In light of the recent hostage and ceasefire agreement, I wanted to provide some of the immediate analysis that I’m seeing. All of the information below is current as of late this evening (Jan 16th).

The Agreement

Barak Ravid with Axios writes: The deal between Israel and Hamas to release hostages being held in Gaza and begin a ceasefire was officially signed by negotiators in Doha on Thursday, according to two sources familiar with the issue. But the Israeli government isn’t expected to vote on it until Saturday night. The delay in the vote will postpone the start of the ceasefire and the release of the first three hostages from Sunday to at least Monday, according to Israeli officials.

Phase I:

• Living hostages will be released before those who are deceased
• Hamas releases 33 hostages, which Israel estimates most are alive
  • Civilian woman and 2 children (5 in total)
  • Female soldiers (5 in total)
  • Men over the age of 50 (10 in total)
  • Humanitarian workers under the age of 50 (11 in total)
• Approximately 3 hostages to be released every 7 days
• Those not freed in stages will be released on the 42nd day
• Expected start: this Monday with the release of 3 civilian women
• Release of Palestinian prisoners
  • The number of Palestinian prisoners released will depend on the hostages freed and their condition
  • 30 prisoners for each civilian; 50 prisoners for each female soldiers
  • It is expected that Israel would release 100 Palestinian prisoners with life sentences from Israeli jails, 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners, and an additional unspecified number of prisoners that would be released abroad or in Gaza.
  • As part of the agreement, by the end of the first phase, Israel will release from prison all female terrorists held since October 7, 2023, as well as male terrorists under the age of 19 who were arrested since the outbreak of the war. In total, between 990 and 1,650 terrorists are expected to be released, with the final number depending on the number of live hostages who return as part of the deal.
• Negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, guaranteed by the U.S., Qatar and Egypt, will begin by the 16th day of the first phase.
• Israeli Defense Forces will also gradually withdraw to a buffer zone in Gaza near the border with Israel. The IDF will leave the Netzarim corridor in the center of the Gaza Strip and most of the Philadelphi corridor on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
• Palestinians will also be allowed to return to northern Gaza during the first phase of the deal. Those who walk won’t go through security checks but vehicles will be checked by Qatari and Egyptian officials to ensure no heavy weapons are transferred to Gaza.
• From the first day of the ceasefire, 600 aid trucks, including 50 fuel trucks, will enter Gaza every day. In addition, 200,000 tents and 60,000 mobile homes will be delivered for displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
• The agreement stipulates that Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. will serve as guarantors for the implementation of the agreement.

Phase II

• The second phase would include the release of the remaining living hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Phase III

• The return of remaining hostage bodies and reconstruction plans for the Gaza Strip are expected to be negotiated as part of the third phase.

Link: Full Text of the hostage-ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas – The Times of Israel

Link: Negotiation teams officially sign hostage-release deal in Doha in YNet (Israel’s most widely read media outlet)

 

Listen

Call Me Back with Dan Senor: THE HOSTAGE DEAL – with Nadav Eyal

• After fifteen months of war, and months of on-again, off-again negotiations, Israel and Hamas have reached a hostage deal, which is set to take effect this upcoming Sunday.
• What are the key points of the deal? What should we expect – or brace for – as hostages return home to Israel? And – will this deal mean the end of the war?
• To take in this historic development, and to help us understand all the above questions, we welcome back Nadav Eyal to the podcast.

Aviva Klompas: The Price of Freedom: Inside Israel’s Hostage Deal – with Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus

