Transcript of How the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal was reached | BBC Newscast

2 belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap.

This this is a ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring. Today, Hamas and Israel have agreed to that ceasefire agreement. That was the prime minister of Qatar and the president of the US announcing the news everyone has been waiting for, but which finally happened on Wednesday night, a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and some other things in the war in Gaza. We'll discuss what it means, how the deal was reached, and what could happen next on this episode of the BBC's daily news podcast, newscast. Hello.

It's Adam in the newscast studio, and this episode of newscast will be entirely focused on the news that came out of Qatar on Wednesday evening that there is finally, after a lot of waiting and a lot of wrangling, a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza. It comes in 3 stages, and we will talk you through all the different stages and what they mean and some of the pitfalls that could still be before the deal is even implemented because it does not come into force until Sunday. So here to help us, we've got some of the BBC's best journalistic minds. Joining me in the studio is diplomatic correspondent and big friend of the podcast, James Landale. Hi, James.

Hello. And Sarah Smith is in Washington. Hello, Sarah.

Hi there.

Right. We're recording this episode at 7:45 on Wednesday evening. That's 7:45 UK time. James, just before we dive into the details of this deal, just tell us how the last few hours have unfolded and what it's been like in the newsroom.

Well, if you think about it, we've been waiting for this for some time. And when you know a deal is about to be done or some big news event is about to happen, you're constantly trying to calibrate, how much do we report about the preparations and the waiting and the expectation without slightly over egging it and without also creating a sense of, inevitability that might not be there if there is some hitch or delay to a deal. So in the last sort of few days and hours, we've been trying to sort of, you know, remind the audience that these talks are going on, these discussions are happening, and people are talking optimistically, but being cautious about it and saying, but this is this is the framework and this is what's happening. And then, of course, when it happens, nothing's clear. It dribbles out.

First of all, you get a statement from 1 side or another, but it's an unofficial source or it's an anonymous source so that you're building up cautiously a picture until you can sort of, you know, look for those firm sort of planks in a in a in a sea of initially uncertain news, constantly trying to give the audience just a sense of, well, this is what we know so far and this is what we don't know. And and that will carry on, I think, for some days until we see full text.

Yeah. Because there is no black and white version of this deal. And, Sarah, we're having to just take what the Qatari prime minister has said in a news conference and then what president Biden said in some remarks in the White House to try and work out actually what's been agreed here.

Yeah. And they they describe basically the same thing. They've with all of these kind of agreements, the devil is in the fine detail, and that's what it will have taken so long to negotiate. But we know the broad sweep of it, a ceasefire that will last for 6 weeks that will include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas of Gaza. A number of hostages being released by Hamas, including women, the elderly, and the wounded is what president Biden said.

They'll be the 1st hostages to be released, and and also that some, Palestinian prisoners in Israel, will also be released. So and that was always gonna be the broad shape of the deal, and, of course, you know, it's taken all these months to to really pin down the detail. But but, yeah, we know that roughly that's what how the next few weeks are gonna proceed.

And also, Sarah, Joe Biden said, oh, I know the details of this deal because I, Joe Biden, am the 1 that proposed it in May last year.

Indeed. He said this is the exact framework that we proposed in May. Now that tells you 2 things. 1, just quite how long it has taken to negotiate this, you know, and how much human suffering would have been avoided if the various parties had agreed, much closer to May to do this. But, of course, he is saying that as well as a statement of ownership because you've got this deal coming just as he's about to leave the White House in 4 days' time, and you've got Donald Trump, of course, coming in.

I mean, Donald Trump lept on social media on his own platform on Truth Social to announce that a deal had been done before we'd had any kind of official confirmation of it at all. He said that this that that there was an epic victory victory in the Middle East and that the hostages were going to be coming home. And he can claim some credit, I think, for having put enough pressure on Israel particularly to sign up to this deal. He's been making threatening noises in the last few days. He said publicly that if the hostages aren't released before he's sworn into office on Monday, all hell will break loose.

He didn't explain what that exactly meant, but, you know, I think everybody got the gist that he was very, very keen that this deal get done. And so he's claiming the credit for having tipped it over the line because he's coming into office. And, of course, Joe Biden wants to claim the credit because it's happened whilst he's in office.

And I think Chris Mason is here. Hi, Chris. Hello. What's Keir Starmer been saying?

So we just had, as we record, a written statement from the prime minister. I suspect in time, we'll hear from senior figures, in front of the, cameras. Handful of paragraphs. Perhaps it's 1 of those newscasts where I'll just read the whole thing out. The prime minister said, after months of devastating bloodshed and countless lives lost, this is the long overdue news that the Israeli and Palestinian people have been desperately waiting for.

