Israel’s security cabinet approved a cease-fire deal for Gaza on Friday, bringing a pause in fighting one step closer after Israeli and Hamas negotiators worked out their remaining differences.
Now that the security cabinet, a small forum of senior ministers, has approved the deal, the full cabinet of more than 30 ministers will meet later on Friday and is expected to green-light it. If that happens, the cease-fire and hostage-release agreement could go into effect as soon as Sunday.
What’s in the agreement?
The cease-fire deal would begin with an initial phase lasting six weeks. It would involve the release of 33 hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and allow the entry into Gaza of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian relief daily, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The New York Times.
At the beginning of the first phase, Israel would have to move its forces east, and on the seventh day, Palestinians displaced in southern Gaza could begin to return to the northern part of the territory, according to the document.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in southern Gaza have been living in tents, makeshift shelters, rented homes and relatives’ apartments for more than a year. Many of those planning to return to the north will most likely find that their homes and neighborhoods have been destroyed, especially residents of the town of Jabaliya.
The provisional deal says a minimum of 60,000 temporary homes and 200,000 tents would be brought into Gaza during the initial phase.
By the 16th day of the first phase, negotiations about the second phase of the deal would begin, especially details related to the further exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The second phase would also last six weeks.
Who will be freed?
If it goes into effect, the cease-fire would allow for the release of hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. About 100 hostages are thought to still be in Gaza, although the Israeli authorities believe around 35 of them are dead.
The 33 hostages to be released in the first phase include women and children, men over 50 and sick or wounded people.
The agreement requires Hamas to release three female hostages on Day 1, four more on Day 7, and 26 more over the next five weeks. In exchange, Israel must free multiple Palestinian prisoners for each hostage, including some serving life sentences in some cases.
Read more about the hostage and prisoners here.
What’s the status of the deal?
The full cabinet was expected to meet later in the day to green-light the deal. If it does so, it could go into effect as soon as Sunday.
Some hard-line members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government have opposed the deal, threatening the viability of his coalition.
On Thursday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister for national security, announced that his party would resign from Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition should the cabinet approve the cease-fire deal. The move threatens to destabilize the government at a critical time but should not, in and of itself, prevent the Gaza deal from moving ahead.
Critics of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, including many of the families of hostages held in Gaza, have repeatedly accused the prime minister of sabotaging past efforts to reach a deal to preserve his coalition — the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history — and remain in power.
Has fighting continued?
Deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza have continued. The Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency service organization, said Friday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 101 people since the cease-fire deal was announced. The claims could not be independently verified.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had struck about 50 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past day. The targets included militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, their compounds, weapons storage and manufacturing sites and launch and observation posts.
Why did talks move forward?
The talks gained momentum after Israel reached a separate cease-fire agreement with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into Israel immediately after the Hamas-led attack of October 2023. Battered badly by its escalating conflict with Israel, Hezbollah agreed to a cease-fire with Israel in November, a deal that helped isolate Hamas.
Some officials have suggested that the change in U.S. administrations, set to take place on Monday, put pressure on Israel and Hamas to accelerate their decision-making after months of delay.
President-elect Donald J. Trump, warned that there would be “all hell to pay” unless the hostages were freed by the time he took office. But in the end, the deal came about in part through a remarkable collaboration between President Biden and Mr. Trump, who temporarily put aside mutual animosity to achieve a mutual goal.