
Gaza and Israel welcome ceasefire and hostage deal but will the war end? | BBC News
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- 15 Jan 2025
Palestinians in Gaza have been celebrating the news of a ceasefire and hostage release deal reached between Israel and ...
Israel and Hamas have finally agreed to a ceasefire deal after months of delicate negotiations. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has tonight thanked President Biden and Donald Trump for helping secure the deal. With just days to go before he leaves office, President Biden tonight gave details of the ceasefire, which begins on Sunday.
Phase one will last six weeks. It includes a full and complete ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the populated United areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of hostages held by Hamas, including women, and elderly, and the wounded. In exchange, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During phase one, the Palestinians can also return to their neighborhoods in all the areas of Gaza.
There are three phases to this deal. 33 hostages will be released during the first six weeks, among them, two Americans, humanitarian aid will go in. Phase 2 will be negotiations for a permanent end to the war. Hostages and prisoners will continue to be released. Once that's done, phase 3 will see all the rest of the hostages released, as well as the remains of those who have died. Finally, a permanent ceasefire agreed. Our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, is in Jerusalem. And, Jeremy, a huge moment after so many months of war.
Yeah, It's been a nightmare for all concerned, of course. Among some of the terrible consequences of what's happened have been as strong. Polls have shown this, a sense of dehumanization on both sides. A feeling among Israelis that because of everything that Hamas did on the seventh of October, how could they ever have peace with Palestinians? And a feeling among many Palestinians that how could they ever have peace with Israelis after everything Israel has done since the seventh of October, 2023. A ceasefire like this, obviously, is going to be fragile, and there are more negotiations ahead. It is not going to be easy. It might well be difficult. I've spoken to Senior Western diplomats who fear that after the first phase, the 42-day phase I, that maybe the war might even resume. But of course, on a day like this, there has to be enormous relief on both sides. In the streets of Hanunis in Gaza, overwhelming relief that they are alive, and hoped, too, that the nightmare of this war might be over. When they announced that there is a ceasefire, we felt happy and relieved. The pain has disappeared a bit, even though the pain is still present.
But hopefully, joy will overcome the pain.
Let our prisoners get freed and for the injured to get treated. People are exhausted. Some weapons, some defiance were on show, but Hamas is a shadow of what it was when it attacked Israel on the seventh of October, 2023. And apart from survival, there isn't much to celebrate for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has killed almost 50,000 people at least. The territory is in ruins, and well over 2 million have been forced out of their homes. And in Tel Aviv, it is also a bitter sweet moment for the families and supporters of Israeli hostages living and dead. 33 women, older men, and the sick and wounded are due for release in the next six weeks, in return for hundreds of Palestinian detaunees and prisoners. But the future of the rest of the hostages depends on more negotiations. We really hope that no one will mess it up, not in our side, not in their side. We really wait for this very, very needed thing to happen, for the war to stop, for the to just to come home. Israel's President said the ceasefire was right, important, and necessary. There is no greater moral, human, Jewish, or Israeli obligation than to bring our sons and daughters back to us, whether to recover to be ever at home or to be laid to rest.
The war started on the seventh of October, 2023, with a devastating series of surprise attacks by Hamas. It was one of the worst intelligence and security failures in Israel's history. A painful inquiry into who missed the signs it was coming, starting with the Prime Minister, lies ahead. 251 people were taken into Gaza as hostages. Hamas killed around 1,200, mostly Israeli civilians in their own homes. It took days to recover the bodies. Israel responded by hammering Gaza and its people from then until today. Today. It insists it respects the laws of war. It says Hamas caused so many civilian casualties, wounded and dead, by using them as human shields. But Israel's Prime Minister and former defense minister face arrest warrants for war crimes, and the International Court of Justice is investigating a case accusing Israel of genocide. In Washington, President Biden took credit for a diplomatic victory, celebrated America's support for Israel, and said the war had transformed the Middle East for the better. This has been time of real turmoil in the Middle East. But as I prepare to leave office, our friends are strong, our enemies are weak, and there's a genuine opportunity for a new future.
In Lebanon, there's an opportunity for a future free from the grip of Hezbollah. In Syria, a future free from the tyranny of Asaad. And for the Palestinian people, incredible, incredible No pathway to a state of their own. Thank you. It's your credit for this, Mr. President, you or Trump. Is that a joke? No. Thank you. But Donald Trump's pressure on Israel as well as Hamas to seal the deal before his return to the White House next week might have made a decisive difference. Joe Biden put the ceasefire plan on the table last May. With Gaza in ruins, the President's point that the Palestinians have a path to their own state is wishful thinking. Israel's government says, Security depends on military power, not allowing Palestinian independence. After 15 months of war in Gaza, the conflict, which has lasted more than a century is as bitter and intractable as ever. With luck, the ceasefire will end this war. It does not end the conflict. The consequences of so much destruction and death will be felt for a generation at least. Jeremy Bowen, BBC News, Jerusalem.