Watch

What Matters Now: Hama’s survival is Gaza’s tragedy with Haviv Rettig Gur

A Few Perspectives

• “The deal is flawed. Jerusalem made major concessions to get their citizens back, and it will be divisive in Israel. Nevertheless, every Israeli will also breathe a sigh of release to see hostages come home alive, many of whom — especially the women and the children — have become familiar names and faces to millions of Israelis.” Enia Krivine, Senior Director of FDD’s Israel Program and National Security Network
• “Not only is the devil in the details, this is a deal with the devil, but Israel is willing to do that… Hamas took a 9 month old baby and Israel is willing to exchange hundreds of convicted terrorists who are serving life sentence for the body, hopefully a living, of a baby…we are not talking about what is Hamas saying about the deal, the billionaire negotiator, the head of Hamas’s political wing in Qatar did a press conference after the deal…and said not only do we celebrate October 7th, we’re going to do it again…the biggest obstacle to peace is Hamas…Israelis, the entire Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, says Hamas will have no role in Gaza after the peace deal.” John Spencer on MSNBC
• “By agreeing to a ceasefire deal, Israel is making significant strides toward one of its primary wartime objectives: securing the release of hostages who have been held captive for more than 15 months. However, this progress comes at a considerable cost. Israel faces the difficult decision of releasing members of terrorist organizations and individuals convicted of violent acts. Furthermore, without a comprehensive strategy, Hamas and its allies in the Gaza Strip will regroup, perpetuating a cycle of violence that could emerge once again in the future.” Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst and Editor at FDD’s Long War Journal
• “What people need to understand about this deal is that Israel is trying to save the life of hostages like Kfir Bibas – a baby who has spent most of his life in captivity – in exchange for unrepentant murderers who will surely return to violence. There is no moral equivalence here. It is perverse extortion that the world expects Israel to swallow.” Aviva Klompas
• “Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal isn’t a good deal, ‘but doesn’t mean Israel shouldn’t do it” Dan Senor on CNBC
• “No deals in war are perfect and very few are good. The main positive is that some of the Israeli hostages may yet embrace their loved ones. But this is just a milestone: until Hamas and its ilk (UNRWA) are removed from power, more war and suffering will be in store for Gaza and Israel.” Jonathan Conricus (former IDF spokesman)

Opinions and Analysis

The Hostage Deal Is the Price of Israel’s Failures by Michael Oren with The Free Press

• Should it succeed, the deal will be greeted cacophonously in Israel. Boundless joy will mix with anger and pain, relief with fear and searing disappointment.
• Broadly speaking, the Israeli left in Tel Aviv supports ending the war in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages. The Israeli right welcomes the hostages’ return, but insists that Israel prioritize winning the war.
• From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war.
• Still, Israel believed that by increasing military pressure on Hamas, it could compel the terrorists to free the hostages.
• Israel reasonably assumed that ratcheting up its operations in Gaza, especially in Hamas’s Rafah stronghold, would yield similar results.
• But Hamas thought otherwise. Surprised by Israel’s determination to resume fighting after the ceasefire and convinced that mounting international condemnation of the war’s conduct would soon force the Israelis to surrender, the terrorist group dug in its heels. Israeli forces would enter Rafah and several refugee camps, kill senior Hamas leaders, and dispel the terrorists’ hope of the opening of a second front with Hezbollah in Lebanon—yet no new hostage deal ensued. Hamas still insisted on an unlimited ceasefire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the strip. Instead of buckling to military pressure and releasing hostages, the terrorists shot them.
• Other Israelis, mostly from the right, applauded the government’s refusal to accede to an agreement that rewarded terror and guaranteed Hamas’s victory. Many of Hamas’s leaders, they recalled, among them October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, were released in previous hostage-for-prisoner exchanges. The terrorists freed in this deal, its opponents predict, will kill countless Israelis in the future.
• What has changed? Although the White House deserves credit for persevering in the hostage-release talks, the deal probably owes much to the soon incoming president’s threats to visit “all hell” on Hamas and his ability to press Netanyahu.
• President Biden could say “don’t,” and everybody in the Middle East—Iranians, Arabs, and Israelis alike—did. Not so with Donald Trump. One meeting with his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly persuaded Bibi to accept conditions he had long rejected. No wonder Trump is taking credit for the deal and dubbing it “epic.”
• Still, if and when the ceasefire breaks down, the Israeli government is counting on the Trump administration’s unbridled support in completing the destruction of Hamas. Hamas is banking on international action to prevent the war from reigniting. Most of the world will applaud.
• While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. As with previous deals, this one will only encourage further terror and hostage-taking, they’ll warn, and set the stage for a future attack, like October 7.
• Link: The Hostage Deal Is the Price of Israel’s Failures

Trump Made the Gaza Cease-Fire Happen: But not for the reasons he or Biden’s critics say by Yair Rosenberg with The Atlantic

