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After 471 days of fighting, forced starvation, genocide, and targeted assassination in Gaza, there is now a real framework to end the horrific bloodshed as ceasefire agreement and the hostage deal agreed upon by Hamas and Israel on January 19.
Hamas and Israel have agreed to a draft of the ceasefire deal, negotiated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US according to the negotiating officials. The Israel-Gaza ceasefire may be doomed if the state of Israel failed to fulfill its obligation and adhere to the agreement as it is doing right now in Lebanon's ceasefire agreement, where Israel has so far committed 555 violations of the agreement and now is attempting to extend the timeframe of its withdrawal by an additional 6 months as opposed to the 60 days that were agreed upon.
Crime Minister Netanyahu may try to manufacture a crisis just for the heck of it. He is infamous for keeping the world and the region's stress levels elevated because he can't have Israel or its neighbors at peace. After all, Netanyahu needs chaos to keep out of jail for all the crimes he has committed. Not to mention, the Crime Minister's office has refused to release to the Israeli public the full version of the hostage deal and ceasefire agreement signed with Hamas. Netanyahu argues he signed an agreement with the US, Qatar, and Egypt, not Hamas. What a sore loser he is!
Here is a look at the plan in the draft seen by the Associated Press and Al Jazeera TV network. The agreement has three separate phases that separate and independent of each other. If the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal goes according to the current draft, then fighting will stop in Gaza in 42 days and dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will be freed. However, failing to adhere to any of the three stages means the agreement will fall apart and the fighting will resume.
Draft of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire deal
Phase # 1: (42 days)
* Hamas releases 33 hostages, including female civilians and soldiers, children, and civilians over 50.
* Israel will release 30 Palestinian prisoners for each civilian hostage and 50 for each female soldier.
* Halt to fighting, Israeli forces move out of populated areas to the edges of the Gaza Strip.
* Displaced Palestinians begin returning home, more aid enters the strip.
* The deal requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire, 50 of them carrying fuel, with 300 of the trucks allocated to the north.
Phase # 2
Declaration of “sustainable calm:”
Hamas frees remaining male hostages (soldiers and civilians) in exchange for:
* 1,737 Palestinian prisoners, including 189 to be expelled outside Palestine.
* 296 prisoners with more than one life sentence will be freed.
* All women and children under the age 18.
* All six Palestinian prisoners who escaped in 2021 from a high-security prison where they coordinated with people outside the prison using a smuggled mobile phone and successfully fled the prison via a tunnel.
Phase # 3
Bodies of deceased Israeli hostages exchanged for bodies of deceased Palestinian fighters.
* Israel insists it will not return the body of Commander Yahya Sinwar.
* Hamas will return the remains of two IOF soldiers killed during the 2014 war on Gaza.
* Hamas will return the remains of ALL HOSTAGES killed by the Israeli bombardments.
* Implementation of a reconstruction plan in Gaza.
* Border crossings for movement in and out of Gaza are reopened.
If all of that works out, the sides must still tackle the second phase. Negotiations over it are to begin on Day 16 of the ceasefire.
Phase two’s broad outlines are laid out in the draft: All remaining hostages are to be released in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm.”
But that seemingly basic exchange opens up much sticky and complex issues.
Israel has said it will not agree to a complete withdrawal until Hamas’ military and political capabilities are eliminated and it cannot rearm — ensuring Hamas no longer runs Gaza. Hamas says it will not hand over the last hostages until Israel removes all troops from everywhere in Gaza. Netanyahu refused to confess that he was humiliated and lost big time in Gaza and sooner or later he will on trial to face war crimes charges.
The third phase is likely to be less contentious: The bodies of remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for a 3- to 5-year reconstruction plan to be carried out in Gaza under international supervision.
Israel claims (without any proof) that about one-third of 100 Israeli hostages who are held captive inside Gaza, a mix of civilians and soldiers, are presumed dead.
On the first official day of the ceasefire, Hamas did free three hostages, then another four on the seventh day. After that, it will make weekly releases.
Earlier, Hamas transferred the women to the aid group’s trucks during a chaotic scene in Gaza.
