JERUSALEM—Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire on Wednesday that would bring home at least 33 of the 98 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The agreement, mediated by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, is broadly similar to a three-phase framework long pushed by President Joe Biden, according to news reports. But current and former Israeli officials said President-elect Donald Trump’s recent involvement was decisive.
"Trump’s election was a game changer," an Israeli official told the Washington Free Beacon, speaking on condition of anonymity before the volatile negotiations had concluded. "Trump made it very clear that he wants all the hostages out of there. It was a clear message. He said it once, twice, three times. So he was not playing around."
"Hamas and its people received the message. They understood what Trump is about," the official added. "On the Israeli side, there are those who want a deal that would bring out all 98 hostages at once. But in the end, this is the deal we’re talking about, and we’ll go for it at this point."
The ceasefire gives Trump a high-profile diplomatic achievement before he even takes office on Monday. But for Israel, the blessing is mixed. While the deal promises to rescue a handful of living hostages, dozens of others may be left behind, and Hamas will doubtless take advantage of the pause in hostilities to restore its grip on power and terrorist capabilities.
"We have a new sheriff in town, and he pushed very hard on all the parties—not only Hamas, Egypt, and Qatar, but also Israel," Kobi Michael, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer, told the Washington Free Beacon. "It would be better if we could finish the campaign to remove Hamas from Gaza and release more of our hostages. But the situation is different now, and I don’t think Israel had another choice."
The first phase of the deal will last 42 days, during which Hamas will free 33 hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, according to news reports. Hamas will reportedly release female civilians, then female soldiers, then men who are over the age of 50 or infirm, and then the bodies of dead hostages.
Hamas will provide a list of the hostages and their status by the seventh day of the deal, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Wednesday. Israel believed that most of the 33 hostages were alive.
Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said in a press conference in Doha that the ceasefire will go into effect on Wednesday. Biden said in remarks from the White House that during the first phase of the deal, American hostages will be among those released, and Israeli troops will withdraw from populated areas of Gaza. Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes in all areas of Gaza, and humanitarian aid will increase, according to Biden.
During the first phase—reportedly starting on Day 16—Israel and Hamas will negotiate for a second phase, during which the remaining living hostages would be released and all Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza, "which is a permanent end of the war," Biden said. In a third phase, the bodies of the remaining hostages would be released and major reconstruction of Gaza would commence.
But Netanyahu has publicly vowed that Israeli troops will remain in Gaza until all the hostages are released and the war will continue until Hamas has been destroyed as a governing and military force in the strip.
Both Biden and Trump took credit for the ceasefire and hailed it in historic terms. Biden said the deal could lead to Palestinian statehood—a possibility Israel has officially rejected—and the normalization of Israel’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform that the "EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November." He vowed that his incoming administration "will continue to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven" and will "build upon the momentum of this ceasefire to further expand the Historic Abraham Accords," which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab countries during Trump’s first term.
In Israel, meanwhile, emotions were mixed among both supporters and opponents of the ceasefire.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a speech to Jewish leaders in Rome that supporting the ceasefire was a "very, very tough decision," in part because it involved "the release of so many terrorists, including murderers, who killed Jews."
"Leadership is about deciding between a bad decision and a very bad decision," he said before cutting his trip short to return to Israel for an expected cabinet vote to give final approval to the ceasefire on Thursday. "But here it is a very, very tough decision that the Israeli Cabinet will have to accept."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that despite the "great joy and excitement for the return of each and every kidnapped person," he opposed the ceasefire, which he called "a bad and dangerous deal for the national security of the State of Israel." Smotrich said his Religious Zionism party would quit the governing coalition unless Netanyahu guaranteed that Israel would resume "the war with full force—on a broad scale and with a renewed strategy—until we achieve a decisive victory, including the complete destruction of Hamas and the safe return of all hostages to their homes."
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a video message that the "entire country is holding its breath" as it waits for the return of the hostages from Hamas captivity. He demanded that Israel continue to the second phase of the deal, saying, "Everyone must return home."
A snap poll on Wednesday by Agam Labs, a political consultancy affiliated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found that 63 percent of Jewish Israelis support the ceasefire. Asked to provide their main emotion about the deal, the 923 respondents’ leading answers were "happiness," "relief," "ambivalence," "hope," "excitement," and "fear."
According to the poll, half of Israelis believe the ceasefire would not have happened without pressure from Trump, compared to 8 percent who think the deal would have come together anyway. Respondents split roughly equally on whether Trump’s pressure on Hamas or Israel was more decisive.
Since Trump’s election on Nov. 5, he has repeatedly demanded that the hostages be released before the start of his second term. Trump’s designated Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has played a leading role in mediating the talks over the past month. According to a number of Israeli news reports, Witkoff pressed Netanyahu to support the ceasefire in a meeting with the prime minister in Jerusalem on Saturday.
"What happened now is that the American envoy arrived on Saturday and firmly delivered to Netanyahu a direct message from President Trump demanding, in a way that cannot be misinterpreted, that the deal be completed," an Israeli minister, who was not identified, told Israel’s Channel 14 news on Monday. "Netanyahu folded."
Ohad Tal, a member of Israel’s parliamentary defense committee from the Religious Zionism party, told the Free Beacon that Netanyahu had "of course" agreed to the ceasefire in part "to please Trump." But Tal—who in headline-making remarks at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday appealed to Trump to nix the ceasefire—said no potential arrangement with the president-elect could justify the deal.
"I think the main reason Trump wants this deal is so he can say he achieved—even before coming to office—what Biden could not," Tal said. "Maybe he’s telling himself that we can go back into Gaza later and destroy Hamas. But we are the ones who will pay the price, and it will be a heavy price in the lives of hostages and soldiers."
According to Michael, the former Israeli intelligence officer, the price of defying Trump in Gaza would likely be higher than accommodating him. Michael said Netanyahu is counting on Trump’s support on "three major issues": a military strike on Iran, deterrence of Turkey in Syria, and regional normalization.
As far as Hamas, Michael expressed confidence that the terrorist group will "give Israel an excuse to resume the war" by the end of the first phase of the ceasefire.
"I expect that when Hamas breaches the agreement, President Trump will enable us to do what we have to do in order to finish the war and accomplish the mission," he said.
A spokesman for Netanyahu declined to comment. Late Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Netanyhu will not publicly address the ceasefire until "after the completion of the final details of the agreement, which are being worked on at present."