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What We Know About the First Phase of the Gaza Ceasefire and What Comes Next

Qassam Muaddi

Two days after the Israeli war on Gaza entered its third year, Palestinians across the Gaza Strip burst into celebration on Thursday morning after U.S. President Trump announced that a ceasefire deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas.

The announcement came following four days of talks in Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt, which included a Hamas negotiating team headed by its political chief, Khalil al-Hayyeh, whom Israel attempted to assassinate last month in an airstrike on Doha, Qatar. The Israeli negotiating team was headed by Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer. The ceasefire talks had been renewed after Trump announced his plan to end the war in Gaza in late September.

The known details of the deal include only the first phase of a ceasefire, which includes a halt to military operations, the withdrawal of Israeli forces to an agreed line inside Gaza, the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip, and an exchange of prisoners that would see the release of all Israeli captives in Gaza.

According to the Trump plan’s map, Israel would withdraw its forces in an initial phase up to a line that starts from the northern Gaza governorate cities of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia. The line extends east of Gaza City, through the Bureij refugee camp in the central governorate, and east of Deir al-Balah. It then continues to the town of Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, and ends in the east of Rafah.

Shortly after the deal was announced on Thursday, the Israeli Army Radio reported that the Israeli army began to withdraw its forces from Gaza City and its surroundings, where Israel has been conducting a large-scale invasion, forcing up to 900,000 Palestinians to flee the city.

Palestinian prisoners

The announced deal also includes the release of 20 living Israeli captives in exchange for the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners serving high sentences, in addition to 1,700 Palestinians who were detained in the Gaza Strip throughout the war.

Israeli reports indicated that the negotiations over the names of Palestinian prisoners to be released were still ongoing in the final hours before the deal was announced. Hamas and the other Palestinian factions insisted on releasing the 303 Palestinians who are serving life sentences for their involvement in attacks that led to the death of Israelis. Israel, on the other hand, only agreed to discuss 289 names, as the remaining 14 are citizens of Israel, and refuses to recognize them as Palestinians, considering them an internal Israeli issue.

In addition, Israel held its veto on several high-ranking names among Palestinian prisoners, namely Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, the secretary general of the PFLP, Ahmad Saadat, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Hamed, whom the Palestinian factions insisted on. The final list of Palestinian prisoners set to be released has not been made public yet. However, the Qatar-based al-Araby TV quoted sources as saying that negotiations over the names of prisoners have ended, and that both sides have made concessions.

Currently, Israel holds some 11,000 Palestinians in its prisons, a third of whom are administrative detainees, held without charge or trial. About 400 of them are minors.

Humanitarian aid

According to the deal, Israel would also allow the entry of 400 trucks carrying humanitarian aid per day for the first few days, with the quantity later increasing to 600 trucks per day. Before the war, the daily rate of trucks entering Gaza was 500-600 trucks per day, which is considered the minimum required quantity, according to international organizations. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Feltcher, said on Thursday that the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip requires several entry points and security guarantees.

The deal also stipulates that Palestinians would be allowed to return to Gaza City and areas of northern Gaza, which have been forcibly depopulated by Israeli forces in recent months. Israel had already displaced the residents of those areas in the final months of 2024 in a large-scale offensive known as “the Generals’ Plan.”

During the offensive, Israeli forces destroyed most residential blocks and buildings, leaving nowhere for Palestinians to return. In late January 2025, as Israel cleared the way back to the area as part of the first ceasefire deal, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to the north in a historic return march.

After the ceasefire went into effect, some people tried to return to north Gaza via al-Rashid Street along the coast, but Israeli tanks positioned nearby fired tank shells at the displaced. At least a million Palestinians continue to be crowded in the narrow coastal Mawasi area in Khan Younis, and in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Political responses

The deal has not been signed yet. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, held a cabinet meeting late on Thursday to approve the deal. Netanyahu’s account on X shared a post past midnight local time with photos of the cabinet meeting, which was also attended by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and the son-in-law of President Trump, Jared Kushner.

Trump said in a statement to the press from the White House that he will travel to the Middle East and that Israeli captives will be released on Monday or Tuesday. Trump also admitted that around 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Hamas’s politburo member, Usama Hamdan, said the release of Israeli captives will begin on Monday.

Meanwhile, Israeli bombings continued in Gaza, even after the announcement of the ceasefire deal. The spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, Muhammad al-Mughir, told AFP that since the announcement of the deal, Israeli strikes have targeted several areas in the Strip, especially in the north. Al-Mughir added that Civil Defense teams are having difficulties in reaching survivors due to the damage to roads and the continuous flights of Israeli warplanes in the area.

In Israel, hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich voiced their opposition to the deal, stating that they would oppose it in the cabinet, but without pulling out of the government coalition, which the pair have threatened to do in the past.

