Israel approves deal to get hostages freed, release Palestinian terrorists; ceasefire takes effect after IDF pullback

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s full cabinet voted early Friday morning in favor of a government resolution on Gaza that provides for all hostages to be freed in the coming three-to-four days in exchange for Palestinian security prisoners, despite vocal objections from the premier’s far-right coalition partners.

The resolution was presented by the Prime Minister’s Office as approving a “framework for the release of hostages,” in accordance with the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s broader Gaza peace plan. Despite several reports to the contrary, the government resolution did not ratify an end to the war.

The six-page published text of the resolution refers to various appendixes, one of which, The Times of Israel was told by a senior member of the Israeli negotiating team, contains an agreement signed earlier in the day by Israel, Hamas and the mediators in Sharm el-Sheikh, which states that “President Trump has announced the end to the war in the Gaza Strip,” and subsequently states, somewhat confusingly, that “the war will immediately end upon the approval of the Israeli government.”

The Sharm document, which was signed by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, was presented to ministers and discussed in the meeting, The Times of Israel was told by two ministers. However, ministers were not asked to approve the appendix containing the Sharm agreement, they did not vote on the Sharm agreement, and they did not vote on ending the war.

Ministers only voted on the “first phase” of Trump’s wider plan for peace in Gaza, a senior government official told The Times of Israel, noting that they did not discuss Trump’s full plan, and stressing that they did not endorse an end to the war. Ministers solely approved a deal for Hamas to release all hostages, which also involves the freeing of Palestinian terrorists, an IDF pullback in Gaza, a ceasefire, and boosted humanitarian aid, the official specified. “We did not approve the end of the war, because there is no end to the war yet,” he said.

The chief Hamas negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said on Thursday night that Hamas had “received guarantees from the mediators and the Americans that the war has ended indefinitely.” Netanyahu, by contrast, warned in a video address on Friday that Israel would resume the war against Hamas if it was not disarmed.

Netanyahu publicly backed Trump’s full Gaza plan at a joint press event with the US president at the White House on September 29, saying it achieves Israel’s war aims. Trump said at that event that the “ultimate result” of his Gaza plan must see the “elimination of the danger” posed by Hamas, and that if, necessary, “Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.” On Tuesday, however, Trump stressed that he would do “everything possible to make sure everybody adheres” to his plan.

Following the ministers’ decision in the early hours of Friday morning, the Israel Defense Forces began withdrawing to new lines inside the Gaza Strip, after which a ceasefire will go into effect. Hamas will then have 72 hours in which it is required to release all the hostages, living and dead. (It has stated that it might not be able to locate all the dead hostages, and Israel is aware of this.)

Netanyahu’s office announced the approval of the resolution but did not immediately provide a vote tally, although the decision was opposed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, and Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock of the Religious Zionism party also voted against the decision, although Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer, also a member of the party, voted in favor.

Trump told his own cabinet at the White House, as Israel’s ministers were meeting in Jerusalem, that “Last night… we ended the war in Gaza.”

Addressing the cabinet, Netanyahu said Israel was “about to achieve” the return of its hostages.

“We’ve fought during these two years to achieve our war aims,” said Netanyahu in English, alongside top White House aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. “A central one of these war aims is to return the hostages, all of the hostages, the living and the dead. And we are about to achieve that goal.”

Netanyahu said Israel “couldn’t have achieved it without the extraordinary help of President Trump and his team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They worked tirelessly with Ron [Dermer] and his team, our team. And that, and the courage of our soldiers, to enter Gaza, and combine military and diplomatic pressure that isolated Hamas, I think has brought us to this point.”

Witkoff and Kushner helped broker the negotiations over the deal and both attended the cabinet meeting that approved it.

וידאו: דברי ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו בישיבת הממשלה לאישור מתווה שחרור החטופים, יחד עם השליח המיוחד סטיב וויטקוף וחתנו של נשיא ארה״ב ג׳ארד קושנר. pic.twitter.com/OFz7xy0iZe

— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) October 9, 2025

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, praised Israel’s military performance over the last two years and said that “bringing the hostages home has been a priority for President Trump for a very, very long time, and we’ve all worked very tirelessly to do that.”

“This all would not have been possible without the bravery of the IDF and its soldiers, what they’ve accomplished not just in Gaza, but also what they’ve done in the theater over the last couple of years to eliminate Hezbollah in the north and really degrade them,” he said.

Kushner said that Netanyahu “really did an incredible job with this, and did a great job with the negotiations.”

“You held your lines firm and I think that between you and President Trump, you had a lot of alignment on what the end state should be,” he concludes.

White House special envoy Witkoff, in turn, praised Netanyahu for making “very difficult decisions,” stating that while there were times at which he wished the premier had been “more flexible,” “the truth is that now, looking back, I think we wouldn’t have reached this point if Prime Minister Netanyahu hadn’t acted the way he did.”

