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The Israeli government has voted to approve a ceasefire deal with Hamas, the first stage of President Trump's plan to end the two-year war in Gaza which will allow for the release of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza and some 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a 

 after the full cabinet meeting: "The government has now approved the framework for the release of all the hostages – both the living and the deceased."

After Israeli and Hamas negotiators agreed to the 

 at talks in Egypt mediated by Qatar, Egypt, the U.S and Turkey earlier this week, Netanyahu said he would immediately bring the agreement to his government to vote on.

With a ceasefire deal in place, Israeli forces inside Gaza will pull back from positions they currently occupy close to Gaza City and other parts of the ruined enclave — while remaining inside the Gaza Strip — and Hamas will begin bringing out the hostages it still holds for release in the following days. 

President Trump said earlier Thursday he expected the exchange of the 20 hostages still believed to be alive by Monday or Tuesday. Hamas has said it may take longer to retrieve the remains of another 28 deceased hostages as some of them are buried under rubble from destroyed buildings

Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are expected to be freed within days as one of the first major steps in an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal intended to end two years of a devastating war in Gaza.

Speaking at the White House on Wednesday evening President Trump said, "We reached a momentous breakthrough in the Middle East, something that people said was never going to be done." 

Hamas and other Palestinian groups are still holding 48 hostages. Twenty are still believed to be alive. All are men, many are Israeli soldiers in their 20s. Hamas has indicated it may not immediately be able to locate some of the dead hostages. The senior Israeli official in charge of hostages, Gal Hirsch, said an international team will be put together to locate the bodies of hostages not found in the coming days.

In turn, Israel will free nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. They include Palestinians convicted of murder and other serious crimes, as well as those detained without charge during the war. 

Trump is expected to head to the region this weekend, saying he would visit both Egypt, where the negotiations took place this week, and Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited him to speak to parliament. 

Since Israel and Hamas don't speak to each other, indirect negotiations were brokered by President Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. 

The parties held all-day negotiations Wednesday that stretched into the early hours of Thursday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

After two years of bloodshed, large majorities in Israel and the Palestinian territories welcome the end to the brutal conflict. Some people stayed up late into the night on Wednesday awaiting the ceasefire announcement, which came at around 2 a.m. Thursday. Others woke to the news on a rainy morning. The agreement prompted relief, hope, joy and celebrations on both sides after two years of agony. 

Yet for some, the pain of the war is still raw.

A man in Gaza, Abu Ahmed Eid, told NPR, "What exactly should I be happy for with all the blood that's been shed and all these martyrs?"

Eid said that like most Gaza residents, he's living in a tent with his children. He said he's lost 150 members of his extended family in Israeli attacks.

In Israel, Rotem Cooper said his father was a hostage who died in captivity. He's now awaiting the return of his father's body. Cooper believes Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu undermined earlier negotiations that could have ended the war sooner and perhaps led to the return of his father when he was still alive. Cooper credited President Trump for bringing about the deal.

"It's President Trump," he said. "It didn't happen because of something the Israeli government did or the prime minister. It's happened despite what the prime minister did."

As outlined by Trump last week, key elements of the deal call for Hamas to disarm and give up a future role in governing Gaza, the small, seaside territory devastated by the fighting. However, Hamas has not stated that it will do this. 

Israel will be required to pull back some of its troops from cities and other areas deep inside Gaza, but will maintain a military presence in the territory. The Israeli forces are supposed to pull back to a buffer zone on the edges of Gaza as the ceasefire solidifies and peace takes hold. 

However, the precise details and overall timeline of these key provisions were not immediately clear.

The agreement marks a major breakthrough after multiple failed efforts — and two previous ceasefires that unraveled. A truce reached in January of this year fell apart in March when Israel renewed an offensive in Gaza. A ceasefire in the early days of the war, in November 2023, lasted just a week before collapsing.

The broad international effort has built widespread support for the latest ceasefire and raised hopes that this one will last. 

However, the ceasefire deal will be carried out in multiple stages over the weeks and months ahead with no guarantee of success.

In a statement, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi made clear the group did not believe it lost the war.

"The ceasefire agreement is not a favor from anyone, but rather the fruit of the legendary steadfastness of our people," he said. "Gaza — the graveyard of invaders — was victorious through its steadfastness and unity, imposing its will on the arrogant enemy."

In Israel, a far-right member of Netanyahu's Cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich, said he would not support the agreement. 

He wrote on X that he felt "immense joy for the return of all our abducted brothers!"

But he also said he felt "great fear of the consequences of emptying prisons and releasing the next generation of terror leadership, which will do everything to continue spilling rivers of Jewish blood, God forbid. For this reason alone, we cannot join the short-sighted celebrations and vote in favor of the deal."

The war began with a surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel in the early morning of Oct. 7, 2023. Nearly 1,200 people were killed, mostly Israeli civilians, including many attending a weekend music festival. This was the worst one-day attack on Israel since the country's founding in 1948.

Israel unleashed a ferocious response that has claimed the lives of more than 67,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Israel's sustained bombing campaign and relentless ground offensives have leveled most of Gaza's homes, schools, hospitals and businesses. Israel has limited aid to Gaza throughout the conflict, leading to desperate shortages of food and medicine.

The Gaza population of more than 2 million has been repeatedly uprooted throughout the war, with most residents now squeezed into tent camps in the southern part of the territory, near the border with Egypt. 

An end to the fighting is expected to lead to rapid increases in the supply of food and other basic needs. 

But the rebuilding of houses, roads, water and electricity systems will be a project lasting many years. 

And while an end of the war may now be within reach, there's no clear roadmap to resolve the question of Palestinian political rights.

The plan calls for Hamas to step aside after ruling Gaza for nearly two decades. It calls for "qualified Palestinians and international experts" to form a transitional governing committee. In addition, an international "Board of Peace," chaired by Trump, would supervise the committee and oversee the reconstruction of Gaza.

On the critical question of a Palestinian state, the plan offers a vague call for a "credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood," but provides no details. 

Israel, meanwhile, has emerged from the war in a much stronger security position after decimating Hamas in Gaza, slamming Hezbollah in Lebanon, and hammering Iran's nuclear facilities.

Yet Israel has been isolated internationally for the way it carried out the Gaza war, inflicting so many civilian casualties, restricting humanitarian aid, and damaging so much of the territory's infrastructure.

NPR's Daniel Estrin, Carrie Kahn and Itay Stern contributed from Tel Aviv. Aya Batrawy contributed from Dubai, and Anas Baba from Gaza.

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Israel's cabinet has approved the first stage of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal with Hamas — a move aimed at ending the two-year war in Gaza and freeing hostages on both sides.

Israeli cabinet approves first phase of U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal with Hamas

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