The 15-month-old war that began with the October 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas will come to an end with a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States with the aid of the Egyptian and Qatari governments, President Joe Biden has said.
Speaking from the White House not long after news of the agreement became public, Biden said it was “a very good afternoon” because he could announce the ceasefire agreement had been reached.
Biden said the deal would end “more than 15 months of conflict” that began with the “brutal assault” on Israel, as well as “more than 15 months of terror for the hostages, their families and the Israeli people,” and “more than 15 months of suffering by the innocent people of Gaza.”
The three-phase agreement would kick off with what Biden called “a full and complete cease fire, withdrawal of Israeli forces from all the populated areas of Gaza and and the release of a number of hostages held by Hamas, including women and elderly and the wounded” during a six-week period that would also see the release of all Americans held by Hamas over the last year and three months.
He added that he and Vice President Kamala Harris “cannot wait” to welcome those American hostages home.
Biden also said the six-week ceasefire period would give time for Israel and Hamas to “negotiate the necessary arrangements to get phase two, which is a permanent end of the war,” by hammering out “a number of details.”
But he stressed that the ceasefire would continue past the six-week period if the negotiations take longer than six weeks.
The second phase of the deal would involve releasing “all remaining living hostages,” and a withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza. At that point, the ceasefire would become permanent, Biden said. He added that a third phase would consist of the return of the remains of any deceased hostages, plus the start of a “major reconstruction plan” for Gaza.
In a separate statement, the president said the agreement had been the product of “intense diplomacy” and would “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families after more than 15 months in captivity.”
The agreement, which Biden called a result of both “the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran” and “dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” tracks the details first laid out in a United Nations Security Council-endorsed plan put forth by the United States last year.
.The inking of a ceasefire deal brings to a halt more than a year of war in Gaza, during which the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 100,000 wounded.
The multi-stage process largely tracks a framework first laid out by the Biden administration last May that was hammered out during marathon talks including representatives from the Israeli government, Hamas, representatives from the Qatari and Egyptian governments, plus American officials including CIA Director Bill Burns and Biden White House envoy Brett McGurk.
But even though Biden announced that both sides had signed on to the plan during last year’s NATO summit in Washington last July, the talks remained stalled for months with both Hamas and Israel charging the other with intransigence.
Negotiations continued in fits and starts through the fall and winter, with representatives from the incoming Trump administration joining the talks in the weeks after President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.
On Monday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that efforts to close the deal were ongoing and had “accelerated” in recent weeks, with McGurk, a veteran diplomat and foreign policy expert who has served in multiple administrations, having “camped out” in Doha while “working to tighten up these details and try to get this done.”
Sullivan said Biden’s team had “coordinated very closely” with the incoming Trump team to “present a united message to all the parties, which says it is in the American national security interest — regardless of party, regardless of outgoing or incoming administration” and “get this deal done as fast as possible.”
The way the talks had run up against an American presidential transition had brought to mind the chaotic scenario faced by Ronald Reagan when he succeeded Jimmy Carter after defeating him in the 1980 election amid the Iran hostage crisis.
At the time and in the years since, it has been argued by some historians that the Reagan team back-channeled with Iran to keep the hostages captive until Reagan took office — they were in fact released just minutes after he was sworn in.
Asked whether he or Biden were concerned that the negotiations were being hampered by American political considerations, Sullivan said he doubted the thought had even crossed Biden’s mind.
“What was on his mind is we’re in this period of change and transition, and we can’t have anything missed between the cup and the lip in the handoff between our administration and the incoming administration. So, he told us, he told me, ‘Sit down with your successor as soon as you possibly can and start working through and mapping out what they need to know and how we can work together in this period of transition to put ourselves in the best position possible,’” he said.
“These are not partisan issues; these are American national security issues. And it’s the kind of spirit that President Biden has brought to this job from the very beginning that set the politics aside, do what’s right for the country, and have our team work with the incoming team in that regard,” Sullivan continued, adding that the engagement between the Biden and Trump teams had been “professional” as well as “deep and substantive.”
For his part, Trump attempted to take sole credit for the agreement in a post to his Truth Social platform, writing that the “EPIC” agreement “could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signaled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies.”
“With this deal in place, my National Security team, through the efforts of Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will continue to work closely with Israel and our Allies to make sure Gaza NEVER again becomes a terrorist safe haven,” he added.
Asked about Trump’s boasts and claims to be responsible for the deal, Biden grinned and pointed out that the agreement largely follows the framework he proposed last May.
He credited American support for Israel with having helped to “badly weaken Hamas and its’ backers and create the conditions for this deal,” and stressed that he’d known all along that the deal would have to be implemented by Trump and his team.
“So I told my team to coordinate closely with the incoming team to make sure we’re all speaking with the same voice,” he said. “Because that’s what American presidents do.”
