Updates: Israel and Hamas agree Gaza ceasefire deal to halt 15-month war

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Read about displaced Palestinians’ reactions to the ceasefire agreement here.

Click here to learn more about the details of the deal.

And read about the war’s horrific toll on Palestinians here.

We will be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of the main events of the day.

• Qatar, Egypt and the United States announced that Hamas and Israel have reached a multi-phased deal that halts the war in Gaza and leads to the release of Israeli captives in the territory.
• Mediators said the deal will go into effect on Sunday and starts with a 42-day period that would see the release of 33 Israeli captives and a number of Palestinian prisoners.
• Hamas lauded the agreement, saying that Palestinians have thwarted the goals of Israel’s “war of extermination”.
• Incoming US President Donald Trump claimed credit for the “epic” agreement, suggesting that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff helped push it over the line.
• Displaced people in Gaza celebrated the deal, expressing relief over being able to return to their homes even if they are destroyed.
• Israel continued its relentless bombardment of Gaza, killing 12 people in an attack on a residential compound in Gaza City.
• An Israeli attack in Jenin in the occupied West Bank killed at least six people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has welcomed a ceasefire in Gaza, saying “peace is the best medicine” as health needs in Gaza remain “enormous”.

“Too many lives have been lost and too many families have suffered,” Tedros said on X. “We hope all parties will respect the deal and work towards lasting peace.”

He added that the UN agency for health was ready to scale up its support alongside its partners.

Peace is the best medicine.

The #Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal is welcome and encouraging. Too many lives have been lost and too many families have suffered. We hope all parties will respect the deal and work towards lasting peace.

Health needs in Gaza remain…

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 15, 2025

The progressive US senator says the ceasefire in Gaza should be sustained and formalised, and the perpetrators of war crimes on “both sides” must face accountability.

“Both sides must honor the deal and implement it as quickly as possible. The senseless killing must stop. The hostages must be released,” Sanders said in a statement.

“The United Nations and other aid organisations must finally be allowed unfettered access to all areas of the Gaza Strip to provide the massive amounts of humanitarian aid that is desperately needed.

“Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are struggling to survive, lacking food, water, and medical care in the middle of winter. Innocent lives hang in the balance.”

The World Food Programme calls for resources, access and protection to allow its teams to scale up aid to Gaza.

“We welcome the long awaited ceasefire in Gaza. But a ceasefire is the start – not the end,” WFP chief Cindy McCain said in a statement.

“We have food lined up at the borders to Gaza – and need to be able to bring it in at scale. For this: We need all border crossings open and [to] be able to move food safely from the crossing points to the people in need across Gaza.

“We need security for team members and our partners, including during aid convoys. Humanitarians MUST be protected. We need more humanitarian staff allowed into Gaza. And we need urgent funding to reach everyone in need quickly.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Cairo, Hussein Haridy, Egypt’s former assistant foreign minister, said the agreement should lead to some access through the Rafah crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt.

“Fortunately, the agreement announced today in Doha stipulates that the Israelis would start withdrawing gradually from the Philadelphi Corridor, and the Palestinians would be managing the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing,” Haridy said.

“That would enable us to open the Rafah crossing, to surge aid and humanitarian assistance to Gaza.”

Haridy also said he understands the agreement would mean injured Palestinians could pass through the crossing to get medical assistance.

“Ultimately, when the Israeli forces would withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip, and there is a Palestinian authority running Gaza, I think that the Rafah crossing would be operated normally, as it had been before June 2007,” he said.

Haridy added that Egypt, which was one of the mediators for ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel, “has really exerted all its efforts to bring the Israeli aggression to an end as quickly as possible”.

Izzat al-Risheq, a member of the Palestinian group’s political bureau, says the ceasefire deal meets all the conditions Hamas had set out early in the war, including the full withdrawal of Israeli forces, return of displaced people to their homes and a permanent end to the war in Gaza.

“The occupier was brought to its knees,” al-Risheq said in a statement.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has slammed the ceasefire deal, saying it was a “bad and dangerous deal for the national security of the State of Israel”.

“A clear condition for us to remain in the government is the absolute certainty of returning to the war,” he was quoted by Israeli media as saying.

He claimed continuing the war would be necessary to achieve “complete victory”, meaning ensuring the “destruction of the Hamas terrorist organisation and the return of all the hostages to their homes”.

