What we know about the terms of the anticipated Gaza ceasefire deal

Archie Bland

In today’s First Edition newsletter, my colleague Archie Bland discussed with the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Julian Borger the prospects for a peace deal:

“We have been told that it’s now just a question of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts,” Julian Borger said. “But we have been here before.”

“There appears to have been a breakthrough overnight on Monday,” Julian said. “We don’t know exactly what that was about. Previously, the speed and extent of Israel’s withdrawal has been a sticking point.”

Donald Trump’s return has changed the calculus on Israel’s side. “We’ve had at least eight months of counterfactuals,” Julian said. “Because the far right always threatened to bring down Netanyahu, the logic has pointed to no deal. But the imminence of Trump’s return is an X factor here.”

Here’s what is in the prospective deal, according to a draft seen by Reuters yesterday:

• Hostage return: The first stage, lasting 60 days, would see 33 hostages held in Gaza – children, women including female soldiers, men older than 50, the wounded and the sick – freed gradually over a six-week period in return for the release of around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

• Troop withdrawal: Israel would begin a phased pull-back of its troops and leave parts of the Philadelphi corridor that runs along the border between Gaza and Egypt.

• Movement within Gaza: Unarmed residents would be allowed back into north Gaza, and the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza would begin a gradual reopening.

• Aid: The Israelis would also start to let more desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Associated Press reported that this could be about 600 trucks a day. At the beginning of January, only about 50 aid trucks crossed into Gaza each day, Unrwa said on Sunday.

• Second phase: On the 16th day of the first phase, and if everything has gone to plan, talks would start on a second stage that would see more hostages – including male soldiers and younger civilian men – released, as well as the bodies of those who have died in captivity, in return for further Israeli concessions, which the draft suggests could include the “complete withdrawal” of the IDF from Gaza.

You can read more of Archie Bland’s conversation with Julian Borger here: What a Gaza ceasefire might look like

In an operational update, Israel’s military on its official Telegram channel, has claimed that yesterday it struck “more than 50 terrorist targets across the Gaza Strip, including terrorist cells, weapons storage facilities, underground infrastructure, anti-tank fire positions, and Hamas military structures.”

Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday morning that the death toll from overnight Israeli attacks in Gaza stands at 24, including two people recently reported killed “in an Israeli drone attack on Khirbet al-Adas area, north of the city of Rafah.”

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza were “right on the brink” as the warring sides were reported to be closing in on a deal. Envoys representing the Biden White House and the incoming Trump administration have been taking part in what was billed as a “final round” of talks on Tuesday, meeting delegates from Israel, Egypt and Qatar.

Blinken indicated that Israel had agreed to a deal and that mediators were now waiting for a response from Hamas. “It’s closer than it’s ever been before,” he said. “But, right now, as we sit here, we await final word from Hamas on its acceptance, and until we get that word, we’ll remain on the brink.”

The Associated Press on Tuesday evening reported that Hamas had accepted the draft agreement for a ceasefire and the release of hostages, citing two anonymous sources involved in the talks. That information has not been confirmed by the group publicly and an Israeli official told the news agency that details of the agreement were still being finalised.

Israeli media and reports from the Qatari capital said the agreement would involve an initial release of 33 Israeli hostages, including children, women, elderly people and the sick, and up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, alongside a partial Israeli troop withdrawal in a first phase lasting 60 days.

• Hamas earlier said the talks had reached the final steps and that it hoped this round of negotiations would lead to a deal. An Israeli official said talks had reached a critical phase although some details needed to be hammered out: “We are close, we are not there yet.” The militant group Islamic Jihad said it was sending a senior delegation that would arrive in Doha on Tuesday night to take part in final arrangements for a ceasefire deal.

• A deal had not yet been clinched on Tuesday night despite more than eight hours of talks in Qatar. A senior Hamas official told Reuters that his group was awaiting documents from Israel that would give more details of the geographical area covered by a ceasefire. A Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier on Tuesday that talks on the final details were under way after both sides were presented with a text.

• Hopes rose across Gaza that the war that has devastated the territory, killing more than 46,000 according to the Hamas-led health ministry and displacing millions, was finally coming to an end. Residents of the embattled territory expressed mixed emotions: hope and fear for the future but pain and grief for the past 15 months. Optimism over the negotiations has been tempered by past experience after earlier apparent breakthroughs ultimately failed in the face of opposition from the coalition government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or obstruction from Hamas inside Gaza.

• Fighting in Gaza has continued in recent days despite reports of an imminent ceasefire. Israeli airstrikes on homes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 17 Palestinians, health officials said Tuesday. Earlier strikes in Gaza killed at least 18 people, including two women and four children, according to local health officials, who said one woman was pregnant and the baby died as well.

• Blinken, in an outgoing speech at the Atlantic Council, outlined a vision for a postwar settlement under which Israel would accept a united leadership of Gaza and the West Bank territories under a reformed Palestinian Authority. Israel has so far rejected those conditions. He also spoke about significant involvement from the international community and Arab countries, including the possibility of deploying troops to stabilise security and facilitate humanitarian aid delivery. Blinken’s speech was interrupted several times by protesters.