HAMAS has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of dozens of Israeli hostages, two officials involved in the talks said today. 

Hamas said that the ongoing negotiations had reached their “final stage,” while an Israeli official said progress has been made, but the details are being finalised. 

The plan would need to be approved by the Israeli cabinet.

The United States, Egypt and Qatar have mediated talks to end the fighting in Gaza and secure the release of dozens of hostages captured in Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack that triggered it. 

The proposed three-phase agreement — already  endorsed by the United Nations security council — would begin with the gradual release of 33 hostages over a six-week period, including women, children, older adults and wounded civilians in exchange for potentially hundreds of Palestinian women and children imprisoned by Israel.

Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each of whom would be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 who are serving life sentences.

Israeli forces would withdraw from population centres during the first 42-day phase and Palestinians would be allowed to start returning to their homes in northern Gaza. There would also be a surge of humanitarian aid.

Details of the second phase still must be negotiated during the first. 

The deal does not include written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue, leaving the potential for Israel to resume its military campaign after the first phase ends.

The Israeli official said “detailed negotiations” on the second phase will begin during the first. He said that Israel would not leave the Gaza Strip until all the hostages are back home.

The deal would allow Israel throughout the first phase to remain in control of the Philadelphi corridor, the band of territory along Gaza’s border with Egypt, which Hamas had initially demanded Israel withdraw from. 

Israel would pull out from the Netzarim Corridor, a belt across central Gaza where it had sought a mechanism for searching Palestinians for arms when they return to the territory’s north.

In a third phase, the bodies of remaining hostages would be returned in exchange for a three- to five-year reconstruction plan to be carried out in Gaza under international supervision.

Officials have expressed optimism before, only for negotiations to grind to a halt as the Israelis insist on last-minute additions to the deal.

But Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said: “Today, we are at the closest point ever to having a deal.”