They have borne the brunt of this conflict triggered by the brutal terrorists of Hamas, who committed the deadliest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023. The hostages who were brutally ripped from their homes on that day and held captive in unimaginable conditions ever since can now finally return to their families. But we should also use this moment to pay tribute to those who won't make it home, including the British people who were murdered by Hamas. We will continue to mourn and to remember them. For the innocent Palestinians whose homes turned into a war zone overnight and the many who've lost their lives, this ceasefire must allow for a huge surge in humanitarian aid, which is so desperately needed to end the suffering in Gaza.

And then our attention, the prime minister, writes must turn to how we secure a permanent better future for the Israeli and Palestinian people, grounded in a 2 state solution that will guarantee security and stability for Israel alongside a sovereign and viable Palestine state. The UK and its allies will continue to be at the forefront of these crucial efforts to break the cycle of violence and secure long term peace in the Middle East. So that's the statement, from, Downing Street, just as the, Qatari press conference was finishing.

Although, James, that makes me realize we haven't really heard from Israel or Hamas, the 2 the 2 sides in this negotiation. We've heard from everyone who's facilitated it or fed into it, but not the people who were actually well, they weren't negotiating with each other because it was through intermediaries, but we haven't got their words yet.

Not official. Not on the record. The Israelis at the moment are still saying there are a few wrinkles that need to be sorted out. We do know that there are some signals that the Israelis are gonna go through a sort of formal political process tomorrow. There have to be various votes in various parts of the Israeli cabinet, for this any kind of deal to be sort of signed off.

Because, obviously, 1 of the big question marks is, you know, how does the Israeli political system respond to this deal, particularly those ultranationalists, those those 2 crucial fellows upon whom this coalition currently hangs. What do they do? They've expressed their opposition to, you know, reports of this deal. Do they walk? If they do walk, what happens to the government?

We know that the opposition, parties in Israel have said that they will vote to support the government to keep the the deal alive, but there is a the potential for political uncertainty off the back of this.

This ceasefire does not kick in until Sunday. So it it it said sort of a done deal, but not on the ground it isn't.

Well, the, the the prime minister of Qatar, when he was making his statement, made it very, very clear that, you know, this will start on Sunday, and that means that, you know, he made a plea to all sides, to desist from fighting between now and then. But but he knew that was a possibility, which was why he was making that plea because, he, you know, he doesn't want some act of violence to upset the diplomatic, cart here. So, yeah, you know, there's there's a lot a lot of time can happen between now and then for the potential of the violence.

I just wanted to zoom in on 1 word in particular, the word populated, and that's the idea that Israeli troops will begin pulling out of populated areas of Gaza. Now I'm no expert, but to me that screams out that there will still be Israeli troops allowed to be in some areas of Gaza, the non populated ones.

Yeah. No. I mean, that is very, very clear. In this first phase, there will be some withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of Gaza. We don't know precisely where.

The as you say, the only detail we've had so far was that crucial word from president Biden when he said that, there'll be a withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated parts of Gaza. We know that phase 2 is when, in theory, there's a permanent cease for permanent end to the war and all Israeli forces leave Gaza, but that's still to be negotiated. So in other words, there's still a lot of detail here that we don't know precisely where will Israeli forces move from. There's been lots of talk of buffer zones in some areas. There's also been there'll be continuing controversy over this so called Philadelphia corridor in the south, the the the border effectively between Gaza and and Egypt.

Because if you remember, just a few months ago, president prime minister Netanyahu was saying that Israeli forces will stay there forever. And because if if if the Israeli forces were not in the Philadelphia corridor permanently, there would never be any kind of peace because there'll be smuggling of arms across the border, so they had to be there. We still don't know. Has he weakened that commitment?

And, Sarah, talking about that word permanently, a lot of Joe Biden's statement was about what happens in Gaza in the medium term, so after phase 2 of these negotiations and after phase 3. And he spent quite a lot of time talking about the the entire Middle East.

Yes. He did. And 1 of the things he told us about phase 2 and 3 that I thought was very interesting was that, we're talking about a 6 week ceasefire in phase 1 and some of the hostages being released. And during those 6 weeks, some details still have to be ironed out about phase 2 where you're getting to a permanent ceasefire and the remaining hostages being released. If that has not been agreed, during that 6 week period, the ceasefire will be extended, he says, to allow those negotiations to continue.

So they don't envisage a return to hostilities even if they haven't managed to nail down all the details of a permanent ceasefire within the next, 6 weeks. But, yeah, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, frankly, have been thinking about the future of the Middle East. Joe Biden had his, you know, his own ideas about how this should play out. He has always been a very strong supporter of a 2 state solution, and that, Palestinian statehood was something that he mentioned yet again. Now he's departing the world stage, of course, and, he won't have a huge amount of influence on that.

