U.S. President Donald Trump said he expects Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages on Monday, following a major peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian group.
“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Speaking on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Wednesday, Trump said, “The big thing is hostages are going to be released probably, our time, would be, probably Monday.”
Highlights
- Trump announced that Israel and Hamas signed the first phase of his peace plan, expecting hostages to be released by Monday.
- Israeli PM Netanyahu agreed to a 20-point plan, including withdrawal from Gaza for the release of hostages.
- The deal, negotiated with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, awaits Israeli cabinet approval and includes a 72-hour ceasefire.
- Hamas agreed but fears Israel may restart conflict; rights groups doubt Israel's compliance with ceasefire terms.
- Despite peace talks, explosions occurred overnight in Gaza, with an Israeli far-right minister vowing to destroy Hamas afterward.
Hamas will be releasing Israeli hostages, according to Donald Trump
Image credits: The White House/Flickr
“They’re deep in the earth, and they’re being gotten and a lot of things are happening right now as we speak,” he said.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to a 20-point U.S. plan, which includes the Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of all 48 hostages still held by Hamas.
Twenty-one of the hostages are still assessed to be alive, according to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
A senior White House official said the deal will be brought to the Israeli cabinet on Thursday for approval. If passed, Israeli forces will pull back from parts of the Gaza Strip within 24 hours.
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“Then the 72-hour clock begins, and Hamas will try to go earlier if possible. Our assessment is that hostages will begin getting released on Monday,” the official said.
A source told Reuters that the Israeli hostages may be released as soon as Saturday.
News of the agreement sparked celebrations in Israel and among hostage families. In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, people gathered to cheer and wave flags.
Palestinians also broke into wild celebrations, with people applauding in the streets of Gaza, even as Israeli strikes continued.
Israeli forces could pull back from the Gaza Strip
Netanyahu also welcomed the deal. “With God’s help, we will bring them all home,” he said in a statement.
“A great day for Israel. Tomorrow, I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew.
“I thank from the bottom of my heart President Trump and his team for mobilizing for this sacred mission of freeing our hostages.”
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Hamas confirmed it accepted Trump’s proposal, which was negotiated in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh with the help of Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey.
Israeli General Nitzan Alon was seen shaking hands with Qatar’s Prime Minister Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff in the background.
The proposal was negotiated with the help of Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also welcomed the Gaza deal and said he hopes this could lead to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Wafa news agency reported.
The exact terms of the agreement remain unclear. Under Trump’s original proposal, Hamas was to completely disarm in exchange for Israel’s military operation to end, more humanitarian aid to be pushed into Palestine, and plans for the reconstruction of Gaza to begin.
Hamas terrorists who willingly give up their arms would be granted “amnesty” under the terms. Once Hamas returns all the hostages, Israel would return theirs: 250 life sentence prisoners and 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7, 2023.
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While Hamas seems to have agreed to Trump’s original terms, it has concerns over its disarmament. It questions the trustworthiness of Israel not to restart the genocide in Gaza once the hostages are released.
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of Israel-Palestine at US-based rights group DAWN, also said there were concerns about whether Israel would comply with the terms of the ceasefire.
“Israel has deliberately, openly and brazenly broken every ceasefire that was achieved up until this point,” he said.
"Ensuring that they comply by the terms, that they don’t go back to the fighting and reimpose the siege—that they actually allow not only aid but commercial goods and people to flow across the border—is going to be something that I think we are not quite there yet,” Omer-Man told Al Jazeera.
Omer-Man noted how the ceasefire should be welcomed, but such an agreement could have been reached at any time over the past two years.
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“Hamas has been offering all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war almost since the beginning. And President Biden had the exact same leverage that President Trump has today,” he said.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in an X post that Hamas must be destroyed after the hostages are released.
“Immediately after the hostages return home, the state of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza, so that it no longer poses a threat to Israel,” he wrote.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel ‘will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas’
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He further said he would not vote for a ceasefire deal with Hamas to end the war in Gaza.
Despite the announcement, Gaza’s civil defense agency reported several explosions in northern Gaza overnight on Thursday.
Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with Gaza’s civil defense, told AFP, “Since the announcement last night of an agreement on a proposed ceasefire framework in Gaza, several explosions have been reported, particularly in areas of northern Gaza.”
Despite the announcement, several explosions were reported in Gaza overnight
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He reported “a series of intense airstrikes” on Gaza City.
Former U.S. ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone told Al Jazeera that there is “good reason to hope” that the ceasefire deal will hold because “both sides have lost far beyond what they imagined they would ever lose in pursuing the conflict in the way that they have.”
More than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and more than 1.9 million have been displaced, according to the UN.