The article discusses the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal in Gaza, focusing on the final stretch of negotiations that led to the agreement. Here are the key points:
* The negotiations took place in a two-storey building, with Hamas’s delegation on the first floor and Israel’s on the second floor.
* Mediators used pieces of paper to shuttle back and forth between the delegations, working out details such as maps of Israeli troop withdrawal proposals and lists for release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
* The pressure escalated in the last month, with Trump’s envoy and Biden‘s envoy convening in Doha for an eight-hour negotiation session on January 9th.
* A senior Egyptian official said that 90% of the outstanding issues had been agreed upon, but further talks were required to finalize the deal.
* Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was dispatched to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu and pressure him to set aside his final reservations.
* The meeting between Witkoff and Netanyahu was reportedly fractious, but it appears that the intervention from the Trump camp was critical in getting the Israeli government to agree to a deal.
* Hamas official Bassem Naim said that he “couldn’t imagine that [the deal] could be possible without the pressure of the incoming administration led by President Trump.”
* The final 72 hours of talks involved a constant back and forth over the finer points of how the deal would be implemented, including arrangements for the release of hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops.
* A senior Palestinian official said that “all the officials are here in the same building” and that “tonight is decisive,” indicating that the negotiations were reaching a critical point.
* The impasse was eventually resolved when mediators proposed that Qatari and Egyptian technical teams conduct searches instead of Israel, which both sides agreed to.
The article concludes that a deal which once looked impossible had taken shape, and that the podium was being readied for the announcement.