Israel and Hamas have agreed to a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, the US and mediators Qatar have said.
Should the Israeli cabinet and government formally approve the agreement, which is yet to happen, the first six-week phase will take effect on 19 January.
The deal follows 15 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian armed group and political movement.
The current conflict started when hundreds of Hamas fighters stormed across Israel’s southern border on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel responded with a military campaign, starting with an immediate air bombardment and then a full-scale ground invasion launched on 27 October. Since then, Israel has attacked targets across Gaza by land, sea and air, while Hamas has attacked Israel with rockets.
More than 46,700 people – the majority of them civilians – have been killed by Israel’s attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Here is a reminder of the key events in negotiations.
2023
7 October: Hundreds of Hamas-led gunmen launch an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, bursting through the border fence and targeting nearby communities, police stations and army bases. About 1,200 people are killed and 251 hostages taken back to Gaza. Hamas also fires thousands of rockets into Israel. The Israeli military immediately responds with air and artillery strikes on Gaza.
27 October: Israel launches a ground invasion of Gaza. Israel’s massive military campaign will go on to devastate Gaza, displace most of the 2.3 million population, and kill more than 46,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
21 November: A deal brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt sees Hamas release 105 of the hostages in return for some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails during a week-long ceasefire. Israel and Hamas blame each other for causing the collapse of the truce.
28 December: Shuttle diplomacy on a new ceasefire and hostage release deal starts.
2024
31 May: US President Joe Biden outlines an Israeli proposal for a three-phase ceasefire in return for the release of Israeli hostages. It forms the basis of the deal that is agreed upon eight months later.
10 June: The United Nations Security Council passes a resolution supporting the ceasefire plan.
31 July: The talks are suspended following Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader and chief negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Discussions resume two weeks later, initially in the absence of Hamas.
17 October: Israeli forces kill Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza. Netanyahu calls it the “beginning of the end” of the war.
9 November: After months without a breakthrough, Qatar suspends its efforts as mediator in the negotiations. It says Israel and Hamas need to shift their positions. Both sides blame each other for the impasse.
20 November: The US vetoes a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, saying it “abandoned” the necessity for there to be “a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages”.
27 November: Israel agrees a ceasefire with Lebanon to end a 13-month conflict with the armed group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, which was triggered by the Gaza war. It reignites hope for a deal in Gaza, with Biden saying he will make another push with regional powers.
2 December: US President-elect Donald Trump says there will be “all hell to pay” if the hostages still held in Gaza are not released by the time he returns to the White House on 20 January 2025.
17 December: A senior Palestinian official says the indirect talks are in a “decisive and final phase”, while Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz says an agreement is closer than ever.
2025
13 January: Biden and Netanyahu speak by phone about negotiations during Biden’s final week in office, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an agreement was “very close” and that he hoped to “get it over the line” before Trump takes office.
15 January: Qatar’s prime minister says Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, and that it will take effect on 19 January. Biden says it will “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families”.
