Title: Optimism Rises for Gaza Peace Deal as US Announces Breakthrough
Hamas and Israel are signing phase-one of a ceasefire deal sponsored by US President Donald Trump. Hamas will release the remaining Israeli hostages it holds, and it’s given Israel a list of prisoners it expects released in return. Despite optimism from all sides, this isn’t the first attempt to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it’s not clear whether this peace plan will hold. John Van Trieste reports.
This could be the moment remembered as the beginning of the end of the two-year war in Gaza. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has just handed US President Trump a note saying a deal on the Middle East is near.
How soon is hard to say. Despite recent peace talks, this view from southern Israel overlooking the Gaza strip shows the night sky burning with flares and blasts Wednesday.
But from all sides, there are signs of confidence that peace will come soon. Hamas says an agreement to end the war, withdraw Israeli troops, bring in aid and exchange prisoners is settled.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on social media in Hebrew that he will gather the Israeli government to ratify the agreement.
And US President Trump may be headed to the Middle East soon.
Donald Trump (US PRESIDENT):
I may go there sometime toward the end of the week, maybe on Sunday actually. And we'll see, but there's a very good chance, negotiations are going along very well.
The details aren’t yet clear—beyond a ceasefire, a release of Israeli hostages and a withdrawal of Israeli troops to a line all sides agree on. Aid trucks will also be allowed into the Gaza Strip—helping ease a deep humanitarian crisis there. For Gaza’s residents, any end to the violence and destruction of what’s now just over two years will be welcome. Gaza officials say over 67,000 people have died since the war began—with those who’ve survived left to deep suffering.
Um Sulaiman Abu Afash (DISPLACED FROM GAZA CITY):
Today ends two years of suffering. There is no food, or good water, and crossings are blocked. We're suffering, we are in the street, our kids sleep in the streets. Yesterday and today we bought drinking water, but there’s no medicine. We are staying in the street, where do we go? There’s no mercy.
There’s deep pain in Israel, too, where mourners gathered to commemorate the two years since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 and saw the abduction of over 200 hostages. Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned what he called growing anti-Semitism in the world, but also looked forward to the release of hostages, and maybe, peace.
Isaac Herzog (ISRAELI PRESIDENT):
I thank our friends from around the world for their messages of solidarity and condolences. And I extend special thanks to President Donald Trump for his tireless efforts to bring our hostages back home, to bring real change and a new direction in the Middle East.
Whether the peace will hold is another matter, though. Some, like Israel’s far-right minister for national security, has insisted on the complete destruction of Hamas and threaten to quit the government if this doesn’t happen. On Wednesday, he spoke at the Temple Mount—the most sacred site in Judaism and third-most sacred site in Islam.
Itamar Ben-Gvir (ISRAELI MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY):
Every house in Gaza has a picture of the Temple Mount, and today, two years later, we are winning on the Temple Mount. We are the owners of the Temple Mount. I only pray that our prime minister will allow a complete victory in Gaza as well as – the destruction of Hamas, with God's help we will return the hostages, and we will win a complete victory.
Decades of wars, peace talks and accords have failed to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The question now is: will this one have what it takes? And if not, what then?
Hank Hsu and John Van Trieste for TaiwanPlus.
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