Hamas, for its part, announced the end of the war in a statement read by its politburo chief, Khalil al-Hayyeh. The Hamas official said that the ceasefire deal was reached “thanks to the perseverance of our people,” adding that “despite the enemy’s attempts to break the agreements, our efforts continued seriously and responsibly in negotiations, and our only goal has been halting the aggression and saving the blood of our people.”

During al-Hayyeh’s live statement, Israeli warplanes bombed and destroyed a large residential building in the center of Gaza City. According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, approximately 40 people, including children, are still missing under the rubble.

Next steps

The deal doesn’t include any clauses on the definitive end of the war, the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions, the postwar administration of Gaza, or reconstruction. All of these issues have been relegated to the second phase of the negotiations, which are set to begin immediately after the ceasefire officially takes effect, according to Hamas.

Although U.S. President Trump has repeatedly expressed his will to end the war as a pathway for peace in the Middle East, there is no written guarantee that Israel will not break the ceasefire and resume its bombing of Gaza after the release of its captives, as it did last March.

[Qassam Muaddi is a Palestinian journalist and writer who has covered Palestinian social, political and cultural developments in Arabic, French and English since 2014. Courtesy: Mondoweiss, an independent website devoted to informing readers about developments in Israel/Palestine and related US foreign policy.]

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A History of Deception: US-Israeli Pacts and the Gaza Proposal

Ramzy Baroud

The history of Zionism is fundamentally one of deception. This assertion is critically relevant today, as it contextualizes the so-called ‘Trump Gaza proposal,’ which appears to be little more than a veiled strategy to defeat the Palestinians and facilitate the ethnic cleansing of a significant portion of Gaza’s population.

Since the start of the current conflict, the United States has been Israel’s staunchest ally, going as far as framing the outright slaughter of Palestinian civilians as Israel’s “right to defend itself.” This position is defined by the wholesale criminalization of all Palestinians—civilians and combatants, women, children, and men alike.

Any naive hope that the Trump administration might restrain Israel proved unfounded. Both the Democratic administration of Joe Biden and the Republican administration of his successor have been enthusiastic partners in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s messianic mission. The difference has been primarily rhetorical. While Biden wraps his staunch support in liberal discourse, Trump is more direct, using the language of overt threats.

Both administrations pursued strategies to hand Netanyahu a victory, even when his war failed to achieve its strategic objectives. Biden used his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, as an emissary to broker a ceasefire fully tailored to Israeli priorities. Similarly, Trump utilized his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others, to concoct a parallel ploy.

Netanyahu deftly exploited both administrations. The Trump era, however, saw the US lobby and Israel seemingly dictating American foreign policy. A clear sign of this dynamic was the famous scene last April, during Netanyahu’s White House visit, when the ‘America First’ President pulled out a chair for him. The summoning of Blair, who once headed the US-controlled Quartet for Peace, to the White House alongside Kushner in August, was another foreboding signal. It was evident that Israel and the US were planning a much larger scheme: one not only to crush Gaza but to prevent any attempt at resurrecting the Palestinian cause altogether.

While ten countries were declaring recognition of the state of Palestine to applause at the UN General Assembly between September 21 and 23, the US and Israel were preparing to reveal their grand strategy, with critical contributions from Ron Dermer, then Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs.

The Trump Gaza proposal was announced on September 29. Almost immediately, several countries, including strong supporters of Palestine, declared their backing. This support was given without realizing that the latest iteration of the plan was substantially altered from what had been discussed between Trump and representatives of the Arab and Muslim world in New York on September 24.

Trump announced that the proposal was accepted by Israel and threatened Hamas that, if it does not accept it within “three or four days”, then “ it’s going to be a very sad end.” Still, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who, along with the UN, has largely failed to hold Israel accountable, declared his support for the Trump proposal, stating that “it is now crucial that all parties commit to an agreement and its implementation.”

Netanyahu felt a newfound elation, believing the weight of international pressure was finally lifting, and the onus was shifting to the Palestinians. He reportedly said that “now the whole world, including the Arab and Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the conditions.” Comfortable that the pendulum had swung in his favor, he openly restated his objectives in Gaza on September 30: “To release all our hostages, both the living and the deceased, while the IDF remains in most of the Strip.” Even when Arab and Muslim nations protested the amendments to the initial Trump plan, neither Netanyahu nor Trump relented, the former continuing the massacres, while the latter repeating his threats.

The implication is stark: regardless of the Palestinian position, Israel will continue to push for the ethnic cleansing of the Strip using both military and non-military means. The plan envisions Gaza and the West Bank being administered as two separate entities, with the Strip falling under the direct control of Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace”, thus effectively turning Blair and Kushner into the new colonial rulers of Palestine.

