Rights and Accountability 15 January 2025
Palestinians react to news of a ceasefire agreement with Israel in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, on 15 January.
APA imagesThe prime minister of Qatar announced late Wednesday that a phased deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas to end more than 460 days of brutal and devastating war in Gaza.
The first phase of a three-stage agreement will begin on Sunday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said during a brief press conference in Doha:
Even before Al Thani announced that a deal was reached, Palestinians in Gaza who have endured more than a year of constant Israeli attacks and displacement welcomed the news of an imminent agreement with celebrations in the streets. The text of the agreement, mediated in part by Qatar, has not been published officially. The prime minister of the Gulf state said that the exact terms of the second and third phase have yet to be hammered out by the two parties.Al Thani said that the first phase of the deal would take place over 42 days and see the release of 33 Israelis held captive in Gaza – both living and dead, and both soldiers and civilians – in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons and detention centers.
That phase also includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza’s populated areas, Al Thani added, as well as evacuation of the wounded for medical treatment outside of Gaza.
Palestinians displaced within Gaza will be able to return to their homes during the first phase, Al Thani said, and there will be a surge in desperately needed humanitarian aid across the territory.
The Qatari prime minister said that Doha would work closely with Cairo and Washington to guarantee the implementation of the agreement but that it was up to the parties to fully commit to all three phases, honor their obligations and reach a lasting casefire.
Pressure
US President Joe Biden stated that the agreement bringing an end to 15 months of war that threatened to destabilize the entire region was the result of “extreme pressure” on Hamas and the weakening of Iran.
The deal is also the result of “dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” Biden added.
The lame duck president undermined his claim by acknowledging that the plan agreed to by Israel and Hamas on Wednesday was the same one that he presented in May.
“My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done,” Biden said.
But two Arab officials told The Times of Israel that Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy of Donald Trump – who begins his second term as US president on Monday – did more to sway Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in one meeting than Biden did in a whole year.
The prevailing analysis in the Israeli media is that it was the incoming Trump administration’s pressure on Netanyahu, rather than Israeli pressure on Hamas, that got the agreement over the finish line.
After the Qatari announcement, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya said that Israel had not achieved any of its objectives in Gaza – both those it declared and those it did not declare, alluding to Israeli plans to depopulate, annex and recolonize of the north of the territory.“And here we are today, proving that the [Israeli] occupation did not and will not defeat our people and their resistance,” al-Hayya said.
The Hamas official thanked regional resistance groups including Hizballah in Lebanon and Ansarallah in Yemen for opening support fronts and protesters around the globe for standing in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Reporters at the Doha press conference on Wednesday asked what mechanisms were in place to guarantee that this truce would hold. A temporary pause that saw an exchange of captives collapsed after a week in November 2023.
The official death toll in Gaza stood at around 14,850 Palestinians before the November 2023 truce came into effect. That figure stood at around 46,700 and counting on Wednesday as Israel continued to wage deadly attacks on Gaza following the announcement of the deal.
An unknown number of Palestinians have lost their lives as a result of the siege or due to Israel’s destruction of health, sanitation and housing infrastructure in the territory.At least 110,265 Palestinians – one in every 20 people in Gaza – have been injured, many of them with life-altering injuries.
What comes next
The International Court of Justice warned in January last year that there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza. Another tribunal in The Hague, the International Criminal Court, issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister who was dismissed by Netanyahu in November 2024.
Netanyahu is now seeking guarantees from state parties to the International Criminal Court that he will not be arrested if he travels to their countries.
The Israeli military is meanwhile no longer publishing the name of its forces in the media, fearing they will be arrested abroad. Both Ghassan Alian – the head of COGAT, the Israeli military body that enforces the siege on Gaza – and a vacationing Israeli reservist recently evaded arrest in Italy and Brazil, respectively.
Al Mezan, a human rights group based in Gaza, said that the announcement of a ceasefire is “a crucial step toward reducing the killing of Palestinians through deadly force.”
But it warned that a ceasefire alone “will not end the ongoing genocide that Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
“What is required is for Israel to end all ongoing genocidal acts, open Gaza, and for the international community to ensure accountability for those responsible,” the group said.
Once the truce is implemented the big question for Palestinian survivors is what comes next, according to The Electronic Intifada contributor Malak Hijazi, writing from Gaza.The administration of Gaza following the ceasefire remains an open question.
“This war will not end with the last airstrike,” Hijazi said. “Its effects will linger in the rubble, in the struggle to rebuild and in the constant fear that the ceasefire will not last.”
“The people of Gaza need more than words of solidarity,” Hijazi added. “We need meaningful global action to support reconstruction and ensure accountability.”
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