After 15 months of war, this Wednesday Israel and Hamas reached a Gaza ceasefire agreement in principle. This has been confirmed by official sources from two of the three mediating countries (the United States and Egypt) and Israel. Its confirmation occurred just after Hamas delivered its affirmative response to the pact, the last remaining obstacle for the agreement to get underway. Netanyahu’s government plans to vote on the terms of the document this Thursday.
The agreement comes after 15 months of conflict, in which More than 46,000 people have lost their lives in the Gaza Strip, and also after months of arduous and intermittent negotiations in Doha to outline what life will be like in Gaza once the weapons are laid down.
He planned plan includes three phases. In the first, which would come into force shortly after the signing of the agreement and will last six weeks, Hamas would have to hand over 33 hostages – with priority given to children, women, the elderly, the sick and wounded – so that Israel can begin the gradual withdrawal in the north. of the Strip and in turn free a thousand political prisoners.
“It is a difficult, painful agreementbut it is very important for us that our men, our people, be released from captivity,” declared Israeli Foreign Minister Guideon Saar, who assumed that his country will have to release “dangerous terrorists and murderers.”
In the first phase, the humanitarian aid entry in Gaza, and in fact the Egyptian Red Crescent teams have already begun to prepare the trucks to enter from the Rafah crossing, closed since May, once the agreement is officially announced.
In the second and third phasethe two parties would negotiate the departure of the troops from the Philadelphia corridor, Hamas’s main concession for this agreement to get off the ground.
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The pact occurs just a few days before the inauguration of Donald Trump at the White House (this Monday, January 20), and in fact the Republican himself was quick to take credit for the agreement. “We have accomplished a lot without even being in the White House yet. Imagine all the wonderful things that will happen when I return to the White House,” he wrote on the Truth Social social network. However, the outgoing US president, Joe Biden, who plans to give a message to the nation tonight from the Oval Office, will speak at 8 p.m.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has pointed out for his part that the ceasefire agreement must be followed by negotiations to achieve a permanent cessation of hostilitiesand UN Secretary General António Guterres has wondered if the Israeli Government will continue to “deny the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people” or will there be some type of “irreversible action” for a two-state solution.
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