let's talk about the Gaza ceasefire [Applause] deal this was the reaction in Gaza when the news broke everyone was celebrating and and shouting and people were coming you know near me asking is it real is it a real ceas fire a lot of people in Israel welcome the news too including the families of those held captive in Gaza I hope the nightmare is over although others in Israel have been protesting against the ceasefire the aim of this deal is to permanently end the war let me say it again a permanent end of the war but
there's a lot that still needs to happen to get to that point including final sign off from the Israeli government there are a number of challenges this at any moment can be derailed for for even the most minute um detail so what's in the ceasefire deal and what are some of the challenges people are warning about it is with pleasure that this was the moment that qatar's prime minister one of the mediators announced that Israel and Hamas had reached a deal on Gaza now as we record this there's plenty we still don't know no final
document has been published some details are still being finalized and Israel's government hasn't formally approved the deal yet the agreement is actually very similar to a ceasefire proposal that US President Joe Biden made in May last year but there are lots of reports that it was pressure on Israel from incoming US president Donald Trump that made the difference this time what we do know is that this isn't going to be without reward that Trump is going to reward Israel and that could include from the Trump Administration a green light on further annexation of occupied Palestinian
territory or occupied Syrian territory so here's what we know so far the deal is structured in three stages and the pause in fighting is due to start on January 19th stage one is meant to last six weeks 33 Israeli captives including women children and the elderly will be released by and other groups that's according to the Qatari prime minister in return Israel will release Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails there are reports that might be around a thousand or more Israel will start withdrawing its troops from populated areas in Gaza that means Palestinians should be
able to travel around the strip more freely many are desperate to go and see what if anything is left of their homes and neighborhoods remember 90% of God as population of more than 2 million people has been displaced we will be shocked we will be uh faced by the huge and the massive destruction everywhere I was talking just to people here after the announcement of the ceasefire and many of them told me that I will go to the north of Gaza in order to BU my my kids who are still under the rebel uh to
to visit the graves or to make Graves for my family who are still under the rebel stage one is also about starting to address the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza there's supposed to be a surge in Aid deliveries something like 600 trucks of Aid a day again nowhere near as sufficient as what Gaza actually needs but it's still a lot better than what is currently getting in right now so that's stage one it's also during this period that negotiations are supposed to start for stage two focusing on reaching a permanent end to the war it
would involve Hamas releasing all the remaining living captives including male soldiers Israel releasing more Palestinian prisoners and Israel withdrawing all of its forces from Gaza if the two sides managed to get that far then they'd move on to stage three with Hamas returning the bodies of any remaining dead captives and working out a long-term reconstruction plan for Gaza so that's the outline of how it's supposed to work in theory but what will it take in practice for this deal to hold I believe that it all depends on uh on the parties of the agreement and
acting in good faith this could just very much well be a humanitarian pause where we see phase one um being more of a symbolic gesture and then you know there's absolutely no guarantee that we'll actually see phase two or phase three pan out but there are obstacles to overcome even before stage one begins the Israeli government was supposed to confirm the deal on Thursday morning but a vote in the cabinet was postponed Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the delay on Hamas accusing them of going back on some details Hamas said there was no basis
to his claims and that it remains committed to the deal it looks a lot like a politically manufactured crisis it is very on brand for Mr Netanyahu to uh provide different interpretations to different people well this security cabinet meeting is more than a day delayed and that's because of internal fighting within Benjamin netanyahu's Coalition but nonetheless the premier's office did release a statement saying that he has confirmation from the mediators that all of the out standing issues have been resolved Netanyahu had informed the family members of Israeli captives that the deal will be underway if
we look at the bigger picture there are even more potential challenges the current deal doesn't actually provide solutions to the really hard questions it just provides a framework to talk about them while there's a pause in fighting it's things like what will it actually take for Israel to fully withdraw all its forces from Gaza it's supposed to do that in stage two but we know that some people in the Israeli government oppose that who will run Gaza and be in charge of the security there and will there be a role for Hamas keep in mind
that Israel's stated aim of the war was to eliminate Hamas something the outgoing us secretary of state admitted has not happened we assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost I think everybody sees that Israel's objective in Gaza uh with all of the military that it's pushed uh and the destruction that it's caus has not brought Israel any closer to removing Hamas from power or providing uh real security whatever the chances of this deal sticking for now the families of Israeli captives are feeling more hopeful and the people of
Gaza are counting on a reprieve from 15 months of Relentless Israeli attacks that have killed more than 46,000 people almost 100 were killed in the 24 hours after the deal was announced the worst part was bom B in and killing here we are facing the the famine the starvation the lack of food medical supplies you can't imagine you can't imagine the the severity and the difficulty of the situation here
