Palestinian civilians and aid groups in Gaza expressed “jubilation” along with underlying caution and “skepticism,” as one local reporter said, on Thursday following the news that Hamas and Israel had come to an agreement to end Israel’s two-year assault on the exclave.
Israel is expected to withdraw troops to an agreed-upon line and to allow an influx of aid into Gaza along with releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a ceasefire would take effect later in the day, “once the government convenes and approves the deal,” but Nour Odeh reported at Al Jazeera that “that is not stopping the celebrations” of the news that Israel’s relentless destruction of Gaza was expected to soon come to a halt.
“People were screaming in the streets, because after two years of bombings and destruction and loss, finally they will sign the ceasefire [deal],” Laila Al Shana, a project manager for Palestinian grassroots aid group Humans To Be in Gaza, told Al Jazeera. “I hope they can maintain this deal.”
Tareq Abu Azzoum, a reporter for the outlet in az-Zawayda, central Gaza, said there was “an undeniable collective sense of relief seen here in Gaza” on Thursday following President Donald Trump’s announcement that Hamas and Israel had reached a deal on the first phase of the 20-point peace plan Trump proposed last week.
“People were celebrating, and there were very obvious scenes of jubilation across Gaza for families who took to the streets, cheering, waving Palestinian flags, and even launching fireworks,” reported Abu Azzoum. “But beneath that surface jubilation, there is a relative sense of skepticism, especially as families are quite afraid that Israel could resume the war in Gaza under one security pretext or another.”
Reports from Gaza’s Civil Defense suggested that the fears were not unfounded; Drop Site News reported at 9:30 am local time that according to the agency, there was “a series of intense air strikes” on Gaza City and explosions across northern Gaza after the deal was announced, while Hani Mahmoud said there were “a couple of attacks in Khan Younis.”
Mahmoud said that there was “cautious hope” in Gaza that “the truce may hold this time, despite Israel’s pattern of last-minute actions aimed at derailing agreements.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on Palestinian rights, also expressed cautious optimism, noting that Israel broke a ceasefire deal in March, and stressed that “Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid in Palestine” must ultimately be “dismantled.”
Hamas negotiators told Drop Site News that there was a risk to accepting a deal that does not include a complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, but rather a withdrawal to a specific line—the details of which were “still being worked out” Wednesday night.
“This is a risk, but we trusted President Trump to be the guarantor of all the commitments made,” Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader, told Drop Site News on Monday.
The Palestinian negotiators have “faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators over the past 48 hours to make significant concessions and to quickly reach an agreement on the aspects of Trump’s plan that address the exchange of captives, a ceasefire, and the resumption of aid,” Drop Site News reported.
But Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy emphasized that “it wasn’t pressure on Hamas that got the ceasefire, they’ve obviously been under intense pressure all along.”
Rather, with the international community increasingly expressing outrage over the human-caused humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s expressions of intent to commit genocidal violence there, “the key variable here was pressure on Netanyahu,” said Duss.
Recent polls in the United States, the largest international funder of the Israel Defense Forces, have found a major reversal in the public’s views on the war, with more respondents telling The New York Times in September that they supported the Palestinians over the Israelis—for the first time since the newspaper began polling people on the subject nearly 30 years ago.
The Washington Post also found that support for Israel has plummeted among Jewish Americans, 61% of whom told the newspaper that they believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.
Aid groups expressed hope Thursday that they would be able to begin delivering humanitarian aid to Palestinians promptly. The Gaza Health Ministry has reported that more than 461 people have died of malnutrition and starvation since the war started, with most dying this year. A famine in parts of Gaza was declared by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in August.
“We need sustained humanitarian supplies to enter. We need, as a humanitarian community, access to communities, to children. We need to be able to do our jobs, we need safe and dignified distributions,” Rachel Cummings, the humanitarian director of Save the Children in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, told Al Jazeera. “Organizations like Save the Children and obviously the [United Nations] and its partners, we know how to prevent famine. We know how to treat malnutrition, and we need these sustained supplies to enter to be able to do them.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees emphasized that it has food, medicine, and other essentials ready to be distributed as soon as it is permitted to begin delivering aid, and said the progress reported Wednesday night came as a “huge relief.”
”After their excruciating ordeal, hostages and Palestinian detainees will finally join their families,” Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X. “We have enough to provide food for the entire population for the coming three months. Our teams in Gaza are crucial for the implementation of this agreement, including to provide basic services like healthcare and education.”
James Elder, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, posted a video on Instagram from Gaza, where over the last two years, more than 67,000 Palestinians—including more than 18,000 children—have been killed; 90% of the population has been displace; at least 39,000 children have been left without one or both of their parents; and many children have undergone surgeries and amputations without anesthesia.
“A journalist just asked me: Did you imagine that we would reach this moment? Did you think we would reach the stage of a ceasefire?” said Elder. “My reflections were that I never thought we would reach a point where 20,000 girls and boys would be killed.”