Donald Trump, in some of his social media posts, has been talking about, the focus he will maintain on the Middle East. But he's interested in, he said, making sure that Gaza does not become a haven for terrorists, and he will want to look at the balance of power within the Middle East, where he's Iran, which you, of course, have been, you know, allied with, Hezbollah and Hamas, seen as a great, opponent of the United States by Donald Trump. So he will wanna make sure that, Iran remains contained. But he did say that he wants to carry on with the diplomatic efforts, which he was quite successful with in his first term. If you remember, they signed the Abraham Accords, the normalization of relations between Israel and UAE.

He wants to carry on and do that with Saudi Arabia and Israel signing a deal together. So he's signaling that he does intend to remain very involved, in the Middle East. And, of course, it will be under his administration that they implement and monitor what happens with this peace deal over the next 6 weeks and over the longer term.

James, did you want to make a point there?

I and what Sarah is saying about Saudi Arabia and normalization is absolutely crucial because that's where the diplomatic crunch will really come. Because the Saudis have been making it very, very clear that unlike the previous Abraham Accords, all those deals between Israel and the countries in the Gulf, where basically they turned a blind eye to what's called the Palestinian issue. That is no longer going to happen, and the Saudis have been making very, very clear that, yes, they want normalization with, Israel because, you know, there are huge benefits to all sides, but it must involve a Palestinian state. And the point is is that that is unacceptable to the Israeli government as currently constituted, and it is unacceptable to many of Donald Trump's supporters. And so that is the question is how does Donald Trump turn any kind of ceasefire that may or may not hold into a wider political deal?

Because at the moment, the Saudis are making it very, very clear it has to evolve, you know, the fabled 2 state solution. And that's what, you know, president secretary Blinken was talking about in his speech yesterday as well of saying that there has to be a political horizon here for some kind of settlement for this to move beyond sort of phases 1 and maybe phase 2.

And, Chris, that sense of hope for the the long term future is something that Keir Starmer has to offer because that's how he heals some of the domestic political wounds that have been opened up because of this conflict.

Yeah. I think I think that's right. I think there's 2 sort of points to reflect on, as far as the UK is concerned, and it it it seems minor in the grand scheme of of what we're talking about. But you've got a new government that has been adjusting to office, arrived in office with, 2, conflicts that it had to deal with geopolitically, diplomatically, Ukraine, and the the Middle East. And in the context of the Middle East against that backdrop where, if you like, the arguments around the conflict were playing out in the general election campaign here last year, particularly in, parts urban parts of England with a substantial Muslim population where there was significant sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians and the suffering in Gaza.

We saw electoral consequences of for that, for Labor in the general election, and and they have been very conscious, of, that. So what will be interesting to see in the coming weeks months, As I say, I'm conscious as I say this, it seems it seems quite parochial in the context of, of our conversation on newscasts. But how developments and how things play out, in the coming weeks months might read across to implications, here at home.

And, James, just to go back to the the contents of the deal, which we have still not seen, so sorry to put you on the spot about that. But what about the humanitarian situation in Gaza? Both this idea that more aid will be able to get in because it's basically been a trickle the whole time, and then just to the future rebuilding it? Because we've seen we've all seen the pictures of of it's basically rubble now.

Well, in terms of humanitarian support, that is definitely a clear part of phase 1, and has to begin very, very quickly, simply because the need is there. So the moment the fighting stops, if the fighting stops, the plan is that, in theory, the bureaucratic restrictions and constraints on the flow of aid, become eased, but there are huge problems here. You know? Do we have the capacity? Is there the right amount of aid in the right places?

Is it ready to go? What is the security situation on the ground within Gaza's borders? Because we know there have been security problems and looting of aid convoys and things like that. So that is gonna be a huge part of the story in coming days is, does that aid get through? Is the right aid getting through simply to alleviate the incredibly acute need that's right on the ground?

You mentioned the word reconstruction. Right? That is that is in a completely different space at the moment. That is part of of of phase 3 if it happens because the big question, you know, the future of Gaza, the day after, is it

But who runs it?

Who runs it? You know, what's the governance? Who keeps it secure? You know, how does you keep its borders protected? What role is there for the international community in that?

What role is there for the Europeans, for the for, you know, the the Gulf countries? But, also, fundamentally, who's gonna pay to reconstruct Gaza in the long run? You know? Yes. There's a lot of international money out there, but remember, you know, I I remember sitting in conferences where we talked about reconstructing Syria.

Well, we're still not reconstructing Syria yet. That might happen slightly sooner, but equally, there I I've sat in conferences talking about the reconstruction of Ukraine. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? There there's a lot of, concrete that's gonna have to be built.

