Israeli Cabinet backs deal, paving way for hostages release

Israel’s Cabinet approved a deal that will see Hamas free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for around 2,000 prisoners, a major step toward ending a two-year war that’s killed tens of thousands of people and destabilized the wider Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition gave its approval overnight, around a day after negotiators for the warring sides reached an agreement in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

The deal is based on a plan unveiled by U.S. President Donald Trump late last month and followed days of talks mediated by the Americans, as well as Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said Friday a 72-hour period for Hamas to release the hostages is now underway.

The identities of the Palestinian prisoners to be freed in the swap are still being finalized. Marwan Barghouti, one of the more high-profile candidates who has been touted as a potential leader of a Palestinian state some day, is not expected to be among them, AP reported. He’s been imprisoned by Israel for more than two decades.

A ceasefire is now in place in most of Gaza and Witkoff said Israel’s troops have begun to pull back from their positions. Yet there is still fighting in some areas, with Israeli forces striking a Hamas cell in northern Gaza on Thursday and the Palestinian militant group saying four people were killed. It wasn’t clear if they were citing the same incident.

The Israeli army said a soldier was killed by sniper fire in northern Gaza on Thursday afternoon.

Trump said the hostages — Israel believes 20 of the 48 are still alive — will be released on Monday or Tuesday. He is expected to go to Israel for the handover.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Witkoff traveled to Sharm El-Sheikh for the final stages of the hostage negotiations. They then went to Israel and attended Thursday night’s Cabinet session, a sign of Trump’s determination to see it approved.

Broadly, Israelis and Palestinians have welcomed the agreement and there were celebrations in parts of Israel and Gaza on Thursday. Many of the 2.2 million people living in Gaza have been displaced during a conflict that’s killed more than 67,000 of them, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there, and devastated their homeland. Israel has lost more than 450 troops in combat.

The negotiators still have plenty of challenges to overcome to ensure the ceasefire is sustained. Hamas — designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and others — has yet to agree to lay down its arms or officially say it will have no part in Gaza’s future governance, which Trump’s plan specifies.

There’s little clarity on who will run Gaza next. The U.S.’s 20-point proposal says a “Board of Peace,” chaired by Trump and including former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, will oversee a technocratic committee of Palestinians that will be responsible for public services.

Still, the U.S., European states, the Arab world and the likes of Turkey have all hailed the deal as the best opportunity yet to end the conflict, which Hamas triggered with its Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting another 250.

Israeli assets have gained on the prospects of peace. The Israeli shekel is at a three-year high and up 1.2% against the dollar this week, one of the best performances globally. Israeli bonds and stocks have also risen.

“We’re at a momentous development in the last two years,” Netanyahu said. “We fought during these two years to achieve our war aims and a central one of our war aims was to return our hostages, all of the hostages, the living and the dead. And we’re about to achieve that.”

As well as releasing the jailed Palestinians, Israel’s troops are meant to withdraw in stages until they’re in a buffer zone just within Gaza’s borders. The Israeli government will allow for a ramp up of aid through United Nations agencies and other international bodies.

“We and our partners are prepared to move – now,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday. “We have the expertise, the distribution networks, and community relationships in place to act.”

Two senior U.S. officials, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity on Thursday night, said there were two phases to the deal — the hostage release and then what they called “almost a permanent ceasefire” where other issues have to be resolved. Those include decommissioning Hamas’s weapons, forming Gaza’s new government and the full redeployment of Israeli forces.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, will have 200 troops on the ground to observe the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, according to the U.S. officials.

The U.S. acknowledges there are a lot of ways the deal could go wrong. But Trump is optimistic about expanding the Abraham Accords, signed in his first term and which saw countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalize ties with Israel. The war and the suffering of Palestinians have enraged Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. The kingdom was close to formally recognizing Israel on the eve of the conflict.

Hamas said the hostages deal amounted to an “end to the war on Gaza” and will “ensure the withdrawal of the occupation forces.” It thanked the mediators and, in a notable shift in tone, said it valued “the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump.”

Still, it called on the U.S. and others to ensure Israel doesn’t break any terms, signaling its wariness.

The conflict has had ramifications far beyond Gaza, with Israel attacking Iran-backed militias in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. It also fought a 12-day aerial war against Iran in June, which saw the U.S. strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites.

A U.N.-backed monitor declared a famine in parts of Gaza, while another panel supported by the New York-based organization said Israel was committing genocide, something Netanyahu’s government denies.

Israel’s isolation has grown the longer the war has carried on. Many key allies, including the U.K., France and Canada, defied it by recognizing Palestinian statehood around two weeks ago. Some members of the E.U., Israel’s largest trading partner, have called for sanctions on the country’s government.

In an interview with Fox this week, Trump said he told Netanyahu that Israel “cannot fight the world — and he understands that very well.”