“We will not be silent. The voices of our brothers’ blood cry out to us,” he said.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group says the “honourable” ceasefire deal was produced by the “legendary steadfastness” of Palestinians and their resistance against Israel.

“We stress that the resistance will remain alert to ensure the full implementation of this agreement,” the group said in a statement.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry says it values the role that Qatar, Egypt and the US played in reaching the Gaza deal.

“The kingdom stresses the need to commit to the agreement [to ensure] the end of the Israeli aggression against Gaza, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Strip as well as all Palestinian and Arab lands, and the return of displaced people to their areas,” the ministry said in a statement.

Riyadh called for building on the ceasefire deal to address the root causes of the conflict and establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that while the ceasefire is a “moment of relief”, people in Gaza will likely have to face three days of intensified bombing before it goes into effect on Sunday.

He said they will face deep scars from the war – including the deaths of so many people, widespread destruction, Israel’s “genocide, collective punishment including starvation, and ethnic cleansing of many places” and the failure of major global powers and institutions to uphold international law.

“But we look into the future, regardless of the fact that we could have reached this [ceasefire] agreement in July last year,” he told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

“We had to lose 10,000 more people because of Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing this genocide, and because of Netanyahu’s selfishness, who serves only his own interest.”

He said two major risks going forward would be Israeli efforts to annex and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, as well as internal Palestinian divisions.

“The best way to face these risks and to deal with the results of this terrible genocide in Gaza and to rebuild Gaza is to have internal Palestinian unity – something we have [long] been missing, but we will not stop trying to get back,” he said.

Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard says that while the ceasefire deal may provide a glimmer of hope for Palestinians, it is “terribly overdue”.

Callamard called out the international community’s failure to pressure Israel to live up to its legal obligations and allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.

“For Palestinians who have lost so much, there is little to celebrate when there is no guarantee that they will get justice and reparation for the horrifying crimes they have suffered,” Callamard said in a statement.

“Unless the root causes of this conflict are addressed, Palestinians and Israelis cannot even begin to hope for a brighter future built on rights, equality and justice. Israel must dismantle the brutal system of apartheid it imposes to dominate and oppress Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory once and for all.”

The rescue organisation says an Israeli attack on a home on Jalaa Street in northern Gaza City has killed two people.

Earlier, it said the bodies of three others were retrieved in a separate attack targeting the area.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has a long history of advocacy and legal battles against Trump, but the group praised the incoming president for pushing to end the war in Gaza.

“We welcome this long overdue ceasefire deal, which President Biden should have forced Netanyahu to accept over a year ago instead of needlessly funding so much death and destruction,” CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

“We commend President Trump for pushing for a ceasefire deal and reportedly warning Netanyahu that Israel, too, would face consequences for continuing to refuse to make a deal.”

Awad also urged Trump to pursue an end to the occupation, “so that a just, lasting peace can prevail across the region”.

Kamala Harris, who ran unsuccessfully for president amid protests against the US administration’s unconditional support for Israel, says the ceasefire was reached thanks to Biden’s “leadership”.

“We will never forget the lives taken as a result of the brutal Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, and the horrors endured by countless innocent people in the war that followed,” Harris said in a statement.

“In my many conversations with leaders in the region, my unwavering focus has been to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”

The US vice president’s remarks echo her rhetoric on the campaign trail, where she would describe Palestinian suffering in a passive voice without assigning responsibility for it to Israel.

Thanks to the leadership of President Joe Biden, a ceasefire and hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas.

Read my full statement: pic.twitter.com/ab62MLy7QA

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) January 15, 2025

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it is ready to help implement the ceasefire agreement and facilitate the release of captives and prisoners.

“We are also prepared to massively scale up our humanitarian response in Gaza,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric said on X.

“This is only possible with political commitment from all sides to put humanity first and respect the rules of war.”

📍Israel and the Occupied Territories | We, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), are ready to help implement the agreement reached by the parties and bring hostages and detainees home.

Mirjana Spoljaric, ICRC President, shares: https://t.co/O3yYiWvKaA pic.twitter.com/Qk3BlXQ5qq

— ICRC (@ICRC) January 15, 2025

Netanyahu has thanked in a phone call US President-elect Donald Trump for securing a deal for the release of captives held in Gaza and putting an “end to the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families”, a statement by his office has said.

The Israeli prime minister also thanked US President Joe Biden for his help in securing the deal.

The statement added that Netanyahu had agreed to meet Trump soon in Washington.