And, Sarah, inevitably, these conversations end up being maybe a bit wonkish just because of where we all sit and the format of this podcast, but we've got to remember at the heart of this is Israeli families who've been separated for for 460 something days because their loved ones are being held hostage, and tens of thousands of of dead Gazans. But there's a very emotional real life people's lives element to this. It's not just, obviously, the text. Where are the square brackets in the paragraph? What's the different phasing?

Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, that we've seen the appalling suffering that there has been across Gaza, and everybody hopes that that will be alleviated now and that some of that humanitarian, the US are talking about surging humanitarian aid into Gaza, which we know it's absolutely desperately needed. Yes. And and the agony of these families who've been waiting for hostages to return, some of whom are here in the United States, and it seems pretty clear that the American hostages will very much be part of the phase 1, release.

But I thought it really drove at home to me how difficult the situation must be for the hostages' families who don't know, of course, whether their loved ones are alive or well or how they have been treated during the time that they have been held hostage. Because in phase 3, if we get there, in this deal, phase 3 is when all remains of deceased hostages are to be returned to their families. And when you get to that bit of the deal, it just it caught me up a bit short actually and just really reminded you of just of how very, very serious this is for the people who've been caught up in it.

And, Chris, you've gotta go, but do you wanna make a last point from the UK's perspective?

I think from a UK foreign policy perspective, I know from speaking to people in the last sort of hour or so who've been sort of involved in this and keeping an eye on this, that, of course, and you've seen it reflected in the language from the prime minister, there is a sense of relief that this point has been reached, coupled with a sense of, if you like, a world weary trepidation about what might come next and a desire not to assume that necessarily the paths ahead will be straight forward. But I hope, as will be shared by so, so many, that, that this is a significant and as bigger turning point in this, in this conflict since since that horrific day on October 7. And that from a very sort of parochial U. K. Foreign policy perspective, that maybe, just maybe, the kind of issues that the foreign secretary and others confront, particularly the 2 conflicts that I refer to, and I think we'll hear plenty of conversation in the coming days, by the way, around Ukraine with the imminence of Donald Trump's inauguration, that 1 of those 2 grim, very live conflicts might be moving into a phase that is a that is a little different.

And and from that, I think that from from that perspective, there will be a sense of relief.

Chris, thank you very much. And, Sarah, thanks to you too.

Thanks. Always good to talk, Adam.

And, James, just 1 last putting you on the spot question. You talked about monitoring the situation in Gaza over the next 16 days or 6 weeks depending on which bit of the phases you're looking at. Who's do we know how that monitoring is going to be done?

Yeah. No. That was the subject of quite a lot of the questioning in the news conference with the, the Qatari prime minister. And, essentially, his answer was that a new unit is gonna be set up of Qatari's Egyptians, Americans. In other words, part of the negotiating team, the the mediators, who will monitor implementation of the deal, and and call out, anyone, any party that is not following the deal, as agreed.

I mean, the a lot of the questioning was, you know, what happens if this collapses? What happens if some there's a problem? What if if somebody reneges on it? Or if there's a logistical problem, you know, a a bus doesn't deliver somebody on time. The wrong prisoner is released from a a from a an Israeli jail, maybe, you know, there's a mix up with which hostage and, because remember, not all the hostages, we think, are held by Hamas.

Some are held by other militias. So there's a potential for these things going wrong, and I think 1 of the questions we still don't really, really know the answer to is how much, sort of, reconciliation process is built into that to, in other words, allow for these kind of things so that at this stage in in other words, to protect it, to give it the this agreement some resilience so it doesn't collapse because of some logistical problem. But, yeah, if there's, there is gonna be a team and the official team who are gonna be monitoring it, the the category prime minister said, look. You know, we are relying on the good faith of all parties here. Mhmm.

So, you know, yeah, people have put their their paw prints to a document, but they have to make it happen.

And I think what's so interesting about that from my perspective as a very outside observer is that I'd always thought throughout this process, it was that the positions of the parties to the negotiations that made it hard. But I've just realized from listening to you tonight, like, it was hard as well. Just the problems were hard as well as the

It is. Positions. It is multidimensional, logistical, diplomatic chess with so many different moves. And if well, if you think about it, many of these negotiations, had to take place. You know, we've talked about negotiators being in the same building and then in the same town.

But a lot of the time, the negotiations with Hamas leadership had to be you know, messages had to be sent to people hiding in tunnels, you know, being pursued by IDF forces in in Gaza. You know, that makes communication hard. So to a certain extent, there was a logistical sort of slowness built into these discussions that meant that things took quite a long time until it reached a stage where both parties wanted wanted to make a deal.

James, thank you very much.

My pleasure, as always.

And thanks to you too for listening to this episode of newscast with this big piece of breaking news on Wednesday evening. Bye bye.