After 738 days in captivity, the last 20 surviving Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have finally been freed. The ceasefire is holding. The first Gazans are returning, mostly on foot, to what remains of their homes in the north of the Strip. Desperately needed food, medicine and humanitarian aid are now flowing into the devastated Palestinian enclave.
It is unequivocally good news that the hostages have been released and that the torment their families endured for more than two years is at an end. Crowds of Israelis gathered on balconies and in what has become known as “Hostages Square” in central Tel Aviv to celebrate their return on 13 October. They cheered, sobbed, waved Israeli flags, and hugged one another as military helicopters carrying the freed hostages flew low over the city. They also remembered the many others who died during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and in captivity since. The remains of at least 25 kidnapped Israelis have yet to be returned, as promised under the terms of the latest peace deal.
It is similarly worth celebrating that, after more than two years of war in Gaza – which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry – the fighting has stopped, at least for now. The Israeli military has pulled back from some parts of Gaza to an agreed “yellow line” within the enclave, although it still controls around half of the Strip and has yet to agree to a full withdrawal. The United Nations says “real progress” is being made in delivering emergency food supplies, cooking oil and tents for families who have lost their homes in Gaza, where a famine was declared in August and the healthcare, water and sanitation systems had effectively collapsed. Buses carrying the first of around 1,700 Gazans detained during the war, along with some 250 long-term Palestinian prisoners released by Israel, entered the West Bank city of Ramallah on 13 October.
Yet the guns have not fallen silent. Even as Donald Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem on the same day, where he proclaimed the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” and was interrupted by multiple standing ovations from lawmakers, there were reports of gun battles between Hamas militants and rival Palestinian factions in Gaza. Far from voluntarily disarming and agreeing to a posture of “peaceful coexistence” as envisaged by Trump’s 20-point peace plan, the militant group appears to be moving to reassert its presence in the territory and show that, while demonstrably weakened, it has not been entirely defeated, nor abandoned this fight.
Trump deserves credit for strong-arming Benjamin Netanyahu into this deal. He has demonstrated a much greater propensity to pressure the Israeli prime minister – in both public and private – than his predecessor, Joe Biden, and his ineffectual “Hug Bibi” strategy. The US negotiating team, led by Trump’s special envoy and fellow real estate developer Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, identified an opening after Netanyahu miscalculated by bombing Qatar’s capital, Doha, in September, in a failed attempt to assassinate Hamas officials who were taking part in peace talks there. Arab and Muslim leaders in the region convened an emergency summit and put together a series of demands to present to American officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York later that month. Witkoff and Kushner then negotiated with their Israeli interlocutors in a series of meetings, conducted mainly in New York hotel rooms, resulting in the 20-point peace plan Trump announced alongside Netanyahu at the White House on 29 September. The US president declared that they had reached an agreement that would usher in “eternal peace in the Middle East” and pronounced it “one of the great days ever in civilisation”.
For good measure, presumably to reassure the region’s other key players, Trump also forced Netanyahu to apologise to Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, during a meeting in the Oval Office ahead of their press conference. Photographs released by the White House showed a stern-faced Trump holding the phone while Netanyahu read from a paper in front of him, seemingly intended to document Netanyahu’s humbling.
If Trump can now follow through and implement the rest of his 20-point plan, and his vow to deliver a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace,” he will have achieved a remarkable feat and will surely deserve his long-coveted Nobel Peace Prize. But the hard part of that plan, and the complex negotiations required to make it a reality, are only just beginning.
A real end to this war, and a truly durable peace, depends on Hamas agreeing to give up its weapons and its remaining power; the formation of an as-yet undetermined International Stabilisation Force to be deployed to Gaza; Israel agreeing to fully withdraw from the territory; and a “technocratic, apolitical” Palestinian committee being formed to administer Gaza, supervised by a new “Board of Peace,” which could be led by Tony Blair. Then, of course, there is the reconstruction of Gaza and the most fraught issue of all: a credible pathway to a Palestinian state, which has now been recognised by countries including the UK, France and Canada, but remains anathema to Netanyahu’s government.
In other words, the devil is not just in the details of this peace plan – these details are precisely what have bedevilled the many previous, well-intentioned attempts to deliver peace in the Middle East. The release of the hostages and the start of a new ceasefire is reason to celebrate and a significant accomplishment in itself. But it is far too early for Trump to declare victory, or a definitive end to this war.
[Further reading: Has Netanyahu won the war?]
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