• The tentative agreement is nonetheless a victory for the foreign-policy teams of Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, who worked in tandem with regional partners Qatar and Egypt to bring it about. The terms largely echo a proposal laid out by Biden himself in May 2024, but the incoming president dragged the parties over the finish line. What changed was not Washington’s general orientation toward the conflict. Far from turning up the heat on Israel, Trump telegraphed a further embrace of its positions during his 2024 campaign, repeatedly attacking Biden for restricting arms sales to Israel. But this posture may have helped deliver both sides: Hamas could reasonably surmise that it would not get a better deal during Trump’s presidency, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government likely acceded to the arrangement in order to stay in the new leader’s good graces as he assumed office.
• Put another way, it’s not that Trump had a stick with which to beat Israel that Biden didn’t have; it’s that his presidency holds out the prospect of carrots that Biden would never offer. It was less the president-elect’s pressure than his potential promise that brought the Israeli far right onside. With Trump, everything is a transaction, and for his would-be suitors—not just Israel, but also Hamas’s sponsors in Qatar—the Gaza cease-fire is a down payment.
• On the Palestinian side, the deal marks a momentary if Pyrrhic triumph for an eviscerated Hamas, which will get to claim that it outlasted the Israeli army and parade some of the released prisoners through the streets of Gaza. But with its leaders killed and its territory devastated, the group will have little to celebrate or to show for its atrocities on October 7. The terrorist organization may continue to impose its will by force, but it is deeply unpopular in its own backyard, according to recent polls.
• Meanwhile, with Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar dead, Lebanon’s Hezbollah decimated, Syria’s pro-Iran regime overthrown, and Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance shattered, Netanyahu has a plausible claim to victory, should the deal hold. And if it doesn’t, or should Hamas prove insufficiently forthcoming in negotiations over the remaining hostages, he has a new American president in office who may happily underwrite a return to hostilities.
• Link: Trump Made the Gaza Cease-Fire Happen

Is Israel Paying the Price for Trump’s ‘Hell to Pay’ Warning? by Philip Klein with National Review

• While details of the deal are still emerging, what has been reported suggests that it is similar to the three-phase framework laid out by President Biden last year that would culminate in an end to the war and the release of all hostages.
• There is obviously more here than we know. It’s possible that with the pressure from the Trump team came reassurances that Israel would have more latitude to reenter Gaza as necessary to go after Hamas than it would have enjoyed under Biden. For what it’s worth, at his hearing this morning, defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth said, “I support Israel destroying every last member of Hamas.” It’s also possible that there are bigger issues at stake (such as Trump’s being supportive of a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities). Given Trump’s pro-Israel record in his first term and his appointees, he does deserve a certain degree of benefit of the doubt.
• That said, all appearances are that Israel has been forced into making more concessions because Trump was concerned that he’d be embarrassed if January 20 came around with no hostages released and he’d be forced to operationalize “hell to pay.” This is of concern, given that the deal is going to release some “bad hombres” and could ultimately see Hamas survive the war, with the ability to rebuild.
• Link: Is Israel Paying the Price for Trump’s ‘Hell to Pay’ Warning?

In Israel, Rage, Disgust and Relief Follow Gaza Hostage Deal by Aviva Klompas in Newsweek

• And yet, there’s an undercurrent of rage, despair, and disgust running through the country over the hostage-ceasefire deal announced on Wednesday.
• Rage at being forced to negotiate with the butchers responsible for the October 7 massacre.
• Despair that, at best, only 33 of the 98 hostages will be released in the first phase—and that many families may never see their loved ones return alive.
• Disgust at the hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists about to be set free. For every civilian hostage released by Hamas, Israel will release 30 prisoners—50 for every female soldier Hamas releases. Some of these prisoners will undoubtedly return to violence.
• There is no moral equivalence here. It is perverse extortion, plain and simple. This deal conjures some of the darkest chapters in Jewish history when Jewish names appeared on lists, and our enemies decided who would live and who would die.
• The harrowing reality is that Hamas may have once again learned a chilling lesson: that abducting Israelis is a devastatingly effective tactic to fracture Israeli society and extract excruciating concessions.
• For Hamas, this deal is a victory. The group will boast that it outmaneuvered Israel, extracted concessions, and reaffirmed that terrorism works.
• Link: In Israel, Rage, Disgust and Relief Follow Gaza Hostage Deal

With hostage deal, Netanyahu is going all in on Trump by Haviv Rettig Gur in The Times of Israel

