Israeli Cabinet Backs Deal, paving for the release of hostages
Israel’s cabinet has approved an agreement in which Hamas will liberate all remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for about 2000 prisoners, an important step towards a two-year war that killed tens of thousands of people and destabilized the wider Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition approved his approval overnight, about a day after negotiators reached an agreement in the Egyptian resort Sharm El-Sheikh. The agreement is based on a plan that was unveiled by US President Donald Trump late last month and followed days of discussions mediated by the Americans, as well as Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. The US envoy of the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said a 72-hour period on Friday for Hamas to release the hostages, is now underway. The identity of the Palestinian prisoners to be freed in the exchange is still completed. Marwan Barghouti, one of the more high -profile candidates who was one day named a potential leader of a Palestinian state, will not be among them, they reports. He was captured by Israel for more than two decades. A ceasefire is now in place in the bulk of Gaza and Witkoff said that Israel’s troops began to withdraw from their positions. Yet some areas are still fought, with Israeli forces hitting a Hamas cell in northern Gaza on Thursday and the Palestinian militant group says four people are dead. It was not clear whether they quoted the same incident. The Israeli army said that a soldier died Thursday afternoon by the sniper fire in northern Gaza. Trump said the hostages – Israel believes that 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 last phases 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 well. Broadly, Israelites and Palestinians 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 were displaced during a conflict that killed more than 67,000 of it, according to the Hamas-managed Ministry of Health there, and destroyed their homeland. Israel lost more than 450 troops in battle. The negotiators still have many challenges to overcome to ensure that the ceasefire is sustained. Hamas – who has appointed a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union and others – has yet to agree to lay down its weapons or officially say that it will have no part in the future management of Gaza, which specifies Trump’s plan. There is little clarity about who will manage Gaza next. The US proposal of 20 points says a ‘Board of Peace’, chaired by Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will oversee a Palestinian technocratic committee that will be responsible for public services. Yet the American, European states, the Arab world and the people like Turkey considered the agreement as the best opportunity to end the conflict, which Hamas fueled Israel with his attack on October 7, 2023 and killed 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250. Israeli assets have gained on the prospects of peace. The Israeli Sikel is high this week at three years and with 1.2% against the dollar, one of the best performances worldwide. Israeli bonds and shares have also risen. Netanyahu said we have been an important development for the past two years. ‘During these two years, we fought to achieve our war goals and a central one of our war goals was to return us hostages, all the hostages, the living and the dead. And we are about to achieve that. ‘ In addition to the release of the prison sentence, the troops of Israel are intended to withdraw in phases until they are in a buffer zone just within the borders of Gaza. The Israeli government will provide for assistance by the United Nations agencies and other international bodies. “We and our partners are willing to move-now,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday. “We have the expertise, distribution networks and community relationships in place to act.” Two senior US officials spoke to reporters on Thursday night on condition of anonymity, saying there are two phases of the agreement – the hostage exemption and what they then call “almost a permanent ceasefire”, where other problems need to be solved. This includes the disregard for Hamas’ weapons, the formation of the new government of Gaza and the complete redeployment of Israeli forces. The US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, will have 200 troops on the ground to observe the implementation of the Gaza Wearing Agreement, according to US officials. The US recognizes that there are many ways in which the agreement can go wrong. But Trump is optimistic about the expansion of the Abraham chords, signed in its first term and that countries like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalize the ties with Israel. The war and the suffering of Palestinians have annoyed Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia. The kingdom was close to the formal recognition of Israel on the eve of the conflict. Hamas said that the hostages’ transaction was an ‘end to the war against Gaza’ and would ‘ensure the withdrawal of the occupancy forces’. It thanked the mediators and said in a significant tone shift that it appreciated ‘the efforts of US President Donald Trump’. Yet it has called on the US and others to ensure that Israel does not break conditions, indicating its warmerness. The conflict had consequences to be beyond Gaza, with Israel attacking Iran-supported militia in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. It also fought a 12-day air war against Iran in June, in which the US struck the nuclear sites of the Islamic Republic. A non -supported monitor declared a famine in parts of Gaza, while another panel supported by the New York organization was said that Israel commits genocide, which denies the government of Netanyahu. Israel’s isolation grew the longer the war waged. Many important allies, including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, acknowledged it by the Palestinian state hijacking about two weeks ago. Some EU members, Israel’s largest trading partner, have called on sanctions against the country’s government. In an interview with Fox this week, Trump told him that he told Netanyahu that Israel “cannot fight the world – and he understands it very well.” © 2025 Bloomberg MP This article was generated from an automatic news agency feed without edits to text.