‘You can’t make peace with Hamas’

Far-right leaders have been critical of the deal, with Smotrich announcing on Thursday that Religious Zionism would not vote in favor. Speaking with The Times of Israel, a party source said that it remained up in the air whether or not the far-right faction would bolt the government.

Ben Gvir had also announced ahead of the cabinet meeting that Otzma Yehudit would vote against the first phase of the deal, in which Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for all 48 Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Israel is due to release 250 Palestinian security prisoners serving life sentences, plus another 1,700 Gazans imprisoned since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that launched the war.

Ben Gvir’s party said it would remain in Netanyahu’s coalition for now, but warned that if Hamas is not dismantled, Otzma Yehudit will “bring down the government,” an echo of an earlier threat to bolt if the terror group “continues to exist” after the hostages are freed.

Earlier this year, Ben Gvir’s party quit the coalition for several months to protest the acceptance of a previous hostage release and ceasefire deal.

Ben Gvir’s demand to veto the release of specific Palestinian security prisoners, including convicted terrorists, delayed the security cabinet meeting on the government resolution as well as the subsequent vote of the entire government to ratify it, according to Kan.

The ultranationalist minister sparred with both Kushner and Witkoff, asserting that they would not release terrorists like those being freed under the deal in the United States, the broadcaster reported.

“You can’t make peace with Hamas! They want to murder us,” he said.

In response, Kushner argued that “Hamas is isolated and deterred all over the world,” to which Ben Gvir shot back: “Would you make peace with Hitler? Hamas is Hitler.”

According to Channel 13 news, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told the cabinet, “we’re world champions in being bitter,” but “this is a great agreement.”

Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism’s departure from the coalition would not automatically bring down Netanyahu’s minority government, which currently holds 60 out of 120 seats in the Knesset.

They could join the opposition in holding a full constructive vote of no confidence, but that would require 61 Knesset members to agree on backing an alternative government to replace the current one, an unlikely scenario.

They could also join with the opposition in collecting 61 signatures to submit a “change of circumstances” letter to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, requesting permission to hold a vote on dissolving the Knesset.

Most relevantly, opposition parties led by Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid have repeatedly promised Netanyahu a “safety net” to ensure that his government does not fall in a Knesset vote so long as Netanyahu is advancing the Gaza deal.

An opposition-backed bill to disperse the Knesset and call early elections failed in June. Under parliamentary rules, because the legislation was defeated, lawmakers have to wait six months to bring another Knesset dissolution bill to a vote.

‘The war will immediately end’

Shortly before the ministerial vote, Kan published a copy of the one-page English agreement signed by Israel (by delegation head Dermer), Hamas and mediating nations in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier on Thursday, that broadly accords with the initial steps listed in Trump’s 20-step peace plan for Gaza. The document is entitled “Implementation Steps for President Trump’s Proposal for a ‘Comprehensive End of Gaza War,'” and details the stages of the agreement

The document’s first clause states, “President Trump announces the end to war in the Gaza Strip, and that the parties have agreed to implement the necessary steps to that end.”

Its second clause states: “The war will immediately end upon the approval of the Israeli government. All military operations, including aerial and military bombardment and targeting operations, will be suspended.”

The third clause calls for the “immediate commencement of full entry of humanitarian aid and relief” into the Gaza Strip, while the fourth says that the “IDF will withdraw to lines agreed upon as per map X attached herewith, and this will be completed after President Trump’s announcement and within 24 hours of Israeli government approval.”

Under the fifth clause, which will take place “within 72 hours of the withdrawal of Israeli forces, all Israeli hostages, living and deceased, held in Gaza, will be released.”

A subclause states that “as Hamas releases all the hostages, Israel will release in parallel the corresponding number of Palestinian prisoners as per the attached lists,” and is followed by another subclause declaring “the exchange of hostages and prisoners will be done according to the mechanism agreed upon through the mediators and through the ICRC without any public ceremonies or media coverage.”

The final clause of the Sharm document says that “a task force will be formed of representatives from the United States, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey and other countries to be agreed upon by the parties, to follow up on the implementation with the two sides and coordinate with them.”

Ahead of the full cabinet meeting to approve the government resolution on Trump’s Gaza deal, the Knesset was lit up in red, white and blue, in appreciation of the US president and anticipation of his expected visit. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana officially invited Trump to speak at the legislative body, following an invitation to do so first conveyed to Trump by Netanyahu when they spoke overnight Wednesday-Thursday, soon after Trump announced that the negotiators had signed off on the first phase of his plan.

Note: This story was updated as additional details of the government resolution approved by the full cabinet emerged.