What to Know About the Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the Israel-Hamas hostage deal, a pivotal vote in the Netherlands, and the partial breakdown of a North Korea-South Korea military pact.

What’s in the Israel-Hamas Hostage Deal

After weeks of negotiations, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal that will result in the exchange of at least 50 hostages currently held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for 150 imprisoned Palestinians, as well as a four-day cessation in fighting.

Under the agreement, which was mediated by Qatar along with the United States and Egypt, Hamas will release at least 50 people, mostly women and children, who are among the 240 hostages that it is estimated to be holding, and the International Committee of the Red Cross will be allowed to visit and offer medical treatment to those still unreleased. In exchange, Israel will release 150 Palestinian prisoners, also including women and children, who are being held on charges ranging from unlawful assembly to attempted murder. Israel has imprisoned as many as 7,200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, and the government has said that it will not free those convicted of murder.

The deal also offers room for more hostages and prisoners to be released later, as well as the possibility of further brief extensions of the temporary pause. Israel has agreed to prolong the pause in fighting by one day for every 10 additional hostages released, as long as the total break does not exceed 10 days. On Wednesday, Israeli officials published a list of 300 prisoners who could be included in a potential swap; of those individuals, 123 are minors and five are 14 years old, Haaretz reported.

The agreement will take place in multiple phases, although negotiators are still hammering out the exact timing and other final details. If all goes to plan, the deal is expected to bring a brief respite to suffering civilians in Gaza, where the ongoing siege and intensifying fighting has killed more than 14,000 people and wounded 35,000 more, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry.

Within Gaza, the agreement will allow the entry of hundreds of trucks filled with medical supplies, fuel, and humanitarian supplies, Hamas said, while civilians can freely travel along the key roadway of Salah al-Din Street. Israel will cease attacks and arrests in Gaza, and any aerial movement will be restricted to northern Gaza for a daily six-hour period.

Qatari negotiators expressed hope that the agreement “will be a seed to a bigger agreement and a permanent cease of fire,” but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to ramp up efforts after the pause. “We are at war, and we will continue the war,” he told his cabinet. “We will continue until we achieve all our goals.”

Today’s Most Read

• America Is a Heartbeat Away From a War It Could Lose by A. Wess Mitchell
• Russia Is the Loser in the Israel-Hamas War by Peter Schroeder
• The West Should Give Up the Battle of Narratives by Julien Barnes-Dacey and Jeremy Shapiro

What We’re Following

The Netherlands chooses a new leader. Dutch politics seem poised to take a far-right turn after Wednesday’s election, with initial exit poll results projecting victory for Geert Wilders, a politician known for his anti-Islam rhetoric and euroskeptic views. Wilders’s party, the Party for Freedom, is expected to secure 35 of parliament’s 150 seats—defeating his opponents Frans Timmermans and Dilan Yeşilgöz, who are expected to win 26 seats and 23 seats, respectively.

Wilders’s projected victory could see him become the Netherlands’ first new prime minister since 2010, following former Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s decision not to seek a fifth term in office. Rutte resigned in July after coalition talks over migration policies failed, sparking a political crisis and the government’s collapse—and prompting this election to occur two years earlier than planned. If current projections hold true, the next question will be whether Wilders can find enough parties willing to work with him to form a coalition government, as his party will lack a parliamentary majority by itself.

Global pressure on Israel. In a mostly symbolic move, South African lawmakers voted on Tuesday to shutter the Israeli Embassy and end diplomatic ties with the country until the Israeli government agrees to a cease-fire in Gaza. The resolution would still need to be adopted by the government to take effect. South Africa has already withdrawn its diplomats from Israel, making it one of at least 10 countries that have used diplomatic action to voice their objection to Israel’s actions in the war.

The lawmakers’ vote came as President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered sharp criticism of Israel’s conduct at a virtual summit of the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) on Tuesday. “The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime,” he said. “The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”

Seoul ramps up surveillance. Just one day after North Korea claimed its first successful spy satellite launch, South Korea announced that it will partially suspend a 2018 military pact between the two countries. Among other provisions, the 2018 pact, known as the Comprehensive Military Agreement, included a no-fly zone and prohibited front-line aerial surveillance activities—two restrictions that Seoul said it will no longer adhere to.

“North Korea is clearly demonstrating that it has no intention to abide by the Sept. 19 military agreement designed to reduce military tension on the Korean Peninsula and to build trust,” said South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

Chart of the Week

In the wake of last week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit—and the closely watched meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping—a new Foreign Policy analysis investigates how Washington and Beijing are really competing on trade.

In a new infographic, FP’s Alexandra Sharp and Olatunji Osho-Williams show that most of the world’s major economies are “inextricably tied” to both powers, even amid an intensifying geopolitical rivalry. “Although there are several reasons to want a more stable U.S.-China relationship,” they write, “the data shows how most big economies are largely reliant on steady trade with the world’s two top consumers.”

Odds and Ends

To safeguard his cat’s food from hungry magpies, one Australian man, Giulio Cuzzilla, constructed a homemade owl sculpture out of papier-mâché and feathers that he thought would intimidate the birds. It backfired: In a video that he uploaded to TikTok, the birds instead appeared to be drawn to his creation—responding with bows and caws that he likened to “worship.” “I accidentally made a Magpie god,” he wrote. However, an animal behavior expert said the birds were actually making territorial calls to try to scare it away.