Donald Trump says Israel, Hamas agreed to hostage release in peace plan

President Donald Trump said both Israel and Hamas had agreed to terms for the release of all hostages held by the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, a major breakthrough in the US-brokered negotiations to end their two-year war.“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday. “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.”

The deal will see Hamas free the roughly 20 people taken during the October 2023 attacks that are still alive, alongside the remains of more than two dozen more who died in captivity. Israel is expected to release almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners along with the troop movement.

The agreement was clinched in in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, during talks that followed Trump’s unveiling of an ambitious 20-point peace plan early last week. A number of complex elements of the proposal may still need to be resolved, with the two sides far apart on issues such as Hamas’s potential disarmament.
Trump’s son-in-law and confidant Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are in Egypt to serve as intermediaries in the negotiations.Hamas, designated a terrorist organisation by the US, European Union and others, kidnapped 250 people in the October 7, 2023 attacks that triggered the war in Gaza, with the majority released during earlier ceasefires. The fate of those left is a highly charged issue in Israel and their relatives have regularly appealed to Trump, as they did to his predecessor, Joe Biden, to intervene to secure their recovery.

The deal is expected to usher in a ceasefire that would pause Israeli efforts in Gaza City, the territory’s de facto capital, the latest salvo in a military campaign that has devastated the strip, killed tens of thousands of people and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Finalizing the roster of Palestinian prisoners to be released could also prove protracted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose religious-rightist government must sign off on the deal, will likely oppose the inclusion of the masterminds of Hamas suicide bombings or of Palestinians who took part in the Oct. 7 raid, which killed 1,200 people.

The plan sketched out in recent weeks by Trump envisages Hamas members laying down their arms in exchange for amnesty, and the Iran-backed group replaced by an interim government of Palestinian technocrats under a “Board of Peace” that the US president would chair. Hamas has long balked at disarming and rejects foreign rule over Gaza.

Israel, for its part, has rejected any post-war role for the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the West Bank. Trump has proposed the PA taking over Gaza after undergoing reform.