Israel must validate it this Thursday, January 16: after more than 15 months of war between the Hebrew state and Hamas, an agreement was finally announced on Wednesday by Qatar and the United States on a ceasefire in Gaza. After more than a year of blockage, indirect negotiations in Doha accelerated as Joe Biden left the White House, replaced Monday January 20 by Donald Trump. They resulted in the formalization on Wednesday evening of a three-phase agreement providing for a truce from Sunday January 19 and providing in particular for the release of 33 Israeli hostages.
News of this agreement was welcomed by many capitals and international organizations. For its part, the Israeli government has not confirmed the agreement, and the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip again reported on Wednesday evening the death of 20 people in Israeli strikes that occurred after the announcement. The “final details” are still being finalized, according to a press release published overnight from Wednesday to Thursday by the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter, however, has already thanked Donald Trump and Joe Biden, whose teams worked closely on the subject, for their help in the agreement for “the release of the hostages”.
A meeting of the Israeli council of ministers is expected during the day of Thursday to examine the agreement and, barring surprises, validate it, the head of government having a majority, despite dissensions. If Israeli President Isaac Herzog welcomed a “good choice”, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (far right) denounced a “dangerous” agreement and specified that his party’s ministers would vote against.
A first phase of six weeks
The main elements of the agreement were made public by the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani, whose country is one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas, and Joe Biden. In detail, this agreement therefore provides for entry into force on Sunday for a first phase of six weeks including a ceasefire, the release of 33 hostages and an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas.
“Phase one will include a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza and the release of a number of hostages held by Hamas, including women, elderly and injured,” announced Joe Biden. He assured that the agreement would result, from its first phase, in a “complete and total” ceasefire.
During this first phase of 42 days, “Hamas will release 33 Israeli captives including women […]children, the elderly, sick and wounded civilians, in exchange for prisoners held in Israeli prisons,” the Prime Minister of Qatar said at a press conference in Doha.
“Israeli forces will then be positioned along the Gaza border, allowing for the exchange of prisoners, as well as the exchange of bodies and the return of displaced people to their homes,” he said. “In return, Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,” said Joe Biden. Humanitarian aid must also increase during this first period, which must allow negotiations with a view to reaching the second phase, namely “a definitive end to the war”, continued the American president.
Reconstruction of Gaza
The second phase should also allow the release of the last hostages and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Joe Biden further detailed. The third and final phase must be devoted to the launch of “a major plan for the reconstruction of Gaza”, affirmed the American president without specifying the modalities, and to the restitution of the bodies of the hostages killed during their captivity. “A monitoring mechanism to monitor the implementation of the agreement will be set up in Cairo and will be managed by Egypt, Qatar and the United States,” said the Prime Minister of Qatar.
Already undermined by an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007, poverty and unemployment, the besieged Gaza Strip has been ravaged by war and the vast majority of its 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced and live in particularly harsh conditions. . At the announcement of this agreement, thousands of Palestinians exulted across the Gaza Strip. The October 7 attack launched by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of 251 people kidnapped on the day of the attack, 94 are still being held in Gaza, of whom 34 are dead according to the army. At least 46,707 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli military campaign of retaliation in the Gaza Strip, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry deemed reliable by the UN.