AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Almost two years into the war in Gaza, Hamas says it has agreed to release all the Israeli hostages dead and alive still being held in Gaza. President Trump wrote in response to this announcement online that Israel must now immediately stop bombing Gaza. Here to explain is NPR's Aya Batrawy, who joins us now from Dubai. Hi, Aya.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Hello, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so Trump says that he believes that Hamas is ready for a lasting peace based on its response here. Can you just tell us more about what exactly Hamas is agreeing to?
BATRAWY: Yeah, so basically, Hamas said they agreed to release all the Israeli hostages. That means 20 who are alive and about 28 who are dead. And according to Trump's plan, that would have to happen in the first 72 hours of a ceasefire. But what Hamas said is that actually, it's based on field conditions.
And so what does that mean? Basically, a Hamas leader went on Al Jazeera soon after and said, it could be months before the bodies of the hostages are found. It's believed to be some of them could be buried under tunnels that are destroyed or in areas that would need heavy machinery that's not available in Gaza to reach. So essentially, he's saying, talks under fire won't work here.
Now, here's what that means, as well. Hamas is saying there are still points of this deal that Trump laid out - 20-point plan for ending the war in Gaza - that need negotiation. And so what that does is it leaves the door open for both agreeing to the deal, which they have, but also having a seat at the table and negotiating the finer points that still do need clarification.
CHANG: But does this mean, Aya, that we are heading into a ceasefire and maybe even the eventual end of this two-year war?
BATRAWY: Yeah, and let's remember here, the war in Gaza - Israeli fire has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, 20,000 of them children according to Gaza's health ministry, and there's currently an ongoing offensive on Gaza City. So at this point, what this plan essentially aims to do and that all the stakeholders agree on, including the Arab states that are a part of this, is that the war must end. This is a plan not to temporarily pause the war, but to end it. It also releases many Palestinian detainees, Ailsa, hundreds of bodies that Israel holds of Palestinians. And crucially, it would lift Israeli restrictions to allow much more food into Gaza through a U.N.-led system to reverse starvation there.
But the deal is far from done. Look, this week, we did hear negotiators, the Arab mediators, Qatar and Egypt - senior officials from both countries - come out and say, there are parts of this plan that are far from clear. Example would be troop withdrawal - when would Israel withdraw its troops? The disarmament of Hamas - would Hamas be storing its weapons, giving up its weapons? How and when would that happen? How about the deployment of Arab forces into Gaza? Egypt says it's ready to do that to help with that, but they need a clear mandate for those forces, and they need a U.N. Security Council resolution.
There's also a board that would be governing Gaza that would essentially be chaired by President Trump himself. But what role would Palestinians have in actually, you know, implementing their own governance in Gaza? So all of these are questions that are still going to have to be negotiated, and Hamas wants to be at the table for that.
CHANG: So much still unresolved. OK, what has the response been from Israel so far?
BATRAWY: Well, we did hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree to this plan and praise it alongside President Trump at the White House on Monday when it was unveiled. But there is deep mistrust on all sides, including between Israel and Arab states, the mediators, not just with Hamas. So the - his public acceptance of the plan does not necessarily mean that they all agree on the finer points of it.
We also heard from members of his far-right coalition, like his finance minister in Israel, after the peace plan was announced, calling it a tragedy of leadership. He said Netanyahu's initial unwillingness to conquer Gaza and adopt Trump's plan - of basically everyone being displaced out of Gaza and Israel essentially turning it into some riviera - leaves no room for maximum achievement.
So basically, Ailsa, there's still a lot of actors here on all sides that can derail and undermine the plan before it's fully agreed on and implemented. But right now, what we do have is Trump saying to Israel to stop bombing Gaza, and we have Hamas saying they are ready to release all the hostages.
CHANG: That is NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Thank you so much, Aya.
BATRAWY: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
