23:17 GMT, he wrote that all captives would be released “very soon” and that Israel would pull its troops back to an agreed line as part of the deal.

Just hours earlier, Trump had told reporters he was ready to travel to the Middle East as soon as this weekend to help push the plan forward.

He had first unveiled his 20-point proposal on September 29, following a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, framing it as a roadmap to end the war in Gaza.

That possibility grew more concrete during a White House event on Wednesday, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the room and handed him a note.

After reading it, Trump told reporters: “I was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly.”

Concluding the event, Trump said: “I have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East.”

According to a photograph, the note urged the president to sign off on a Truth Social post so he could be the first to announce the deal.

What exactly did Trump say they agreed to?

Trump, in his Truth Social post, said that:

• Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of the peace plan
• All of the captives will be released very soon
• Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed-upon line
• That will be the first step towards a strong and durable peace
• All parties will be treated fairly
• Trump also thanked mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye

The announcement represents the most significant breakthrough Trump has achieved regarding the war, after eight months of attempts at brokering an end to the conflict. During his re-election campaign, the US president had described ending the war in Gaza as one of his foreign-policy priorities.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan… BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” – President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/lAUxi1UPYh

What remains uncertain?

The deal has raised hopes of ending the war, but important details are still unclear.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said “some serious disagreements” remain between Israel and Hamas, and crucial details are yet to be hammered out. They include the timing and the extent of an Israeli withdrawal, the makeup of the post-war administration for the Gaza Strip and the fate of Hamas.

“You could say that the initial phase of the initial phase is working out,” Bishara said. According to him, both sides appeared to agree on “some sort of parameters” for a captive-prisoner exchange.

“According to the [Trump] plan, … after Hamas hands over the captives, then the war should be over,” Bishara said. But, he added, “Israel says no, the war will be over only after Hamas disarms.”

How soon could the captives be released?

Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity programme on Wednesday that the captives could be released on Monday, including the bodies of those who have died.

A Hamas source said the surviving captives would be released within 72 hours of the Israeli government’s approval of the deal. Israeli officials indicated the process could be expected to start on Saturday.

Trump said he believed Iran would be part of “the whole peace situation”.

About 20 Israeli captives are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian factions had taken about 250 captives on October 7, 2023, when they attacked Israel. More than 1,100 people died during that attack.

How did Israel react?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a great day for Israel”.

“I offer my heartfelt thanks to President Trump and his team for their dedication to this sacred mission of freeing our hostages,” Netanyahu said in a statement late on Wednesday night.

“With God’s help, together we will continue to achieve all our goals and enhance peace with our neighbours.”

With the approval of the first phase of the plan, all our hostages will be brought home. This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel.

From the beginning, I made it clear: we will not rest until all our hostages return and all our goals…

How did Hamas react?

Hamas released a statement, saying the agreement stipulated “an end to the war on Gaza, the occupation’s withdrawal from it, the entry of aid and a prisoner exchange”.

It thanked Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye and Trump for their mediation efforts, and it also called on Trump and other parties to “compel the occupation government to fully implement the agreement’s requirements and not allow it to evade or delay the implementation of what has been agreed upon”.

It also said, “We salute our great people in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank, who have demonstrated unparalleled pride, heroism, and honour.”

“These great sacrifices and stances have thwarted the Israeli occupation’s plan for subjugation and displacement.”

Hamas, in the statement, also said that the group “will not abandon our people’s national rights: to achieve freedom, independence, and self-determination”.

How did people in Gaza react?

People in Gaza have expressed a mix of jubilation and caution according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, Abu Azzoum said families were cheering once they heard the news of the ceasefire after more than two years of devastation, destruction, displacement and broken promises.

“People are desperately waiting to be reunited with loved ones and even to have a moment to mourn what they have lost. But this ceasefire has not taken effect so far, and caution is highly required among civilians regarding the return to homes in areas that are still classified as an active red zone,” he said.

How did world leaders react?

Leaders and groups around the world have celebrated the negotiators signing off on first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

“I commend the diplomatic efforts of the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in brokering this desperately needed breakthrough,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the news and urged that the agreement on the first stage of Trump’s plan for Gaza must be implemented in full without delay.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said he hoped “the release of hostages and enhanced humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza will bring respite to them and pave the way for lasting peace.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said that while this is “an essential first step” to achieve peace, “Hamas needs to release all of the hostages and Israel must withdraw their troops to the agreed-upon line.”

What happens next?

Netanyahu said he will bring the agreement to his cabinet on Thursday for approval.

Once the vote is passed, the Israeli military will pull back. Seventy-two hours after that, Hamas is expected to begin releasing captives.

HA Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera that the “crucial point now is how much pressure” will continue, especially on Israel, to ensure the ceasefire holds.

The different phases of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza under the proposed deal are “crucial”, Hellyer said, noting that withdrawing goes against Israel’s long-stated plans for the Palestinian enclave.

Trump is expected to travel to Egypt in the coming days. Netanyahu has also invited him to address Israel’s parliament, and Trump told Axios he is “likely” to make the trip to deliver that address.