이스라엘 - 하마스 휴전 성립

[위종민]

가자지구 전쟁 발발 15개월만에 이스라엘과 하마스간 휴전이 합의됐네요. 양자 외에 미국, 이집트, 카타르 당국자들이 이를 확인했고 19일 일요일 발효될 예정으로 그날 첫 인질 석방이 이뤄질 예정으로, 하마스는 42일 동안 33명을 점진적으로 석방할 예정이며 이스라엘은 가자지구에서 점진적으로 철수하고 하마스 포로를 석방할 예정입니다. 

첫날 3명, 7일째 4명이 석방될 예정이고, 그 뒤 매 7일마다 3명씩, 42일째에 14명이 석방될 예정입니다. 나머지 인질 63명은 2단계 휴전안이 합의될 경우에만 석방될 예정으로, 2단계 휴전안은 휴전 개시 2주 뒤에 시작될 예정입니다. 

After 15 months of war, Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire-hostage release deal | The Times of Israel

After 15 months of war, Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire-hostage release deal

Officials from all sides confirm‎ agreement, set to take effect Sunday; security cabinet set to meet Thursday morning to approve the accord

By ToI Staff, Agencies, Jacob Magid 

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and Amy Spiro 

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15 January 2025, 9:45 pm

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Demonstrators embrace each other after the ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas is reported, Tel Aviv, January 15, 2025. (Jack GUEZ / AFP)

Fifteen months after the war in Gaza began with Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel, Jerusalem and the Palestinian terror group reached an agreement Wednesday on a ceasefire and hostage release deal.

The deal was confirmed by officials from Israel, Hamas, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, and was expected to take effect on Sunday, January 19, with the first of the hostages set to be released that day.

Speaking at a press conference from Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani confirmed the agreement and Sunday’s starting date.

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The complex accord, which has not yet been published, outlines a six-week initial ceasefire phase and includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the release of hostages taken by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel.

Once the deal’s implementation begins, Hamas will gradually release 33 Israeli hostages over the first 42 days of the ceasefire, according to multiple outlets.

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The first three hostages are set to be released on the first day, with four more to go free on the seventh day. After that, three hostages are to be released every seven days, with the final 14 to be released in the final week of the first phase.

The rest of the hostages, numbering 65, will only be freed if the sides can agree on a second phase for the truce, negotiations for which will begin some two weeks into the halt in fighting.

The Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday evening that there were still “a number of clauses” in the deal that had yet to be finally agreed upon, and that Israel hoped that “the details will be finalized tonight.”

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Channel 12 said talks were expected to continue throughout the night to nail down those final issues, so that a signing could take place Thursday.

According to reports in Hebrew media, Israel’s security cabinet was set to meet at 11 a.m. Thursday to officially approve the deal. Though several hardline members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition oppose the agreement, he is expected to have no trouble getting majority approval in the smaller security cabinet and, subsequently, in the full cabinet.

After that, lists of Palestinian security prisoners set to be freed will be published, to enable petitions to the High Court against their release by interested parties. However, the court has not intervened in such government decisions in the past and is highly unlikely to do so this time.

Demonstrators react after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was announced, during a protest calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, January 15, 2025 (Itai Ron/Flash90)

Detailing unconfirmed elements of the deal, Channel 12 noted that the list of the 33 hostages to be returned in the first phase comprises four female civilians, five female soldiers, as well as Shiri Bibas and her two small sons Ariel and baby Kfir, 10 men aged 50 and over, and 11 infirm men.

Hamas has said not all 33 are alive, but has yet to say who is not. Israel believes most of the 33 are alive. According to Channel 12, Hamas is obligated under the agreement to inform Israel as to the status of all 33 within the first week of the deal’s implementation.

The TV report added that over 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners will be freed in return for the 33, including at least 250 terrorists “with blood on their hands.”

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Israelis react to the ceasefire announcement as they take part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Some of those to be freed will be prisoners captured in Gaza after October 7, 2023, but nobody who took part in the invasion and slaughter will be freed, the report said.

US President-elect Donald Trump was the first person familiar with the negotiations to publicly confirm‎, on record, that the deal had been reached, in a post on his Truth Social account, saying: “WE HAVE A DEAL FOR THE HOSTAGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. THEY WILL BE RELEASED SHORTLY. THANK YOU!”

In a second post, Trump said his incoming administration will work closely with Israel to make sure Gaza “NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven,” and added that the “EPIC ceasefire agreement” could only have happened after he won the US presidential elections in November.

Palestinians celebrate the announcement of a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, January 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

After the deal was reported, a senior Arab official told The Times of Israel that there were a number of “minor” issues still to be finalized, but that these would not derail it.

Those issues include Israel finishing the vetting of the roughly 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners slated to be released. Many are Gazans who have been detained by Israel since the war began, the Arab official from one of the mediating countries said.

The number of Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences who will be released as part of the deal has not been finalized, though it is just about done, the official continued.

People celebrate while watching a television on a street in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 15, 2025, as news spread that a ceasefire and hostage release deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas. (Bashar Taleb / AFP)

Hamas has agreed that those serving life sentences will be released to an agreed-upon third country, but Israel is asking that a number of other prisoners being released be sent abroad as well, the official said, adding that this issue will be finalized in the coming days.

The mediators determined that these issues were not significant enough to warrant a delay in announcing the deal and beginning its implementation.

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If all goes smoothly, the Palestinians, Arab states and Israel must still agree on a vision for post-war Gaza, a formidable challenge involving security guarantees for Israel and many billions of dollars in investment for reconstruction.

One unanswered question is who will run Gaza after the war. Israel has rejected any involvement by Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is officially sworn to Israel’s destruction. But Israel has been almost equally opposed to rule by the Palestinian Authority, accusing it of supporting terror.

The war in Gaza began after thousands of terrorists led by Hamas stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 251 hostages.

The war has killed over 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Hamas-controlled health officials in the enclave. The numbers cannot be verified and do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.

Relatives and friends of people killed and abducted by Hamas and taken into Gaza, react to the ceasefire announcement as they take part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

It is believed that 94 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014

[Minowski(김유철)]

아직도 생존한 인질이 있다는 것이 더 놀랍네요.

[Minowski(김유철)]

방금 전에 이스라엘 내각에서 합의안 승인표결을 연기했다네요. 하마스가 마지막 순간 위기를 조장하고 있다면서.... 결국 협상 승인은 트럼프 임기 시작 선물로 주려는 모양인지도..

[위종민]

미국과 이스라엘간 유착이 도를 넘는 것 같은데 ( 신임 미 국방부장관은 알 아크사 모스크 부시고 성전 복원 지지하는 인물) 역풍이 어떻게 불 지 모르겠네요.