Timing is everything.

This couldn’t be truer for the current ceasefire deal on the table to end the devastating war in Gaza.

More than 67,000 Palestinians are dead, virtually all of Gaza has been flattened by Israel’s bombing campaign, and disease and famine stalk the Strip.

Gaza latest – Gaza ceasefire deal ‘could be signed tomorrow’

Yet Hamas – the group still holding the 20 or so living hostages in captivity – is still not entirely defeated.

Yes, they are weakened immensely, but has Benjamin Netanyahu achieved the “total victory” over the group he set out to do two years ago? No.

So why has he suddenly agreed to a partial victory?

Speaking to those in the Israeli security establishment, one could develop a somewhat cynical view about his decision.

Recent leaks in the media around talks between Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister, reports that the US president told Mr Netanyahu to “stop being so f***ing negative,” could be more coordinated than it seems at first glance, according to these conversations that I am having here in Israel.

It now suits Mr Netanyahu politically to stop the war.

For the past two years, he has needed to keep his coalition with the far-right together to prevent his government from collapsing.

That meant continuing to pound Gaza, restricting the flow of aid, and allowing the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to continue, unchecked, to fan the flames of ethnonationalism and call for the ethnic cleansing of the area.

Now, next year’s elections are honing into view.

Mr Netanyahu needs a win so he can go to his country as the statesman who got the hostages back and ended the war.

He needs external pressure from the US president to get this war done.

Don’t forget that, for Mr Trump, the timing is also key; the Nobel Peace Prize is announced on Friday and there is not much more that the president wants than to put the gong on his mantelpiece.

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Some pessimists said that Mr Netanyahu’s government wouldn’t last for days after the 7 October 2023 attacks because of the massive security failings.

After all, this is a country that punishes political leaders more harshly than most.

But two years later, Mr Netanyahu is still fighting.

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Never mind that this deal looks a lot like the deal former US President Joe Biden presented more than a year ago. The timing wasn’t right then, but it might be now.

The Palestinians living through sheer hell in Gaza desperately need this deal to be finalised.

As do those Israelis with family still held captive by Hamas.

A dual hell for both sides, separated by mere miles, and depending on a man who may have finally decided that the time for peace has come because it suits him.

It’s dusty, sweltering, crowded. Waves of people start to arrive.

Some have suitcases. Many, just the clothes on their backs. There are some walking alone, others in groups or with their families.

Nearly all look exhausted, bewildered, worried.

We’re at Islam Qala in Afghanistan, on the border with Iran. The people we’re seeing crossing over are some of the 1.3 million Afghans who Iran has deported this year.

Many left their homeland for economic survival. Now they’re being forced back to where they started, full of anxiety and some, with stories of violent arrests.

Rohullah Mohammadi stands out. He’s wearing a smart blue suit and loafers. He has a youthful but serious face. He looks ready for a business meeting, not a sandy border crossing.

He went to Iran to build a better life and earn money to send back to his struggling family. But like many we meet, he crossed illegally, living undocumented in Iran until the police caught up with him.

“They took everything I had and sent me back to Afghanistan,” he says.

“They even beat me. They injured my ear. Is this how Islam is supposed to be practised?”

At its peak, as many as 28,000 people have come through this border crossing in just a single day.

Some manage to stay for a day or two, helped by the UN alongside the Taliban authorities.

But the pressure of returning to the difficult life you left, and working out how you’ll survive going forward, quickly hits people.

‘Never paid’

In a tent for families, we meet Fatimah. She says she took her children to Iran to escape poverty.

“My two daughters worked from six in the morning until 8.30 at night,” she recalls, wiping tears from her eyes.

“But they were never paid. The Iranians didn’t give them any money.”

’16 days beaten in detention’

Lots of children we meet are alone. They all say they were smuggled into Iran, taking on debt owed to the traffickers.

At just 15, baby-faced Tahir says he’s the breadwinner for his six siblings and two parents.

He tells us he’s just spent 16 days being beaten in a detention centre. And yet he is already feeling compelled to return to Iran – feeling the weight of responsibility for his family.

“I love my homeland Afghanistan deeply and I am even ready to sacrifice my life for it,” he says.

“But if there is no work here, how can I survive? I have a family, and they have expectations of me. I must work.”

In a room close by, we meet 15 others like him. A whole room of unaccompanied boys who have crossed the border.

The UN is moving them to the nearby city of Herat, where they will stay for a night before being reunited with their families across Afghanistan.

We join them on the journey. Most are strangers to each other.

‘Kicked on concrete floor’

For Tahir, it’s a soft landing, but a hard adjustment. He looks disorientated as he watches some of the others play football.

He says he can’t stop thinking about the brutal detention centre he’s just left.

“They would force us to lie down on the concrete floor and kick us,” he says.

