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Israel and Hamas are close to entering the second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday.
Netanyahu was in Germany, meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, when he made the optimistic prediction.
The second phase of the 20-point ceasefire deal will involve Hamas disarming and Israeli troops withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. It will also include the creation of an international monitoring force for the territory, under the supervision of an international board led by President Trump.
Netanyahu believes this could begin before the end of the year.
The final hurdle to be cleared is the exchange of bodies, including the remains of Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer who was killed on 7 October 2023. His body is still in Gaza.
A senior Hamas official said the group is ready to discuss “freezing or storing or laying down” its weapons as part of the ceasefire.
During his meeting with Merz, Netanyahu said the long term goal was to “deradicalize Gaza,” a process he compared to de-Nazification in Germany and the post-War occupation of Japan.
“As I mentioned to the chancellor, there’s a third phase, and that is to deradicalize Gaza, something that also people believed was impossible. But it was done in Germany, it was done in Japan, it was done in the Gulf States. It can be done in Gaza, too, but of course Hamas has to be dismantled,” he said.
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