Hamas Accepts Draft Agreement for Gaza Ceasefire

Qatar says Israel and Hamas are at the “closest point” yet to agreeing on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages.

Tue Jan 14 2025
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KEY POINTS

  • The first phase of the Gaza ceasefire would last 42 days.
  • The deal includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
  • Mediators give assures Hamas of continued negotiations during the first phase.
  • Over 46,000 Palestinians were killed in 15 months of Israeli bombardment.

DOHA, Qatar: Palestinian group Hamas on Tuesday accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages, officials involved in the ongoing talks said. The agreement is set to be implemented in three phases, the first of which would last 42 days.

While the Palestinian group had agreed to the proposed agreement, the last details were being finalised today, The Associated Press reported citing officials. The plan would now need to be submitted to the Israeli cabinet for final approval.

Meanwhile, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari also confirmed that the negotiations are at their “closest point” yet to sealing a deal and that previous obstacles had now been overcome.

Earlier on Tuesday, Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, told The Telegraph that the group was looking at the “final draft” of the proposal.

Both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration have been working “in tandem” to ensure the agreement is signed, according to Majed al-Ansari.

Spokesman Majed al-Ansari said at a weekly briefing on Tuesday that the ongoing negotiations are positive and productive while declining to get into the details of the sensitive talks.

Qatar has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas in over a year of indirect talks and is currently hosting the negotiations.

An Israeli official said progress has been made, but the details are being finalized, The Associated Press reported.

Egypt and Qatar along with the United States have spent the past year trying to mediate an end to the now-15-month war on Gaza and secure the release of hostages.

US officials have expressed mounting optimism that they can conclude an agreement ahead of the 20 January inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, whose Middle East envoy has joined the negotiations.

Israel intensifies Gaza bombardment

Meanwhile, the Israeli bombardment campaign has reduced large areas of the besieged Palestinian territory to rubble and displaced around 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, with hundreds of thousands packed into tent camps along the coast, where hunger is widespread.

The health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that 61 people were killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall war death toll to 46,645.

The ministry said at least 110,012 people have been wounded in more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment campaign since October 7, 2023.

Two strikes in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah overnight and into Tuesday (13-14 January) killed at least 18 Palestinians, including two women and their four children. One of the women was pregnant and the baby did not survive, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

Another 12 people were killed in two strikes on the southern city of Khan Younis, according to the European Hospital.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians in shelters and tent camps for the displaced.

A study published in the Lancet has found that the true number of people who have died directly from war in Gaza is around 41% higher than the official figures reported by Palestine’s health ministry.

The health ministry reported that 37 877 people had died during the first nine months of Israel’s air and ground operations in Gaza, but the real figure is closer to 64 260, the researchers estimated after analysing several overlapping datasets.

The estimated total would mean that nearly 3% of Gaza’s population was killed between October 2023 and June 2024.

Gaza ceasefire agreement

The three-phase agreement, based on a framework laid out by US President Joe Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council, includes the gradual release of 33 Israeli hostages, over a six-week period, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.

During this first, 42-day phase, Israeli forces would withdraw from population centres, Palestinians would be allowed to start returning to their homes in northern Gaza and there should be a surge of humanitarian aid, with some 600 trucks entering each day.

ALSO READ: Hamas, Israel “on the cusp” of Closing a Deal, says Senior US official 

The deal does not include written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue until a deal is reached. That leaves the potential for Israel to resume its military campaign after the first phase ends.

The three mediators, however, have given Hamas verbal guarantees that negotiations will continue as planned and that they will press for a deal to implement the second and third phases before the end of the first, Indian news agency PTI reported citing an Egyptian official.

The deal would also, however, allow Israel to remain in control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the band of territory along Gaza’s border with Egypt, throughout the first phase — which Hamas had initially demanded Israel withdraw from.

However, Israel would pull out from the Netzarim Corridor, a belt across central Gaza where it had sought a mechanism for searching Palestinians for arms when they return to the territory’s north.

In the second phase, Hamas would release the remaining captives in exchange for more prisoners and the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from Gaza, according to the draft agreement as cited by The Associated Press.

In a third phase, the bodies of any remaining hostages could be returned in exchange for a three- to five-year reconstruction plan to be implemented in Gaza under international supervision, The Associated Press reported.

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