US President Joe Biden says Israel and Hamas have reached a ceasefire and hostage deal, after 15 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and inflamed the Middle East.
"I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas," Biden said at the White House on Wednesday. The deal was reached after 15 months of suffering, he said, and will be followed by a surge of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
"Fighting in Gaza will stop, and soon the hostages return home to their families," he said.
The deal was reached after months of negotiations by the Biden administration and the president thanked his national security adviser Jake Sullivan and other officials.
It was also reached by working alongside the incoming Donald Trump administration, he said, and the terms will be mostly implemented by them.
"In these past few days, we have been speaking as one team,” he said.
Asked by a reporter whether he or Trump deserved more credit for getting the deal done, Biden quipped, "Is that a joke?"
Trump, in a statement on social media, said the deal would not have happened if he had not been elected.
"This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signalled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies," he wrote.
Biden did not provide specifics outside the broad outlines of the deal that were already known, but indicated he thought it could set the stage for an independent Palestinian state.
"For the Palestinian people, a credible, credible pathway to a state of their own. And for the region, a future of normalization, integration of Israel and all its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia," he said.
The accord outlines a six-week initial ceasefire phase and includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the official told Reuters.
Phase one entails the release of 33 Israeli hostages including all women, children and men over 50.
Negotiations on implementing the second phase will begin by the 16th day of phase one and it is expected to include the release of all remaining hostages, a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The third phase is expected to address the return of all remaining dead bodies and the start of Gaza's reconstruction supervised by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.
The agreement follows months of on-off negotiations conducted by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with the backing of the United States, and comes just ahead of the January 20 inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden said the deal was reached by working alongside the incoming Trump administration.
Hamas, Gaza's dominant Palestinian militant group, told Reuters its delegation had handed mediators its approval for the ceasefire agreement and return of hostages.
A Palestinian official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters earlier that Hamas had given verbal approval to the ceasefire and hostage return proposal and was awaiting more information to give final written approval.
If successful, the planned phased ceasefire could halt fighting that has left much of Gaza in ruins, displaced most of the enclave's pre-war population of 2.3 million, and killed tens of thousands of people. The toll is still rising daily.
That in turn could defuse tensions across the wider Middle East, where the war has stoked conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, and raised fears of all-out war between arch regional foes Israel and Iran.
Even if the warring sides implement the current deal, it will still require further negotiation before there is a lasting ceasefire and the release of all the hostages.
MASSIVE TASK OF RECONSTRUCTION
If all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel still must agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a formidable challenge involving security guarantees for Israel and billions of dollars in investment for rebuilding.
One unanswered question is who will run Gaza after the war.
Israel has rejected any involvement by Hamas, which had ruled Gaza since 2007, but it has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, the body set up under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago that has limited governing power in the West Bank.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was cutting a visit to Europe short and flying home overnight to take part in security cabinet and government votes on the deal - meaning the votes would likely be by or on Thursday.
Israeli troops invaded Gaza after Hamas-led gunmen broke through security barriers and burst into Israeli border-area communities on October 7 in 2023, killing 1200 soldiers and civilians and abducting over 250 foreign and Israeli hostages.
Israel's air and ground war in Gaza has since killed over 46,000 people, according to Gaza health ministry figures, and left the coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble with hundreds of thousands of displaced people struggling through the winter cold in tents and makeshift shelters.
As his inauguration approached, Trump repeated his demand that a deal be done swiftly, warning repeatedly that there would be "hell to pay" if the hostages were not released by the time he took office.
His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, worked with Biden's team to push the deal over the line.
In Israel, the return of the hostages may ease some of the public anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the October 7 security failure that led to the deadliest single day in the country's history.
Gaza's conflict spilled over across the Middle East, with Iranian-backed proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen targeting Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The deal emerged a few months after Israel eliminated the top leaders of Hamas and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah in assassinations that gave it the upper hand.
