What’s happening: Both Hamas and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal. After a last-minute back and forth, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved the measure Friday morning.

  • Flashback: President-elect Donald Trump promised there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by his inauguration. The deal goes into effect on January 19 — just one day before.

The details: The ceasefire deal involves three phases. Phase one, starting tomorrow and lasting for six weeks, will see 33 hostages released in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. It also requires the Israeli military to begin a staged withdrawal from Gaza. The second and third phases have yet to be worked out, but would see more hostages released.

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Carol Henson1 year ago

It is not dozens of hostages being released! I believe to leave any in hands of evil Hamas cannot be called a victory. They will continue to use the remaining ones as bargaining chips, especially the more able-bodied ones.

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KT E1 year ago

I'm not convinced this is a victory - for every 1 Israeli hostage released, Hamas gets 50 hostages in return.... There's more that doesn't add up and was discussed in the Family Research Counsel article. But that alone seems like a huge loss - there is more to this than meets the eye.

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Kate Devaney1 year ago

"Peace" is the false name that Biden hijacked to disguise his true goal in negotiating with Hamas and Israel. His true goal was forever war.

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Joel Williams1 year ago

Awful, evildoers now see that they only need a few new hostages to get a sweet deal: recieve more combatants and rearm them while Israel frees, in comparison, just a few hostages who are all non-combatants that now need therapy. At least it sounds like Israel has a plan to stop all the evildoers they release...

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sharon smith1 year ago

In effect, the Trump admin. will come in just as they went out in 2020, with the world 'almost' at peace. We are finally getting what we voted for and should have had after the 2020 election!

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Monty Mickle1 year ago

Hamas was embraced and empowered by the Palestinian people. Isreal will always be in danger as long as the Palestinians are more interested in destroying Israel than in building their own country and improving their lives.

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sharon smith1 year ago

The second wave of hostages is due to be or has already been released. Praying that more of them are alive than what we saw in first release!

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Scott Connell1 year ago

There's new sheriff in town and his name is Donald J Trump! When Trump said there would be "hell to pay" if the hostages weren't returned before he took office, he meant it! Even if he didn't mean it, Hamas and Iran couldn't take that chance based on his previous actions. That's called leadership. If Biden had used his usual lack luster saying "DON'T", it would be meaningless to them based on his past actions. The only message that "bad actors" understand is one of strength through force to have real peace. And I agree the others on this Reply that negotiating with terrorists sets a real bad precedence.... Scott

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