• There’s a reason Netanyahu seems to be struggling to speak clearly — and in fact, has not yet spoken openly to the public about what’s going on in the talks.
• A large majority of Israelis, including majorities of both Jews and Arabs, support the hostage deal. Some 58% support the deal in full, including at the cost of leaving Hamas in power in Gaza, according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll released Tuesday. Another 12% support the first phase of the deal — 33 hostages released without a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — and then want a return to fighting. Some 70%, in other words, want the prime minister to sign on the dotted line.
• But Netanyahu’s problem lies with the 23% who do not — who support continuing the military campaign, believe it will lead to a better deal down the road, and are nearly all voters for his coalition.
• If the deal is signed, these Israelis believe, Hamas will survive the war, its forces will be bolstered, its reputation restored, its future control of Gaza all but assured.
• One of the main drivers of support for the deal is the widespread distrust among many Israelis, measured in many polls, that Netanyahu is either unwilling or incapable of achieving a successful outcome for the war. If you don’t think your leaders can deliver a victory, you become far more likely to support a negotiated end, even if it leaves a hated enemy in power.
• The deal now on the table is not, despite Biden’s claims, the same deal offered in May. Key Israeli demands that Hamas refused in the spring have now been met, including the rate of hostage release and the significant Israeli presence in Philadelphi in phase 1.
• There are two deals on the table this week: Netanyahu’s deal with Hamas and Netanyahu’s deal with the incoming Trump administration. We know a great deal about the first and very little about the second.
• Netanyahu’s change of heart seemed to come in conversations with Trump officials, from the president-elect himself down to Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff — so much so that some Arab officials have suggested that one meeting on Saturday between Netanyahu and Witkoff did more to bring Netanyahu around than a year of Biden administration cajoling.
• …in an interview with the Call Me Back podcast, incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz said Trump sought to fundamentally change the dynamic that encouraged terrorist groups to take hostages.
• Terrorist groups and rogue states have been taking Americans hostage, and they’ve only seen upside [for doing so for] the last four years,” Waltz charged. “So why not take more? Why not take as many as you can and see what you get? With President Trump, he made it very clear very early — not just with Hamas, with groups around the world — there’ll be nothing but downside.”
• Hamas desperately needs a deal. Over the past 16 months, it lost its chief backers, Hezbollah and Iran. Its Houthi allies in Yemen have gone from devoted ally to cautionary tale for the rest of the region. Israeli airstrikes in Hodeida and Ras Issa in the war-wracked country have all but eliminated the Houthi capacity to export oil and gas. And Trump, of course, reshuffles the deck.
• Israel can do what it takes to win, but Trump, it appears, wants it to show it is willing to try a ceasefire, publicly and clearly. When Hamas inevitably tries to rearm or launch a rocket, Israel will have its excuse to return to fighting, perhaps better prepared and with better intelligence penetration of the Hamas ranks than on October 8, 2023.
• Hamas understands this moment as well as Netanyahu. It needed to obtain just enough from an agreement to be able to claim a victory, and then to adhere to whatever is obtained in order to deny Netanyahu the political cover with Trump for a return to war.
• Link: With hostage deal, Netanyahu is going all in on Trump

Hamas leader touts ceasefire as a defeat for Israel while hailing Oct. 7 atrocities in the Times of Israel (video courtesy of Middle East Media Research Institute)

• Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya praised the October 7 massacre as a major achievement that would be taught to future generations of Palestinians with pride, while touting the ceasefire-hostage deal that was announced shortly before he spoke Wednesday as a “historic moment.”
• “Our people have thwarted the declared and hidden goals of the occupation. Today we prove that the occupation will never defeat our people and their resistance,” al-Hayya was quoted as saying during a televised speech from Qatar.

• “Our people will expel the occupation from our land and from Jerusalem at the earliest time possible,” said al-Hayya.
• “Our enemy will never see a moment of weakness from us,” he added.
• Link: Hamas leader touts ceasefire as a defeat for Israel while hailing Oct. 7 atrocities

Implementation of the Hostage Agreement: The Only Way to Atone for the Failures by Ofer Shelah with INSS

• Let’s start with the main point: The agreement to release the hostages must be approved and fully implemented, no matter the costs, psychological torment, and teeth-grinding it entails. The release of the hostages is Israel’s paramount duty to its citizens who were abandoned time and again, and the conclusion of the negotiations only underscores this obligation.
• The implications of the agreement are clear: Israel won’t cause Hamas to “collapse” because it was never capable of doing so. Israel’s refusal to act in the only way that might have presented an alternative to the terror organization in Gaza, the insistence on force and more force due to political motives, personal survival, and shortsightedness only highlight this simple fact: Since last May, if not earlier, the chosen path of the prime minister, his ministers, and the defense establishment has cost the lives of over a hundred soldiers and who knows how many hostages. The IDF has been worn down by missions that had no impact on the war’s outcome, while Israel’s international standing has been eroded to the core. None of these actions changed the fundamental reality, and they will only amplify the effect of Hamas’s recovery. Its future leadership will emerge from prisons in the coming weeks, even if they’re deported across the Middle East. There’s no point in waving the real and significant achievements of the northern campaign: its decisive actions—the pager operation, the strikes on Hezbollah’s firepower, and the elimination of Nasrallah—could have been achieved even with an agreement in Gaza last May.
• There is only one way to atone for this failure—for which the same people responsible for the October 7 debacle are accountable: Israel must fully commit to the Biden/Trump initiative to reshape the Middle East through a regional coalition that will serve as a counterweight to Israel’s enemies. Internally, Israel must immediately complete the war investigations and those responsible for these failures must be held to account.
• Link: Implementation of the Hostage Agreement: The Only Way to Atone for the Failures

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, The Free Press, and the Times of Israel