Trump announces that Hamas and Israel have agreed to the first phase of ending the war in Gaza.

WashingtonUS President Donald Trump has announced that Hamas and Israel have reached an agreement to end the Gaza war. According to the Republican, in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon (local time), "Israel and Hamas have approved the first phase of our Peace Plan." As a result, "all hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw its troops to an agreed-upon line as a first step toward a strong, lasting, and eternal peace."

The signing of this first phase will be on Thursday at noon, according to Saudi media. As for Hamas, it plans to release the hostages alive between Saturday and Sunday, according to Haaretz. A few minutes after the agreement was announced, Mani Mahmoud, an Al Jazeera journalist in central Gaza, confirmed that the bombing had stopped and that there was no drone activity.

Trump has not provided further details on how this first phase will be carried out or under what conditions the Israeli troops will withdraw. In the 20-point agreement initially announced by the president, the withdrawal of Israeli troops was conditioned on the fulfillment of a series of vague conditions and that the International Stabilization Force created expressly for the situation would take control of the area. "All parties will be treated fairly," assured the president, who also expressed his gratitude "to the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey."

In recent days, delegations from the Islamist group and Israel had been meeting in Egypt to finalize the details of the first phase of the 20-point plan for peace in the Gaza Strip that the Republican had agreed in advance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both leaders presented it jointly on September 29 from the White House and put all the pressure on Hamas, placing the armed group in the dilemma of accepting or suffering. a "hell," as Trump later threatened.

Last weekend, Hamas announced through mediators that it agreed to release all the Israeli hostages held since October 7 and was open to discussing the US president's peace plan.

The announcement of the agreement was anticipated hours earlier with a dramatic appearance by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who burst into the middle of a roundtable where Trump was speaking about the persecution of the anti-fascist movement in the country. Rubio approached the president to hand him a written note and spoke into his ear in an image that seemed to recreate the historical epic of the moment when former President Bush was notified of the 9/11 attacks in the middle of a school talk. "Excuse me, the Secretary of State gave me a note saying that we are very close to an agreement in the Middle East and they will need me quickly," said the tycoon just before leaving the State Dining Room of the White House.

While it remains unclear what details have been renegotiated with Hamas, the 20-point plan Trump presented with Netanyahu did not mention ending the occupation of Gaza, nor did it guarantee recognition of the State of Palestine, which it simply considered an "aspiration."

Post-war Gaza would also be a kind of protectorate led by the United States, as Trump himself would preside over the transitional administration. According to the plan, this new governing body for the Strip will be made up of members and heads of state from other countries that have yet to be revealed. One of the few names known at the moment is that of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This transitional government, dubbed the Peace Board, was a necessary condition for Israel, for whom a Palestinian Authority government is a red line.