The Israeli military said that a ceasefire in Gaza came into effect at 12 p.m. local time (5 a.m. ET), after Israel’s government approved the first phase of a deal intended to bring the war to an end. Israeli Defense Forces now have 24 hours (or until 1:20 a.m. Saturday local time) to withdraw to the agreed-upon lines inside of the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hamas reached the landmark peace agreement, marking what President Trump described as the “first phase” of a broader peace plan aimed at ending the two-year conflict in Gaza and securing the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.
The deal was confirmed Thursday by Shosh Bedrosian, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli and Hamas officials signed the peace deal agreement earlier Thursday in Egypt’s resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Upon Israel’s cabinet giving its formal approval, the Israeli military will begin pulling back its troops in Gaza to a mutually agreed-upon boundary, as outlined in the agreement. Phase one of the deal will see all remaining hostages returned from Gaza, a number of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails and the partial withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces inside the strip.
The agreement comes almost two years to the day after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Since then, more than 67,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
According to President Trump, all Israeli hostages still held in Gaza are expected to be freed ‘by Monday or Tuesday’ under the terms of the new accord. Trump said the agreement represented “the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.” Forty-eight hostages remain to be returned, of whom Israel says it believes 20 are still alive.
The president expressed gratitude to Qatar, Turkey and Egypt for helping to broker the peace deal, saying at the opening of his latest Cabinet meeting at the White House: “As you know, last night we reached a momentous breakthrough in the Middle East, something that people said was never going to be done. We ended the war in Gaza and really on a much bigger basis created peace. And I think it’s going to be a lasting peace, hopefully an everlasting peace. Peace in the Middle East. We’ve secured the release of all of the remaining hostages and they should be released on Monday or Tuesday. Getting them is a complicated process, I’d rather not tell you what they have to do to get them .. That will be a day of joy, I’m going to try and make a trip over. Working on the timing, the exact timing. Going to go to Egypt, where we’ll have a signing, an additional signing.”
In Tel Aviv, crowds filled Hostages Square waving both U.S. and Israeli flags to celebrate the ceasefire and the breakthrough in negotiations. Many in attendance expressed gratitude toward President Trump for his role in facilitating the deal and helping bring an end to the long-standing violence.
Meanwhile, Intense and deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza City — the largest urban area in the Gaza Strip — and elsewhere in the devastated Palestinian territory continued into Thursday.
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