The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposed deal, and an Egyptian official and a Hamas official confirmed its authenticity. The plan will have to be submitted to the Israeli cabinet for final approval.
The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent the last year attempting mediation to end 15 months of war and secure the release of dozens of hostages captured during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack who triggered it. Around 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza and the army believes at least a third of them are dead.
Officials have become increasingly optimistic that a deal can be reached before the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose Mideast envoy has joined the negotiations.
The offensive has reduced large areas of the territory to rubble and displaced around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, with hundreds of thousands crowded into tent camps along from the coast, where hunger is widespread.
Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip overnight and during the day Tuesday killed at least 18 Palestinians, including two women and four children, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired two missiles into Israel, triggering sirens and pushing residents to take refuge in shelters. No one was injured by these projectiles.
An agreement in three phases
The three-phase deal, based on a framework set by U.S. President Joe Biden and approved by the United Nations Security Council, would begin with the gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children , elderly people and injured civilians, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian women and children potentially imprisoned by Israel.
Among the 33 hostages, five female Israeli soldiers would be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 activists sentenced to life imprisonment. At the end of the first phase, all civilian prisoners – alive or dead – will have been released.
During this first 42-day phase, Israeli forces will withdraw from population centers, Palestinians will be allowed to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip and humanitarian aid will flow in, with some 600 trucks entering each day .
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The details of the second phase still need to be negotiated during the first. These details remain difficult to resolve, and the agreement does not include written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue until an agreement is reached. It is therefore possible that Israel will resume its military campaign after the end of the first phase.
The three mediators, however, gave Hamas verbal guarantees that negotiations would continue as planned and that they would push for an agreement to implement the second and third phases before the end of the first, it said. the Egyptian official.
The deal would allow Israel, throughout the first phase, to retain control of the Philadelphia Corridor, the strip of territory along the Gaza-Egypt border that Hamas had initially demanded Israel seize. withdraw. By contrast, Israel would withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor, a strip through the center of the Gaza Strip, where it had sought to establish a mechanism to search Palestinians for weapons when they return to the north of the territory.
In a second step, Hamas would release the remaining prisoners, mainly male soldiers, in exchange for other prisoners and the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, according to the draft agreement. But Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an end to the war and a complete withdrawal from Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed in the past to resume fighting if military capabilities and of Hamas government were not eliminated.
If these talks do not lead to the establishment of an alternative government for Gaza, Hamas could remain in charge of the territory.
In a third phase, the bodies of the remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for a three-to-five-year reconstruction plan to be implemented in Gaza under international supervision.
Growing pressure as Trump’s inauguration approaches
As Mr. Trump’s inauguration approaches next week, Israel and Hamas have come under renewed pressure to end the conflict. Its Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently joined American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators in Doha, the Gulf country’s capital.
Mr. Trump said late Monday that a ceasefire was “very close.”
“I understand (…) that there was a handshake and that they are in the process of ending it – and perhaps by the end of the week,” he said. told the American cable channel Newsmax.
Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack and kidnapped another 250. About half of these hostages were released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not specify how many fighters were among the dead.
Strikes continue in Gaza
Two strikes in the town of Deir al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, killed two women and their four children, aged between 1 month and 9 years old. One of the women was pregnant and the baby did not survive, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.
Twelve other people were killed in two strikes on the southern town of Khan Younis, according to the European Hospital.
The Israeli army had no immediate comment. Israel says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians in shelters and tent camps for displaced people.
Yemeni rebels fire missiles at Israel
The war reverberated across the region, sparking more than a year of fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah militants, which ended with a tense ceasefire in November. Israel has also exchanged direct fire with Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis.
The Israeli military said it made several attempts to intercept the missile launched from Yemen early Tuesday and that “the missile was likely intercepted.” She added that another missile fired from Yemen was also intercepted.
Police said several homes were damaged outside Jerusalem and released a photo of a missile shell that had crashed into a roof.
The Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa and much of the country’s north in 2014, launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Israel and attacked international shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis say they are fighting in solidarity with the Palestinians, but the vast majority of ships targeted have no connection to the conflict.