The ceasefire begins on Sunday, the day before the inauguration of Donald Trump. In fact, he was the first to speak publicly about the deal before it had been confirmed by Qatar's Prime Minister, saying the hostages would be released soon. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, is in Washington. We've heard President Biden outlining the deal tonight. Tell us more about the timing of all this.
Well, the timing is critical because, as you say, it's coming just before Joe Biden leaves office and Donald Trump returns to the White House. It's because it's coming at this critical time that it's really interesting to note that Joe Biden says that his team of negotiators and diplomats who've been so deeply involved in these talks for months have been working closely and coordinating with Donald Trump's Middle East envoy and his team so that they are all across all of the details. They all know what's happening because nobody wants this handover of power here in America to in any way der derail the implementation of this agreement. It's because Donald Trump and his team were being kept so closely informed of what was going on that he was able to post on his social media channel that a deal had been done before, as you say, it had been officially announced. He wrote that this epic ceasefire agreement would not have been possible if it hadn't been for his election victory in November. Is that true? Well, people close to the negotiation say that his vague threats when he said that all hell would break loose if the hostages were not released before he returned to office, that they did put some pressure on the parties in the region to come to an agreement now, and that therefore it was helpful.
But you heard Joe Biden speaking from the White House there. He does not want to give any of the credit to Donald Trump. He was in that speech very much trying to cement his own place in this deal, saying it was his framework that he put forward last May, that he has been deeply involved in the talks and the negotiations, the torturous discussions that have been going on for months. Yeah, you heard him there when he was asked if Donald Trump deserves any of the credit. He said, Is this a joke? But the fact of the matter is, it will be Donald Trump and his team that oversee the implementation of this deal, that move it into phase two and into phase 3. He's three, and he's got very different priorities in the Middle East than those that Joe Biden did have.
Sarah Smith, our North America Editor. Thank you. Israel says that 94 hostages are still being held by Hamas, but more than 30 are thought to be dead. To Tonight, as the news broke, families hugged each other in Tel Aviv in what's become known as Hostages Square. Our Middle East correspondent, Lucy Williamson, is there. Lucy.
Week after week, we've seen this square packed with protesters, demanding the release of the hostages. Tonight, it's empty. A reminder, perhaps, of the caution many people feel here about this deal after so many disappointments, so many false starts. The clock that's been counting up the minutes, the hours, the days of captivity is still going more than 466 now. But for many hostages and their families, they can finally glimpse an end to the deal, while some others still cannot. After the public anger and the protests, in Tel Aviv, tonight, a private shared relief. Too soon for celebrations. This deal, too partial, too long coming, to spark an explosion of joy. For 15 months, demonstrators here demanded the hostages release. The names of Israel's missing, repeated like a mantra, their faces papering Israel's walls. Among them, five-year-old Ariel and one-year-old Koffir Bibaas and their parents.
It's like a roller coaster. I'm not breathing right now. We don't know if they're on the list, if they're going to come back in the first phase, if they're alive, if not. We actually don't know anything. It's scary.
All living civilian women and children are due to be released over the next six weeks, along with elderly men and the sick. For now, soldiers and younger men will remain behind.
You know it's part of them, not all of them. For us, it's only the beginning. We want them all here, because it's not end and it's not enough if just some of them will come.
200 51 hostages were taken to Gaza by Hamas gunmen during the seventh of October attacks. Partygoers at a music festival, families asleep in their homes. And soldiers like Nimrod Cohen, abducted with his tank unit near the Nahalas military base. He was 19 years old. Since then, his father Yehuda has been campaigning for his release. He believes that Nimrod, a young male soldier, will be one of the last to be freed.
I'm done with the motion. That was the first month, the second month. I don't have time for a motion. I'm full job in fighting. I can be the father of Nimrod once Nimrod is back here. Now I'm fighting to be a father of Nimrod. I haven't talked to him for 15 months, seen him, heard him. Okay? Somewhere in the dark, that's the thing. So I'm fighting to get back to be Nimrod's father.
Yehuda watched as more than 100 hostages were freed in an earlier nine-day truce. That was over a year ago. Since then, for many hostage families, hope has been frozen. Now, for some, it's starting to thaw. Lucy Williamson, BBC News Tel Aviv.
