Israel’s Cabinet has approved the “outline” of a deal to release hostages held by Hamas, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Friday.
It’s a key step in implementing a ceasefire and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump. The brief statement released focused on the hostage release and made no mention of the other parts of Trump’s plan for ending the war.
While many questions remain, the sides appear to be closer than they have been in several months to ending a war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed most of Gaza and ignited other armed conflicts across the Middle East.
What to know:
- Trump says hostages will be released from Gaza on Monday or Tuesday: The president opened a meeting with his Cabinet at the White House on Thursday by speaking about the ceasefire deal and his plans to travel to the Middle East. He said it is a complicated process for the hostages to be released from Gaza, but it will happen on Monday or Tuesday.
- Unanswered questions: It was not immediately clear whether the parties had made any progress on thornier questions about the future of the conflict, including whether Hamas will demilitarize, as Trump has demanded, and eventual governance of the war-torn territory.
- The war’s impact: The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, devastated Gaza and upended global politics. The war has sparked worldwide protests and brought widespread allegations of genocide that Israel denies.
