Trump says Israel and Hamas have reached ‘first phase’ of peace deal | CBC News

Israel and Hamas have signed off on the first phase of the U.S.-proposed Gaza peace deal, allowing for the release of all Israeli hostages, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

The deal, if implemented, would bring the two sides closer than any previous effort to halt a war that had evolved into a regional conflict, drawing in countries such as Iran, Yemen and Lebanon, and reshaping the Middle East.

“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.

“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace,” Trump added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of the hostages in a written statement, “With God’s help we will bring them all home.”

He said he would convene the government on Thursday to approve the Gaza ceasefire agreement aimed at bringing home all of the Israeli hostages.

“A great day for Israel,” Netanyahu added.

The deal comes on the heels of the two-year-anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which ignited the two-year-long war in Gaza, killing more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people that day, while 251 others were abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

Hamas called on Trump and guarantor states to ensure that Israel fully implements the ceasefire, it added in a statement.

Earlier Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Hakan Fidan said negotiations to stop the war in Gaza had made “a lot of headway,” after Hamas handed over lists of its hostages and Palestinian prisoners it wants exchanged in a swap.

Fidan said the talks in Egypt, in which Ankara is taking part, were focused on securing a ceasefire, exchanging hostages and prisoners, allowing more aid and co-ordinating a timetable for a withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Last week, the White House unveiled a 20-point document that called for an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas disarmament and a transitional government led by an international body.

Forty-eight hostages are still held in Gaza — about 20 are believed to be alive, according to Israel.

Many elements of Trump’s plan have been included in numerous ceasefire proposals previously backed by the U.S., including some that have been accepted and then subsequently rejected at various stages by both Israel and Hamas.

One of the biggest sticking points has been pressure on Hamas to disarm.

The proposal sees Israel making few concessions in the near term and does not lay out a clear path to a Palestinian state, one of the key demands of not only Hamas but also the Arab and Muslim world.

It also states that Israel would eventually withdraw from Gaza but does not define a time frame. Hamas has long demanded that Israel must fully withdraw from Gaza for the war to end.

The last ceasefire, which lasted less than six weeks between January and March, fell apart after Netanyahu decided he would not proceed to the second and third stages of the proposed deal.

Several months after an Israeli-imposed 11-week complete blockade on humanitarian aid, an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in August found that more than half a million people in Gaza were trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable death.

Last month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory cited the scale of the killings as one of the acts backing up its finding that Israel has committed genocide in the territory. A number of other human rights groups came to the same determination prior to the UN.