Celebrations have broken out in the Gaza Strip following reports that Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement have agreed to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
According to eyewitnesses, tens of thousands of jubilant people have taken to the streets. Images circulating on Palestinian and social media show people singing and dancing. Men can also be seen apparently crying with joy.
Mediator Qatar said that Israel and Hamas had reached an agreement to halt the 15-month war in Gaza and exchange Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
Qatar’s Prime Minister HE Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani announced the agreement in Doha on Wednesday. He said the ceasefire would take effect on Sunday, January 19.
Palestinians burst into celebration across the Gaza Strip, with some shedding years of joy and others whistling, clapping and chanting "Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).
"I am happy, yes, I am crying, but those are tears of joy,” said Ghada, a mother of five displaced from her home in Gaza City during the 15-month-old conflict.
"We are being reborn, with every hour of delay Israel conducted a new massacre, I hope it is all getting over now,” she told Reuters via a chat app from a shelter in Deir Al-Balah town in central Gaza.
Youths beat tambourines, blew horns and danced in the street in Khan Younis in the southern part of the enclave minutes after hearing news of the agreement struck in the Qatari capital Doha.
The deal, outlines a six-week initial ceasefire phase and includes the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The accord also provides for the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
For some, delight was mingled with sorrow.
Ahmed Dahman, 25, said the first thing he would do when the deal goes into effect is to recover the body of his father, who was killed in an airstrike on the family’s house last year, and "give him a proper burial.”
Mediators the United States and Egypt also confirmed that an agreement had been reached, with US President Joe Biden saying the proposal followed "the precise contours” of a plan that he set out in late in May.
"It is the result not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran – but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy,” Biden said.
Ahead of the official announcement, US President-elect Donald Trump wrote on social media that the "EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November”.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi wrote on X that he welcomed the Gaza ceasefire deal and stressed the importance of a fast delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.