History is most critical here, particularly the history of Israeli deception. From its onset, Zionist colonialism justified its rule over Palestine based on a series of fabrications: that European settlers held essential historical links to the land; the erroneous claim that Palestine was a “land without a people”; the assertion that indigenous natives were intruders; and the stereotype that Arabs are inherently anti-Semitic. Consequently, the state of Israel, built on ethnically cleansed Palestinian land, was falsely marketed as a ‘beacon’ of peace and democracy.

This web of falsehoods deepened and became more accentuated after every massacre and war. When Israel faltered in managing its military efforts or its propaganda war, the United States invariably intervened. A prime example is the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, where a ‘peace deal’ was imposed on the PLO under US pressure. Thanks to US envoy Philip Habib’s efforts, Palestinian fighters left Beirut for exile, on the understanding that this step would spare thousands of civilian lives. Tragically, the opposite occurred, directly paving the way for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and a prolonged Israeli occupation of Lebanon until 2000.

This historical pattern is repeating itself in Gaza today, though the options are now more stark. Palestinians face a choice between the guaranteed defeat of Gaza — accompanied by a non-guaranteed, temporary slowdown of the genocide — and the continuation of mass slaughter. Unlike the Israeli deception in Lebanon four decades ago, however, Netanyahu makes no effort to mask his vile intentions this time. Will the world allow him to get away with this deception and genocide?

[Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His forthcoming book, ‘Before the Flood,’ will be published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include ‘Our Vision for Liberation’, ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).]

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The Trump Gaza Plan and the Politics of Coercion

Daniel Falcone interviews Richard Falk

In this interview, international legal scholar Richard Falk breaks down Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan. He discusses its coercive nature and the politics of the West at the expense of Palestinian agency and describes the Israeli and Hamas political psychology, as they both face pressure in adhering to or rejecting the plan. This all shows the fragility of dialogue when the continuation of settler-colonialism is at play in pursuit of an imperial grand strategy.

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Daniel Falcone: Could you comment on Israel and Hamas and their motivations within the “Trump Plan?”

Richard Falk: Israel and Hamas have reasons to fulfill the first stages of the Trump Plan and share strong pressures to allow it to collapse thereafter. Netanyahu faces pressure from his ultra-right partners (led by Smotrich and Ben Gvir) to resume the Gaza City operation to destroy Hamas resistance and avoid signs of weakness by accepting a diplomatic compromise forced upon Israel by Trump’s coercive threat diplomacy.

Hamas faces pressures, some relating to its acceptance of a plan heavily weighted in Israel’s favor and devised without its participation in conformity with the colonial playbook. The absence of Palestine in the shaping of the plan has problematic implications that bear on Hamas’ future role. This plan is tainted by its perverse impression of rewarding the perpetrators of genocide while punishing victims. It makes no pretense of either procedural or substantive balance with its minimal contributions to the realization of Palestinian rights as amounting to acts of charity conferred by the perpetrator and its main complicit supporter.

Despite these drawbacks both Israel and Hamas have pragmatic reasons for adherence. On the Israeli side, after the release of all Israeli hostages by Hamas, there is no longer any need for exhibiting constraint in the future should Israel decide it no longer sufficiently benefits from the plan. By accepting the Trump deal, Netanyahu might also believe that his legitimacy is restored. Israel’s pariah status acquired by its lawless behavior since the October 7 attack will be overcome.

Israel might also believe in the diplomacy since Arab states and Muslim majority societies, like Turkey and Malaysia reveal strong political momentum in favor of the plan. There are economic incentives for Israel to do its part in bringing the violence to an end. This latter consideration will undoubtedly be downplayed internally by Israel. It would reveal Israel’s vulnerability arising from its acute economic precariousness and the related impact of growing informal and formal international hostility and civil society activism. So long as Trump believes the plan was a brilliant contribution to peacemaking, Israel would be most reluctant to antagonize the White House by taking responsibility for the collapse of the 20 Point Plan.

Reverse considerations are at play on the Hamas side. Giving in to this one-sided plan, and its ‘negotiation’ by way of an ultimatum, is suggestive of Hamas being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. The surviving population of Gaza seems to seek an end to Israeli violence no matter how high the political costs of giving up their resistance, based on a survival-first ethos, even if it involves the acceptance of a colonialist governance scheme that probably will produce a chapter of high profits in the history of disaster capitalism.

Such a plan seems to deprive Gazans of any influence in guiding the restoration process and governance arrangements, or of the economic benefits of their own large offshore natural gas deposits. How a post-genocide Gaza is rebuilt has crucial identity and heritage implications. Choices as to whether to recreate a traditional architectural and residential character or go with international styles of modernism as in Doha or Dubai is of great relevance to the character of Gaza as a community develops, and as whether it remains an Arab city or becomes a Western city.