Romi Gonen, 23, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 30, were handed over to the Israel Death Forces (IDF) by the Red Cross on Sunday after 471 days in captivity.
There are still 57 living hostages left in Gaza; 30 more hostages, including two Israeli-American citizens, are set to be freed in the first phase of the cease-fire agreement.
In exchange for the three hostages’ freedom, which was delayed by nearly eight hours, Israel released 90 Palestinian including women and minors, from Israeli prisons at 2:30 AM in a deliberate effort to steal the moment of joy and celebration from Palestinians.
Two U.S. security companies will operate as part of a multinational group as laid out in the Gaza ceasefire deal and Israel and Hamas have already approved them to operate the check points as required by the deal.
The contractors will be inspecting vehicles that are moving into northern Gaza via the Netzarium corridor to ensure that no heavy weapons enter that part of the territory.
The Qatari government will likely fund the security forces. An Egyptian security company has also been selected for the mission. Safe Reach Solutions is one of the American companies providing security assistance and is credited with drawing up the plan. The other company, UG Solutions, is known for employing former soldiers from American and foreign special forces, according to Axios.
"Israel made it clear to the mediators that Palestinian hostage who refused deportation (outside Palestine) and insisted on remaining in the West Bank wouldn't be released." The persons to be released are to be deported from their own land. Many of them have never even been charged (administrative detention) never mind found guilty even by a loaded (Apartheid) Israeli court." The list of the countries that will serve as destinations for deportation awaits a final decision.
First of all, transferring people from occupied territories to another territory is prohibited by the Geneva Convention, regardless of their motives. This applies to both individual and mass forcible transfers. Israel signed the Geneva Conventions on Dec. 8, 1949, and so did the US and state of Palestine. The Fourth Geneva Convention relates to the protection of civilians in time of war. No other country can trump international law!
My second point here is despite the prisoner exchange agreements between Israel and Hamas that went into effect last Sunday, Israel still refuses to hand over Yahya Sinwar’s body to Hamas.
The Hamas leader was killed on October 16, 2024, in an exchange of fire with Israeli forces in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces spotted him by chance, leading to the clash that resulted in his martyrdom. This refusal is part of a long-standing Israeli policy of keeping the bodies of Palestinian resistance leaders as leverage in future negotiations or simply as a souvenir, which is sickening and disgusting.
This decision has sparked widespread anger in Palestinian circles, as handing over bodies is considered a primarily humanitarian and moral issue. Hamas continues to pressure the Israeli authorities to recover the body of its leader amid growing Palestinian calls for justice in this case.
My final point is, as stated by The Times of Israel on January 15, 2025, "For the first time, Israel just lost a war" and the statement by the former Israeli security minister Ben Gvir to Newsweek that ceasefire and hostage deal is a "surrender" agreement and "complete victory for Hamas." So, let's call it what it is. Hamas imposed ceasefire. Not Biden or Trump's ceasefire, and that the people of Gaza, especially women and children, were the true winners of this war. By no means it was the Israeli Death Forces (IDF), the most immoral army in the world.
Breaking News:
The IDF says it has been preventing celebrations and parades in the West Bank for Palestinian prisoners today in the ceasefire with Hamas. The IDF and Shin Bet made calls to the families of all those released today and visited their homes, warning them against public celebration via the Times of Israel Jan. 25. The order does not apply to the families of freed Israeli prisoners. Who said Israel is not an apartheid state?
Special thank you goes to Lebanon and Yemen for standing with Gaza when Palestinian needed help the most and who paid a very dear price, and Palestinians will never forget that. I should point out Qatar's honorable stand with Palestine by supporting Gaza and Hamas' leadership throughout the war and not yielding to Zionist and imperial pressure to arrest or expel out Hamas leadership. Last but not least, a special thank you to all protesters and activists worldwide, who risked their lives, careers, faced arrest, and the loss of their scholarship and or resigned in protest to support a ceasefire and ending the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
For Gaza's sake, pray for the ceasefire to hold!
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.org and ColumbusFreepress.com. He can be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com.