KUMASI, Jan 18 (Futball Surgery)- A ceasefire and hostage release deal, mediated by US, Qatar and Egypt, has been agreed by Israel and Hamas in what outgoing US president Joe Biden says will boost much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinians, bring hostage-family reunion and halt the fighting in Gaza- but for what amount time? Whether temporarily or permanently remains unknown.
The deal which is taking effect on Sunday is a good product but with yet to be revealed protocols and unclear, whether to pause over a period time for aid services and release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners take place or to finally end the war in Gaza. But there is more to learn about that as time unfold.
These are some of the key concerns about a deal that Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem says shows Palestine’s ‘persistence of resistance’ against Israel.
“This deal, which was unchanged from what was proposed in May 2024, proves the persistence of resistance groups, which took what they wanted while Israel was not able to take what it sought,” the leader of the Lebanese militant group said in a speech, via The Guardian.
The AP News agency is reporting a three-phase ceasefire deal promises the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and to allow hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Gaza to return to what remains of their homes. It would also flood desperately needed humanitarian aid into the territory ravaged by 15 months of war, mediators said.
Israeli hostages held in Gaza will be released while the country will also free Palestinian prisoners in return under the January truce deal.
Hamas has boldly demonstrated that it has maintained and winning a paramount position in the conflict with Israel releasing a statement, reported in Reuters, to reveal that its release of Israeli hostages does not come alone but hinges on the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would free.
In the statement, Hamas said the list of Palestinian prisoners to be released would be published one day before the exchange under terms of its ceasefire deal reached with Israel on Wednesday.
For nearly 15 months of war that have killed over 47,000 people – 45,936 Palestinian and 1,706 Israeli, reaching a ceasefire deal that will bring the conflict to end has been a priority.
Qatar, Egypt and US are the mediators to ensure peace between Israel and the militia group in Gaza but previous efforts have failed.
Israel, who have made its position clear to Hamas for the group release hostages, continued to strike targets including hospitals, people, homes, operation centers and weapon facilities belonging to the group and its leaders, in land, sea and air operations that Israel thought would get its calls answered.
On November 2023, the first of a kind ceasefire deal brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt, according to the BBC, saw Hamas released 105 of Israeli hostages in return for some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during a week-long ceasefire.
The collapse of the deal has Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the bringing of the truce to an end.
On Saturday 18th January 2025, Qatari foreign ministry announced a second kind ceasefire that will come into effect at 8.30am Gaza time (6.30am GMT) on Sunday 19 January, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari posted on social media X.
“We advise the inhabitants to take precaution, exercise the utmost caution, and wait for directions from official sources.
“The time was “as coordinated by the parties to the agreement and the mediators”, he said.
The new Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal is understood to be forcibly brought into being following Donald Trump’s ‘by January 2025’ ultimatum. A BBC chronology of how to new deal was birth reveals the US president warning there will be “all hell to pay” if the hostages still held in Gaza are not released by the time he returns to the White House on 20 January 2025.
Trump said this on December 2, 2024, a little over a month that he was elected as US president. As part of the processes to agree the new deal amid Trump’s ultimatum, a senior Palestinian official on December 17, 2024, said ‘indirect talks’ among the deal’s parties are in a “decisive and final phase”, before after which that Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz added an agreement is closer than ever.
On January 15, 2025, Qatari prime minister said Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, and that it will take effect on 19 January.
Two days later, Israeli cabinet approved the deal, following hours of discussion and despite two far-right ministers voting against it, allowing the agreement to come into effect on 19 January.
Details of the deal- that outgoing US president Joe Biden says it will “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families” is not yet revealed. But BBC has given clues of what the deal contains.
