If the Israel-Hamas agreement to end the war goes according to the current framework, then fighting will stop in Gaza for 42 days, and dozens of Israeli captives and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be freed. In this first phase, Israeli forces will move back to the outskirts of Gaza, and many Palestinians will be able to return to the remaining areas of their homes as additional aid arrives.
The question is whether the ceasefire will survive beyond this first phase.
That will depend on further discussions due to begin within weeks. In those negotiations, Israel, Hamas and the American, Egyptian and Qatari mediators will face the difficult issue of how Gaza will be governed as Israel wants to eliminate Hamas.
Without an agreement within those 42 days to begin the second phase, Israel could resume its campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas—although dozens of hostages remain in the hands of the terrorists.
Hamas has agreed to a draft cease-fire agreement, two officials confirmed, but Israeli officials say the details are still being worked out, meaning some terms could change, or the deal could fail. Here's a look at the plan and potential pitfalls in the draft seen by the Associated Press.
Exchanging hostages for imprisoned Palestinians
In the first phase, Hamas will release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. At the end of the phase, all living women, children and adults held by the militants must be freed.
Another 100 hostages remain trapped inside Gaza, a mix of civilians and soldiers, and the military believes at least a third of them are dead.
On the first official day of the ceasefire, Hamas will release three hostages, and four more on the seventh day. After that, it will make weekly releases.
Which hostages and how many Palestinians will be released is complicated. The 33 will include women, children and those over 50 – almost all civilians, but the deal obliges Hamas to release all surviving female soldiers. Hamas will release the living hostages first, but if the living do not finish the number 33, the bodies will be given. Not all hostages are held by Hamas, so getting other militant groups to hand them over could be a problem.
In exchange, Israel will release 30 Palestinian women, children or the elderly for every living ex-captain who is freed. For every female soldier freed, Israel will release 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 serving life sentences. In exchange for the bodies given to Hamas, Israel will release all the women and children it has imprisoned in Gaza since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
Dozens of men, including soldiers, are yet to be captured in Gaza, pending the second phase.
Israeli retreat and Palestinian return
During the first phase of the proposed agreement, Israeli forces must withdraw to a protected zone one kilometer (0.6 miles) wide inside Gaza near its borders with Israel.
That will allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, including Gaza City and northern Gaza. With most of Gaza's population crammed into large, filthy tents, Palestinians yearn to return to their homes, even though many have been destroyed or seriously injured by the Israeli campaign.
But there are problems. In the last year of negotiations, Israel has insisted that it must control the movement of Palestinians to the north to ensure that Hamas does not take weapons from those areas.
Throughout the war, the Israeli army has separated the north from the rest of Gaza by occupying the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land across the border where the army has displaced Palestinians and built bases. That allowed them to search for people fleeing from north to central Gaza and prevent anyone trying to return.
A draft seen by the AP specifies that Israel must leave the corridor. In the first week, the army will withdraw from the main street on the north-south coast—Rasheed Street—which would open the only way for the Palestinians to return. On the 22nd day of the cease-fire, Israeli soldiers must leave the entire tunnel.
Still, as talks continued on Tuesday, an Israeli official stressed that the army would continue to control Netzarim and that Palestinians returning to the north would have to check in there, although he declined to provide details. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door discussions.
Addressing that conflict can bring tension.
Throughout the first phase, Israel will continue to control the Philadelphia Corridor, the strip of land that borders Gaza and Egypt, including the Rafah Crossing. Hamas has withdrawn its demands for Israel to withdraw from the area.
Humanitarian aid
In the first phase, the flow of aid to Gaza will be increased to hundreds of trucks a day of food, medicine, supplies and fuel to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. That is more than Israel has allowed to enter during the entire war.
For months, aid groups have been trying to distribute aid to the Palestinians and even the aid corridor into Gaza due to restrictions by the Israeli army and the hijacking of aid trucks by bandits. The end of the fight should alleviate that.
The need is great. Malnutrition and disease are rampant among the Palestinians, who are cramped in tents and lack food and clean water. Hospitals are damaged and short of supplies. The draft agreement specifies that equipment will be allowed to build shelters for tens of thousands whose homes were destroyed and rebuild infrastructure such as electricity, sewage, communications and road systems.
But even here, the implementation may bring problems.
Even before the war, Israel restricted the entry of certain equipment, saying it could be used for military purposes by Hamas. Another Israeli official said plans are being drawn up for aid distribution and clean-up, but the plan is to prevent Hamas from playing a role.
Another thing that makes it difficult is that the Israeli government is still determined in its plan to stop UNRWA from working and to cut off all relations between this organization and the Israeli government. The UN agency is the main distributor of aid in Gaza and provides education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The second stage
If all that happens, the parties still have to deal with the second phase. Negotiations on it will begin on Day 16 of the ceasefire.
The broad outlines of the second phase are outlined: All remaining hostages will be released for Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza and “stable calm.”
But that seemingly basic exchange opens up far bigger problems.
Israel has said it will not agree to a complete withdrawal until Hamas's military and political power is eliminated and it will not be able to re-engage—ensuring that Hamas no longer controls Gaza. Hamas says it will not hand over the last hostages until Israel withdraws all troops from Gaza.
So negotiations will have to get both sides to agree on an alternative way to govern Gaza. Effectively, Hamas must agree to be removed from power—something it has said it is willing to do, but may want to keep a hand in any future government, which Israel has forcefully rejected.
The draft agreement states that the agreement for the second phase must be concluded at the end of the first.
The pressure will be on both sides to reach an agreement, but what happens if they don't? It can go in many ways.
Hamas wanted written guarantees that the ceasefire would last as long as needed to agree on a second phase. It received verbal assurances from the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
However, Israel gave no guarantees. Israel may therefore threaten new military action to pressure Hamas into negotiations or may resume its military campaign, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened.
Hamas and the mediators are betting that momentum from the first phase will make it difficult for him to do so. Relaunching the offensive would risk losing the remaining hostages – which has angered many against Netanyahu – although stopping the crackdown on Hamas would anger his political allies.
The third phase is likely to be less controversial: The bodies of the remaining hostages will be returned in exchange for a 3- to 5-year reconstruction program to be carried out in Gaza under international supervision.
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