LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Israel's security cabinet has now voted to approve a ceasefire deal to halt the fighting in Gaza. The decision came two days after mediators Qatar and the United States said an agreement had been reached that both Israel and Hamas representatives agreed to. The full Israeli cabinet will meet later today to consider the deal, and if it is approved, it would halt more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The meeting comes two days after mediators announced this agreement and a day after some ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet renewed their calls to continue the war in Gaza. The stops and starts of negotiations has people like 21-year-old Shaymaa Ahmed in Gaza afraid to hope, just in case the deal falls through.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
SHAYMAA AHMED: We really want it to be over. We're desperate to hear that it's finally and actually over so that we can continue moving on with our life.
FADEL: With me now is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv to walk us through the latest. Hi, Kat.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Hey there.
FADEL: OK, so it's past the Israeli security cabinet. Does this now make it a done deal?
LONSDORF: Not quite. So we're waiting on a vote later today by the larger Israeli government, but it is expected to pass there with a majority of the votes. It is possible that it could still be challenged in Israel's Supreme Court. It's expected to make it through that, too, though. So there are a few more steps, but it does seem likely that a ceasefire could start as early as Sunday.
FADEL: OK, and what's been the holdup so far in Israel. Although, at this point, it seems like those hurdles are over.
LONSDORF: Yeah, it's been a tense time here since this deal was passed by mediators - or was announced by mediators back on Wednesday night. It was announced by Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. and even Hamas back then, but Israel did not confirm it. Netanyahu's office put out a statement saying that Hamas had come back with last-minute changes to the deal that still had to be worked out, and Hamas denied that. So it was a little unclear what the holdup was exactly. And meanwhile, there has been a disagreement within Israel's security cabinet. Two far-right members were very, very against this deal. Both of them threatened to leave Netanyahu's government if the deal did go through. And that would collapse his coalition and throw Israel's government into a tailspin. You know, it seems like that has been a bit smoothed out, although both of those ministers did vote against the deal in the security cabinet vote this morning.
FADEL: Now, you said the ceasefire should start Sunday as expected. What will those first hours, that first day look like, and what happens after that?
LONSDORF: We know several Israeli hostages will be released that first day in exchange for several Palestinian detainees. We also know that the fighting will stop in Gaza, and Israeli troops will start to withdraw. The plan is for it to stop for at least six weeks. Over that time, 33 of the remaining 98 hostages should be released, and around 1,000 Palestinian detainees are also expected to be released. There's also supposed to be a significant increase in the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. And also in that time, negotiations for the next phase of this deal will also take place in the hopes of, you know, continuing the ceasefire with more releases and more withdrawal of Israeli troops.
FADEL: OK, so not an end to the war, but a pause for now.
LONSDORF: Yeah.
FADEL: But right now, there isn't a ceasefire. What's happening in Gaza?
LONSDORF: Yeah, the fighting is very much still ongoing. Israel says it carried out around 50 airstrikes in the past day. It says it killed a Hamas fighter who participated in the 2023 attacks on southern Israel that started this war. Meanwhile, more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in the time since this deal was announced on Wednesday night, many of them children, according to civil defense in Gaza. So, you know, the human cost of keeping this war going is still very, very high. Our producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, says that people there are feeling anxious. They're worried that the fighting is going to get worse before it gets better.
FADEL: That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Kat.
LONSDORF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
