What has been agreed?
Fifty women and children held hostage by Hamas and other groups in Gaza since 7 October are to be released in exchange for a four-day ceasefire in a deal brokered by Qatar with the support of the US.
A US official said three Americans would be among those freed, including a girl who turns four this week, and that the first release should come by Thursday.
According to Hamas, Israel will release 150 Palestinian prisoners, all women and children, from Israeli jails and allow hundreds of aid trucks a day to cross the Rafah border with Egypt, providing humanitarian supplies to Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel will cease air sorties in southern Gaza and restrict them to six hours a day in the north, according to the Hamas account of the deal, which also says Israeli forces will not bring military vehicles into Gaza during the ceasefire, nor try to detain anyone.
The ceasefire would be extended by a day for every 10 additional hostages released, the Israeli government said.
The agreement temporarily pauses a war that has lasted more than six weeks so far. It has cost the lives of 14,128 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the government media office in Gaza, and more than 1,200 people in Israel, most of whom were victims of the surprise Hamas cross-border attack on 7 October.
Why has an agreement been reached now?
Israel’s government has come under intense pressure domestically to make progress on returning hostages. Their families mounted a high-profile “bring them home” campaign, meeting members of the Israeli war cabinet on Monday night. The military assault on northern Gaza had resulted in only one hostage being rescued alive.
International pressure has also been mounting in response to the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. Bombing by the Israeli military followed by the ground invasion have caused a civilian crisis: food, water, fuel and medicines are desperately short, 1.7 million people out of 2.3 million have been displaced, and only 10 out of 36 hospitals are functioning.
Last week, 68% of Americans said they supported a ceasefire, reflecting concerns in the US that Israel had gone too far in its military response.
Hamas is losing ground on the battlefield, as Israel’s forces have been able to capture large parts of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. Israel’s military claims to have inflicted heavy losses on 10 out of 24 Hamas battalions and its leadership is believed to have relocated to the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
Will fighting restart once the ceasefire is over?
Hamas is likely to want to use any ceasefire to regroup, and it is possible it could seek to extend it by offering to gradually release more of the hostages. Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, so its survival as a group would represent a victory.
Israel has greater motives to return to the battlefield. The Israeli military has not yet occupied all of northern Gaza. On Tuesday, it had surrounded Jabalia, which it considers a Hamas stronghold, and the nearby Indonesian hospital, the only functioning large medical facility in the north.
Israeli commanders are also focused on the south of Gaza, and in particular the city of Khan Younis, where they believe Hamas’s leadership is based and the remaining hostages may be held. Some in the Israeli military establishment argue that delivering a knockout blow to Hamas would require attacking the city, though it would kill and displace even more civilians in an already crowded country.
The US has made clear it will not support a ground offensive in the south, unless there are much greater safeguards against civilian casualties.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, told the cabinet, in remarks that were also filmed and broadcast, that he expected fighting to restart. “We will not stop after the ceasefire,” he said.