Hamas is internally split and somewhat implicit in its ‘conditional’ acceptance of the Trump Plan. It is ready to implement the prisoner exchange and ceasefire features but is so far holding out when it comes to an acceptance of a unilateral obligation to disarm and to endorse post-conflict governance that excludes Palestinian participation. Unlike Israel, Hamas has little to lose by a reasoned repudiation of Trump’s Israel-aligned diplomacy, especially if Israel seems intent on breaking the ceasefire.

The future of the Trump Plan after the probable implementation of its initial phases is a matter of conjecture in a diplomatic atmosphere fraught with uncertainty. Hoping for the best at this stage seems to imply support for an immediate ceasefire of uncertain duration, return of the Israeli hostages, and negotiations that include Hamas and are designed to determine the post-conflict political future of Gaza, which means above all, the maintenance of the ceasefire.

I refrain from using ‘war’ and ‘peace.’ First, the armed conflict in Gaza was asymmetrical in military capabilities as to make the violence resemble ‘a massacre’ more than ‘a war.’ Second, this alleged turn by the U.S. to threaten diplomacy by way of a ‘take it or leave it’ proposal is better regarded as a continuation of coercion by a threat and ultimatum than a search for peace based on international law. It is a short step away from warning Hamas that if it does not accept the proposal in 72 hours, the U.S. will support an Israeli decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza City.

Daniel Falcone: What would happen if the hostages were not released?

Richard Falk: If Israel resumes its military operations or breaches the ceasefire with respect to the delivery of aid, then efforts should be made to restore compliance with the plan. If Hamas refuses to release all the hostages without offering a persuasive explanation, then at this stage there seems a failure of the Trump approach that would lead Israel in all probability to resume its state violence.

Israel could limit its reaction to the partial release of the hostages by refusing to withdraw its troops or even redeploying them rather than repudiating the ceasefire. The U.S. reaction would also be relevant, either by throwing its weight in support of Israel’s return to genocidal battlefield tactics of conflict-resolution or by counseling a moderate tit-for-tat response — that left the ceasefire in place and called for further negotiations aimed at achieving the completion of all 20 points in the Trump plan. No matter what Hamas does by way of provocation in relation to the prisoner exchange, it gives Israel no grounds for claiming impunity in relation to the crime of genocide.

Daniel Falcone: Could you remark on how this hardly changes the balance of power in Gaza. Any hope for a short respite in the conflict? Could the deal slow down the production of Greater Israel?

Richard Falk: If Hamas should agree to disarm, and some sort of Arab stabilization force established order in Gaza during a transition period it would give U.S./Israel substantial control and create a situation where Palestinians on the ground faced a choice of leave, submit, or resist. This latter option would expose the Gaza population to harsh policing and lifestyle restrictions that may be unwelcome after years of enduring Israeli oppression either by direct occupation from 1967 to 2005 or the siege from 2007 to the present.

If Israel respected the military withdrawal provisions of the plan, the population of Gaza would at least be free from apartheid style repression that was initiated by the conquest of Palestinian Territories in the 1967 War. If normalization was accompanied by large-scale international aid in relation to construction, education, health, and culture, the daily life experience of Gazans would improve dramatically and objections to the Trump transition setup could wither away and even possibly marginalize Hamas if Palestinian sentiments turned from resistance and liberation to the benefits of normalization.

Israel might allow this normalization scenario to unfold in Gaza and concentrate its political efforts on overcoming its pariah status, which could lead to many gains by way of prosperous relations with neighbors and the West. It could reaffirm its commitment to democracy and even dismantle its apartheid policies and practices, at first in pre-1967 Israel, but later in the West Bank where it would order the Israeli settlements to either withdraw from Palestine or make a credible adjustment to peaceful coexistence with the Palestinian governing institutions. This seems far-fetched and presupposes the radical reform of Zionist ideology or its abandonment, but nothing short of this can have any realistic chance of delivering a justice-driven future to these embattled two peoples. Algeria and South Africa both reversed courses and transformed into forms of democratic coexistence. Gaza would certainly benefit from a coexistence model instead of the visions for a Greater Israel.

The Zionist Movement has always been content with taking what it can in the present political context without giving up on seeking to come closer to its final goals. This pattern of salami tactics goes back at least as far as the Balfour Declaration and continued with its acceptance of the UN Partition Plan of 1947, followed by ‘the Green Line’ armistice in the 1948 War, and in phases up to the present. A way of conceiving of the Trump Plan is another such step in the direction of achieving Greater Israel and having the side geopolitical benefit of whitewashing Israel and those complicit from any responsibility for genocide during the last two years.

[Daniel Falcone is a teacher, journalist, and PhD student in the World History program at St. John’s University in Jamaica, NY as well as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He resides in New York City. Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global law, Queen Mary University London, and Research Associate, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB. Courtesy: CounterPunch, an online magazine based in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as “muckraking with a radical attitude”. It is edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank.]