The United Nations said tonight, humanitarian agencies have been mobilizing supplies to get aid delivery into Gaza as quickly as possible, and it appealed for aid workers to be allowed safe, unfettered access to people desperately in need. Almost 47,000 people have died in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, according to the health ministry run by Hamas. Bbc News has followed the stories of those struggling in a desperate humanitarian crisis. Our special correspondent, Fergal Keen, reports now on Gaza after more than a year of war, you may find some of the images distressing.
They're used to false rumors. Hope has been a lost language in this war. But tonight, perhaps an end to fear, exhaustion, degradation. They have suffered while the talk has gone on and on. Mahmoud Al Dibbes and his family have evacuated nine times. His children scavenge for anything that could be sold to buy food. The smell is suffocating, he says, and the dogs are everywhere. There's nowhere to go to the bathroom. So at night, my family and I went together to relieve ourselves, only to be attacked by dogs that tried to bite us. They lived here before the war. Jibalia. Bombed now into an age of stone. The consequences of the war stretched the length of Gaza and into every life in one way or another. Hanan Al-Kassas, aged 15, was born with a severe brain disability. But before the war, there were working hospitals, and days and nights without terror..
. She was the flower of our neighborhood. She used to walk, play, and was just like any other child.
Three months into the war, Hannah became ill with cancer of the eye. Now in constant agony, she can no longer see. With a ceasefire, her mother hopes Israel will allow Hannah's evacuation from Gaza.
I I feel like I'm losing my mind.
I'm so worried about her, and I feel so bad for her. I want to do whatever I can to help her, and I don't want to be helpless.
Our journalists have recorded the stories of Gaza on the ground since the war began. Like the two sisters, reunited in an emergency ward after their home was hit in an Israeli airstrike. My sister, my beloved, said Jury, aged five. This is my sister, she tells the nurses. Julia is 18 months old. There was newborn baby, Sabrine, rescued from her dead mother's womb after another air strike.
The baby is under medical care, said Dr..
Mohamed Salama. She'll stay here three or four weeks. Sabrine lived only five days. Noara Al-Najjar and her children, just after the Israeli strike that took her husband, their father, Abdel Rahman, one of more than 70 people, killed in an operation to rescue two hostages. His daughter Malak lost an eye in the attack. Pain, she says, I lost my father. Enough. Noara was pregnant at the time, and now has the couple's baby, Rahma. The ceasefire is welcome, but it's not the end of suffering.
. After the ceasefire, I want to give my children the best life. I want them to get over the fear we lived. My children are really scared. The terror has settled in their hearts.
The scale of rebuilding ahead is immense, of a lost world, of broken lives. Fergal Keen, BBC News, Amman.
After more than 15 months of fighting, what is the current state of Gaza? Our verified correspondent, nick Eardley, is here to tell us, nick.
Thanks, Sophie. Israel launched this offensive in Gaza after the Hamas attacks on the seventh of October, where around 1,200 people were killed, 250 others were taken hostage. But the impact of 15 months of war in Gaza has been huge. Whole neighborhoods have been flattened by Israeli strikes during the conflict. Let's talk, firstly, about the human cost of the in Gaza. This is the death toll provided by the Hamas run Health Ministry in Gaza. 46,707 people killed. Ministry officials also say that this is the number of people injured, more than 110,000. Israel says it's killed 17,000 fighters and that Hamas's figures can't be trusted. But the death toll is high, and some think that this figure is an underestimate. Let me show you a bit more about the damage that's been done in Gaza. This picture is in where you heard Fergal talking about in the north of the Strip. This is before the war, and this is a verified image of the exact same scene now. You can see almost everything here has been destroyed. This map is an estimate of how damaging Gaza has progressed over time. You can see all these red dots showing damaged or destroyed buildings.
The academic experts who've been compiling this said that as of October, just under 60% of all buildings in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed. The war has also had a considerable impact on the movement of people. The UN estimates that 90% of Gazans have been internally displaced. That's 1.9 million people. Huge numbers of Gazans have been subject to Israeli evacuation orders in the last 15 months. Look at these areas in red there. Finally, a few figures highlighting the humanitarian challenge ahead. The UN projects that 91% of people are facing acute food insecurity. Almost 1.9 million people, it says, are in need of emergency shelter, and just 50% of hospitals are still partially functioning. Journalists don't have free access to Gaza, so building a complete picture is difficult, but there are some considerable challenges now that that ceasefire has been agreed.