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What are the Main Elements of the Gaza Ceasefire Deal?

A boy runs with a Palestinian flag atop a mound of rubble at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A boy runs with a Palestinian flag atop a mound of rubble at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
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What are the Main Elements of the Gaza Ceasefire Deal?

A boy runs with a Palestinian flag atop a mound of rubble at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
A boy runs with a Palestinian flag atop a mound of rubble at a camp for people displaced by conflict in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on January 17, 2025 following the announcement of a truce amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Here are the main elements of a Gaza ceasefire deal that went into effect on Sunday after 15 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and inflamed the Middle East. The start of the ceasefire was delayed for almost three hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Hamas to provide a list of the hostages who were due to be released during the day. An Israeli official said later that Israel had received the list, Reuters reported.
Details of the agreement have not yet been publicly announced by the mediators, Israel or Hamas. Officials briefed on the deal provided the following elements:
* A six-week initial ceasefire phase includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from central Gaza and the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
* The deal requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire, 50 of them carrying fuel, with 300 of the trucks allocated to the north, where conditions for civilians are particularly difficult.
* Hamas will release 33 Israeli hostages, including all women (soldiers and civilians), children, and men over 50. Hamas will release female hostages and under 19s first, followed by men over 50. Three female hostages are expected to be released through the Red Cross on Sunday after 1400 GMT, the Israeli Prime Minister's office said.
* Israel will release 30 Palestinian detainees for every civilian hostage and 50 Palestinian detainees for every Israeli female soldier Hamas releases.
* Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will inform the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) where the meeting point will be inside Gaza and the ICRC is expected to begin driving to that location to collect the hostages.
* Israel will release all Palestinian women and children under 19 detained since Oct. 7, 2023 by end of the first phase. The total number of Palestinians released will depend on hostages released, and could be between 990 and 1,650 Palestinian detainees including men, women and children.
* Hamas will release the hostages over a six-week period, with at least three hostages released each week and the remainder of the 33 before the end of the period. All living hostages will be released first, followed by remains of dead hostages.
* The implementation of the agreement will be guaranteed by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
* Negotiations over a second phase of the agreement will begin by the 16th day of phase one and is expected to include the release of all remaining hostages, including Israeli male soldiers, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli soldiers.
* A third phase is expected to include the return of all remaining dead bodies and the start of Gaza's reconstruction, supervised by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.

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Trump Comeback Restarts Israeli Public Debate on West Bank Annexation

(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
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Trump Comeback Restarts Israeli Public Debate on West Bank Annexation

(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP
(FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a remembrance event to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel - AFP

When Donald Trump presented his 2020 plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it included the Israeli annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank, a controversial aspiration that has been revived by his reelection.

In his previous stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for partial annexation of the West Bank, but he relented in 2020 under international pressure and following a deal to normalize relations with the UAE.

With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be "the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria", referring to the biblical name that Israel uses for the West Bank, AFP reported.
The territory was part of the British colony of Mandatory Palestine, from which Israel was carved during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Israel conquered the territory fin the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has occupied it ever since.

Today, many Jews in Israel consider the West Bank part of their historical homeland and reject the idea of a Palestinian state in the territory, with hundreds of thousands having settled in the territory.

Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the West Bank is home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.

- 'Make a decision' -

Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, insisted the status quo could not continue.

"The State of Israel must make a decision," he said.

Without sovereignty, he added, "no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity."

"We will do everything in our power to apply Israeli sovereignty, at least over Area C," he said, referring to territory under sole Israeli administration that covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Israeli settlements.

Even before taking office, Trump and his incoming administration have made a number of moves that have raised the hopes of pro-annexation Israelis.

The president-elect nominated the pro-settlement Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel. His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this would be "the most pro-Israel administration in American history" and that it would lift US sanctions on settlers.

Eugene Kontorovich of the conservative think thank Misgav Institute pointed out that the Middle East was a very different place to what it was during Trump's first term.

The war against Hamas in Gaza, Israel's hammering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, all allies of Israel's arch-foe Iran, have transformed the region.

The two-state solution, which would create an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, has been the basis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations going back decades.

- 'Nightmare scenario' -

Even before Trump won November's US presidential election, NGOs were denouncing what they called a de facto annexation, pointing to a spike in land grabs and an overhaul of the bureaucratic and administrative structures Israel uses to manage the West Bank.

An outright, de jure annexation would be another matter, however.

Israel cannot expropriate private West Bank land at the moment, but "once annexed, Israeli law would allow it. That's a major change", said Aviv Tatarsky, from the Israeli anti-settlement organisation Ir Amim.

He said that in the event that Israel annexes Area C, Palestinians there would likely not be granted residence permits and the accompanying rights.

The permits, which Palestinians in east Jerusalem received, allow people freedom of movement within Israel and the right to use Israeli courts. West Bank Palestinians can resort to the supreme court, but not lower ones.

Tatarsky said that for Palestinians across the West Bank, annexation would constitute "a nightmare scenario".

Over 90 percent of them live in areas A and B, under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority.

But, Tatarsky pointed out, "their daily needs and routine are indissociable from Area C," the only contiguous portion of the West Bank, where most agricultural lands are and which breaks up areas A and B into hundreds of territorial islets.