Israel and Hamas have just agreed to an open-ended ceasefire based on a sweeping plan presented last week by President Trump, who says he will travel to Egypt on Sunday to sign the agreement in person.
The first phase of the ceasefire — which is already underway — involves exchanging the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners. But ultimately mediators hope the deal will bring a permanent end to the two-year war that started when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Since then, the Israeli military has reduced much of the Gaza Strip to rubble and killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Roughly 1,000 Israeli soldiers have also died in the fighting.
“It’s really peace in the Middle East,” Trump said on Thursday. “We ended the war in Gaza.”
Here’s what has to happen next to make the president’s vision a reality.
Step 1: Hostage-prisoner exchange
After both sides signed the ceasefire deal Thursday in Egypt, it went to the Israeli Cabinet for formal approval. That approval was granted Friday morning local time and military operations were suspended. The U.S. has also verified that Israeli soldiers have withdrawn to an agreed-upon “yellow line” in Gaza, which leaves Israel in control of 53% of Gaza, according to a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In turn, these developments triggered a 72-hour window for Hamas to return all 20 hostages still thought to be alive (while also attempting to deliver the bodies of 28 others who died in Gaza).
Assuming Hamas holds up its end of the bargain by noon Monday — again, local time — Israel has agreed to release about 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails along with 1,722 detainees from Gaza who were not involved in the Oct. 7 attacks. Some high-profile prisoners will not be released as part of the swap.
After that, Hamas and Israel say they will continue to exchange any deceased hostages and prisoners they can find. According to Trump’s plan, the bodies of 15 Gazans would be returned for the remains of each Israeli.
Director of the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey İbrahim Kalın, center, at a meeting Thursday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, after part of a ceasefire plan advanced by the Trump administration was accepted by Israel and Hamas. (Al-Qahera News via AP)
Step 2: Aid
As part of the deal, restrictions on the delivery of food, medicine and other relief to Gaza will be lifted. In August, experts backed by the United Nations declared for the first time that half a million Gazans were facing famine, with “catastrophic” conditions characterized by “starvation, destitution and death.” Israel has repeatedly denied claims of starvation and insisted that it has not limited aid; instead, the Israeli government has accused Hamas of stealing aid meant for civilians (which Hamas denies).
About 600 humanitarian aid trucks are expected to enter Gaza daily, up from an estimated 40 to 50.
“These are trucks that have just been blocked, sitting outside of Gaza ready to go in,” Joseph Belliveau, executive director of the NGO MedGlobal, told ABC News on Friday. “The minute that we get approval and can cross in, we’ll be sending these trucks in as we are super hopeful that the U.N. and many others will do.”
The United Nations’ top humanitarian official told reporters on Thursday that the organization has plans in place to deliver food and other supplies over the first 60 days of the ceasefire.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt is also expected to open on Oct. 14, enabling more aid to enter under European Union supervision — and even allowing some people to leave.
Step 3: Disarmament and withdrawal
The current ceasefire deal doesn’t cover anything beyond steps one and two — meaning negotiators will have to hammer out postwar details at a later date. Potential sticking points abound.
But Trump’s plan does spell out a path forward. Under the terms of that proposal, Hamas would have to disarm — something the group has refused to do in the past because it views “armed struggle as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli control over Palestinian lands,” according to the New York Times. The Times has also reported, however, that Arab mediators believe Hamas could be convinced to “hand over some of its weapons” if Trump “can guarantee Israel will not resume fighting.”
On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told Fox News that “we don’t have any intention to renew the war,” and chief Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said he had “received guarantees from the mediators and the Americans that the war has ended indefinitely.”
World leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron have called Hamas’s disarmament “essential,” and Israel has long insisted on it as a precondition for peace.
“This will happen either diplomatically, according to Trump’s plan, or militarily — at our hands,” Netanyahu said last Saturday. “This will be achieved the easy way or the hard way, but it will be achieved.”
On the flip side, Trump’s plan also calls on Israel to withdraw from Gaza in three stages. The first stage has already occurred; the question is when — and if — Israel will keep pulling back. Continued pressure from Trump could force Netanyahu’s hand, but for now, the president has not put forward a specific timeline or a clear set of conditions for withdrawal.
People in Tel Aviv react following the announcement Thursday that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a peace plan to pause the fighting. (Emilio Morenatti/AP)
Step 4: Gaza governance and security
The future of Gaza is another big question mark. The U.S. framework says a “temporary international stabilization force” should handle security after the war, yet some reporting suggests that Hamas leaders could reject such a force — even one involving Arab and Muslim states — as a “new form of occupation.” At the same time, Israel is likely to object to the conditions that most countries will put on their participation: full withdrawal from Gaza and a political horizon for Palestinian statehood.
Assuming security is established, how will Gaza be governed? Trump’s plan says a technocratic Palestinian committee will take over from Hamas, and both Israel and Hamas have seemingly agreed to this idea. But the Palestinian Authority, which ran Gaza before Hamas, is still angling for a role — a change Israel has long refused to consider. And will Hamas really surrender all influence?
