Gaza ceasefire has started, says Israel’s military

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The Israeli military said a ceasefire in Gaza has entered into force, paving the way for the release of hostages held in the Strip and launching the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Palestinian territories.

The Israeli army said that as of noon local time, its forces had completed their partial withdrawal, withdrawing to “updated deployment lines in preparation for the ceasefire agreement and the return of the hostages.”

The ceasefire went into effect hours after the Israeli Cabinet approved the first phase of the US-brokered agreement, which aims to end Israel’s two-year-old war against Hamas in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of Gazans began streaming back north into the ruins of Gaza City and other neighborhoods. The IDF warned them to stay away from the forces.

Friday’s troop withdrawal still leaves the Israeli army in control of more than half of the Gaza Strip, and any further withdrawal depends on progress in negotiations to fulfill the rest of Trump’s plan.

However, the agreement represents the most significant progress in months to end the longest and bloodiest Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which began after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Previous diplomatic efforts to end the war have faltered, as Israel has in recent months escalated its offensive against the armed group.

Under the first phase of the deal, Hamas will release the remaining 48 hostages held in the Strip — 20 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. This includes 250 people serving life sentences.

Israel must also allow increased aid to the besieged Strip, which is in the grip of famine.

“We have reached a critically important accomplishment, something people said would never be done,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The president said the hostages would be released on Monday or Tuesday, and added that he would travel to the Middle East “fairly soon” to officially sign the deal. Israeli Channel 12 news reported that he will also head to Jerusalem to speak before the country’s parliament.

In a televised speech on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whose critics have accused him of prolonging the war to appease his far-right coalition partners — sought credit for securing the return of the hostages.

“I thought that if we exerted intense military pressure, coupled with intense diplomatic pressure, we would certainly be able to return all our hostages,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we did.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which was the mediator between Hamas and the Israeli army during the handover of hostages and their remains during a previous ceasefire, welcomed the agreement.

In the past, Hamas has handed over hostages to International Committee of the Red Cross staff in televised ceremonies, to be transported through Gaza to Israeli army positions, while helping to release Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

Palestinian officials demanded that the United Nations and others be immediately allowed to provide large amounts of food and medicine to the starving residents of Gaza, and warned local residents to avoid rushing back to their homes while the situation on the ground remains precarious.

Regional diplomats said that negotiating the second phase of the agreement – which calls for the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an international stabilization force, and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza – would pose a much greater challenge.

Netanyahu said that Israeli forces will remain in Gaza until Hamas disarms, and his government has so far only committed to exchanging prisoners and hostages.

His far-right coalition partners, who voted against the agreement at a cabinet meeting on Friday, opposed ending the conflict without destroying Hamas.

Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said before the cabinet vote that if Hamas rule “is not dismantled” in the future, his Jewish Power party “will dismantle the government.”

One senior US official sought to downplay the public divisions between the two sides. The official said: “Everyone is trying to save face,” noting that what they mentioned “secretly” was different.

Khalil Al-Hayya, head of the Hamas political bureau, said on Thursday that the movement had received guarantees from Washington that the conflict in Gaza would end “completely.”

Hamas has accepted that it will not rule Gaza, but has not yet agreed to disarm, and wants to negotiate the timelines and framework for the redeployment of Israeli military forces, as well as the role played by the international stabilization force.

It is also not clear which countries would be willing to contribute to the force, or how long its deployment would take.