WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced on Monday that a deal has been reached with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in the Gaza Strip and free the remaining hostages.
Hamas has yet to formally respond to the plan, which would require it to disarm.
“I hope that we’re going to have a deal for peace,” Trump said in a news conference alongside Netanyahu. “If Hamas rejects the deal — which is always possible, they’re the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it — but I have a feeling that we’re going to have a positive answer.”
The plan, which the Trump administration published Monday, involves an immediate ceasefire and the release of the remaining living and dead hostages within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting the agreement.
The agreement also calls for Gaza to be temporarily governed by a “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” that would be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts. A “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other to-be-announced heads of state will supervise the Palestinian committee until the Palestinian Authority completes a reform program.
Israel will then release 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences as well as 1,700 Palestinians who were detained in Gaza over the past two years. For every deceased Israeli hostage whose remains Hamas releases, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
US special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Netanyahu on Sunday in an effort to bridge the remaining gaps.
Netanyahu arrived at the White House less than a week after he vowed in his address to the United Nations General Assembly that Israel would “finish the job” against Hamas, whose attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to the abduction of 251 others.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but say the majority of the dead are civilians.
On Sept. 16, the Israeli military began a full-scale ground offensive in Gaza City, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee southward from what it says is one of Hamas’ final strongholds.
Israeli authorities believe 20 of the 48 remaining hostages are still alive.
The leaders of several Arab and Muslim-majority countries discussed the US proposal in a closed-door meeting with Trump in New York last week. Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told Al-Monitor on Thursday that the plan was a “very ambitious” attempt to resolve the conflict.
This is a developing story and will be updated.