“In the detention rooms, if someone spoke up they would be forced to lie on the ground. If they protested, they would be sent to a dark solitary cell.”

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What is shocking to learn is that nearly every single one of the boys we met says they were smuggled to Iran by traffickers – and nearly every single one says they were beaten in detention.

But Tahir is already making plans to return to Iran. He doesn’t think he has a choice.

“I would rather kill myself than see my father begging for money for his hungry children,” he says. “I couldn’t bear it.”

Tahir is one of millions caught up in Iran’s crackdown on illegal immigrants. Authorities there set a deadline in September for all undocumented Afghans to leave.

But human rights groups say those living legally in Iran have also been swept up in deportations, and that the numbers crossing have pushed Afghanistan to breaking point.

The country is also being squeezed on its eastern border – Pakistan too has deported tens of thousands of Afghans this year.

We asked the Iranian government about the allegations made by the Afghans we met, including Tahir, but it did not respond to our request for comment.

Girls fleeing Taliban restrictions

Other expelled Afghans we meet fled for an education – girls who were no longer able to attend secondary schools in Afghanistan.

We speak to one mother recently forced to return – struggling with the fact she’s now back.

“Every day brought a new restriction, a new policy aimed at preventing women from working,” she says.

“There was the compulsory niqab, and also limitations on education for women and girls.”

She seems overwhelmed. “When you see the future of your daughter, of your children, slipping away day by day, it’s devastating,” she adds.

Her daughter tells me she used to love reciting poetry. But when the Taliban returned to her city, she was forced to stop.

Bittersweet family reunion

Tahir hasn’t seen his family for two years, and it’s a bittersweet return.

His siblings rush out of the house to greet him. His mother cries as she embraces him.

The living room is packed with the siblings he’s been financially supporting. They’re a wonderful, kind and close family.

His mother Gulghoty sobs as she explains why she had to let him go and likely will again.

“Life here was very hard for him,” she says.

“We have a delivery cart but with that alone he could not pay for himself and take care of me. He needs a stable life and a future.”

Tahir says, with sobering pragmatism, that he must go back to Iran and “endure the oppression” to save his family.

It’s a dynamic playing out across Afghanistan. Huge burdens on young shoulders and a country unable to share the load.

Donald Trump has expressed optimism about ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, as Israelis mourned those killed two years after the October 7 attacks.

The US president described the negotiations as “very serious”, adding: “I think there’s a possibility we could have peace in the Middle East”.

Latest updates from the war in Gaza

One of the key mediators, Qatar’s prime minister, along with senior American diplomats Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will now head to Egypt to join the third day of indirect negotiations between the Palestinian militant group and Israel.

Memorial events took place around the world on Tuesday, including in Israel, as grieving families gathered and relatives hoped a ceasefire deal could see the remaining hostages freed.

It has been two years since thousands of Hamas-led militants poured into southern Israel after a surprise barrage of rockets.

They stormed army bases, farming communities and the outdoor Nova music festival, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, including women, children and older adults.

The attack plunged the region into a devastating war, including a brutal retaliatory offensive by Israel on Gaza that has left tens of thousands of people dead, turned entire towns and cities to rubble, triggered a widespread famine and displaced around 90% of the population.

Hamas abducted 251 others, most of whom have since been released in ceasefires or other deals, with 48 hostages remaining inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.

Israel mourns October 7 victims

In Tel Aviv, dozens gathered at a memorial site that was set up in a city square.

Others visited the scene of the Nova music festival in the border community of Reim, where nearly 400 Israelis were killed and where portraits of the kidnapped and dead have been erected.

Thousands of people visited throughout the day to share memories of relatives and friends who were killed.

Pro-Palestinian rallies, opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza, were also held in several European cities including Paris, Geneva, Athens, Istanbul, Stockholm, and London.

Sir Keir Starmer labelled the UK protests as “un-British” and said they showed a lack of respect.

Hamas wants ‘guarantees’

On the second day of talks, top Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya told Egyptian state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV the group had come “to engage in serious and responsible negotiations”.

He said Hamas was ready to reach a deal, yet it needed a “guarantee” to end the war and ensure “it is not repeated”.

US officials have suggested the talks should initially focus on the first phase: halting the fighting and working out logistics for the release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Read more from Sky News:
Two lives torn apart by the Hamas attack
Trump’s Gaza peace plan explained
Israelis and Palestinians grieve two years on

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani of Qatar said he would attend the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh “with the aim of pushing forward the Gaza ceasefire plan and hostage release agreement”.

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The failure by Hamas to return hostages has left Israel deeply divided, with weekly mass protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It has also left Israel more isolated internationally than it has been in decades.

The war has already killed over 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants.

Experts and major rights groups have accused Israel of genocide – something Israel vehemently denies.

The International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of Mr Netanyahu and his former defence minister for allegedly using starvation as a method of war.