Israel, Hamas agree to first step of Trump peace plan

What happened

Israel and Hamas Wednesday agreed to exchange hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for all remaining Israeli hostages as Israel’s military pulled back in Gaza. President Donald Trump, who had pushed both sides to negotiate, announced that they had signed on to the “first phase” of his 20-point peace plan at ongoing Gaza negotiations in Egypt. Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the news, though each side focused on different aspects of the agreement.

Who said what

“The whole world came together around this deal,” Trump told Fox News Wednesday night. He called Wednesday's breakthrough a “historic” victory that will bring “peace in the Middle East,” and said the remaining Israeli hostages would be freed “probably Monday.” Officials said the 20 hostages believed to still be alive would be returned as soon as Sunday, while the remains of the 28 deceased Israelis would be handed over as they are located.

The hostage-for-prisoner swap “marks a breakthrough in what had been eight months of stalled negotiations after he took office, bringing Trump closer to a top foreign-policy goal of ending the war in Gaza,” The Wall Street Journal said. But Hamas’ statement on the deal “hinted at major details yet to be worked out, and Egyptian officials said mediators were working to hash out a final agreement that could still get derailed.”

If “Trump can hold this deal together” to the end, he “may have as legitimate a claim to that Nobel as the four American presidents who have who have won the peace prize,” David Sanger said at The New York Times. But this first step toward ending the Gaza war is probably the easiest part, and the “history of the region suggests that working out peace accords to end conflicts is a little like cleaning up after volcanic eruptions: There is a certainty it will happen again. It is just hard to know when, or how ferociously.”

What next?

Netanyahu said he would present the agreement to his cabinet for approval today. Trump told Axios he was “likely going to Israel in the coming days” to address Israeli lawmakers.

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