Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed “a critical turning point” in the Gaza war after Israel and Hamas signed off the first phase of Donald Trump’s peace plan.

The Israeli prime minister said Wednesday night’s breakthrough meant all remaining 48 hostages held by the militant group, 20 of whom are thought to still be alive, would be returned.

Gaza war latest: Celebrations as Trump announces peace deal

“Through steadfast resolve, powerful military action, and the great efforts of our great friend and ally President Trump, we’ve reached this critical turning point,” he added.

The White House said it was down to the Israeli security cabinet to sign off the deal today, which will bring a ceasefire into force and allow for an exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas urged Mr Trump not to let Israel “evade or delay” the deal, as it said it hoped it would lead to the “complete withdrawal” of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Defence Forces said it was “ready for any scenario” and any movement “will be carried out in accordance with the directives” of its government. In a statement, it added it is prepared to “lead the operation” for the hostages’ return.

It comes after the US president announced the two sides had agreed to the first phase of his plan.

‘A great day for the world’

In a Truth Social post just before midnight UK time, he said: “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan.”

It means all the hostages will be released, he said, and Israel will withdraw its troops “to an agreed upon line”.

He thanked mediators for their part in negotiations in Egypt this week, including those from Qatar and Turkey. The delegates were pictured hugging and celebrating as the deal was announced.

He later told Reuters it was a “great day for the world”, and told Fox News the hostages could be released on Monday.

Mr Trump had teased an imminent announcement earlier on Wednesday evening – and revealed he may travel to the Middle East, and perhaps even Gaza, as soon as this weekend.

During an event at the White House, the US secretary of state Marco Rubio handed Mr Trump a note, which the US president read and then said: “I was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly.”

The note had the two words “very close” underlined and asked the US president to approve a post on his Truth Social website “soon so you can announce deal first”.

Analysis: For the moment, at least, a beacon of optimism

Adam Parsons

Middle East correspondent

@adamparsons

Rumours had been spreading over the course of the day, anticipation grew.

A source told me that a deal would be done by Friday, another said perhaps by Thursday evening.

They were both wrong. Instead, it came much sooner, announced by Donald Trump on his own social media channel.

Without being anywhere near the talks in Egypt, the president was the dominant figure.

Few will argue that he deserves the credit for driving this agreement. We can probably see the origins of all this in Israel’s decision to try to kill the Hamas leadership in Doha.

The attack failed, and the White House was annoyed.

Arab states started to express themselves to Trump more successfully, arguing that it was time for him to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu and bring an end to the war.

Read more from Adam here

Sources familiar with the talks had told Sky News lead world news presenter Yalda Hakim a deal could be signed within 24 to 36 hours.

Mr Trump’s plan called for an immediate ceasefire and the release of the 48 hostages still held in Gaza from the 7 October 2023 attack that sparked the beginning of the war.

Hamas was seeking guarantees from mediators Israel will not resume its military campaign in Gaza after the militant group releases all the remaining Israeli hostages.

Other elements of the deal include a requirement that Hamas disarm, and the creation of an international body to run the enclave once Hamas steps down – led by Mr Trump, with a role for Sir Tony Blair.

Ahead of Mr Trump’s announcement, Israel had reduced its military campaign in Gaza at his request, but had not stopped conducting strikes altogether.

Medical authorities in Gaza reported eight people had been killed by Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours – the lowest number for weeks.

Over 67,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says around half were women and children.

When the peace deal came, it came quickly.

Rumours had been spreading over the course of the day, anticipation grew. A source told me that a deal would be done by Friday, another said perhaps by Thursday evening.

Israel and Hamas agree to peace deal – live updates

They were both wrong. Instead, it came much sooner, announced by Donald Trump on his own social media channel. Without being anywhere near the talks in Egypt, the president was the dominant figure.

Few will argue that he deserves the credit for driving this agreement. We can probably see the origins of all this in Israel’s decision to try to kill the Hamas leadership in Doha.

The attack failed, and the White House was annoyed.

Arab states started to express themselves to Trump more successfully, arguing that it was time for him to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu and bring an end to the war.

They repeated the call at a meeting during the UN General Assembly, which seems to have landed. When the president later met Netanyahu, the 20-point plan was born, which led to this fresh peace agreement.

Does it cover everything? Absolutely not. We don’t know who will run Gaza in the future, for a start, which is a pretty yawning hole when you consider that Gaza’s fresh start is imminent.

We don’t know what will happen to Hamas, or to its weapons, or really how Israel will withdraw from the Strip.

But these talks have always been fuelled by optimism, and by the sense that if you could stop the fighting and get the hostages home, then everything else might just fall into place.

In order to agree to this, Hamas must surely have been given strong assurances that, even at some level, its demands for Palestinian self-determination would bear fruit. Otherwise, why would the group have given up their one trump card – the 48 hostages?

Once they have gone, Hamas has no leverage at all. It has precious few friends among the countries sitting around the negotiating table, and it is a massively depleted fighting force.

So to give up that power, I can only assume that Khalil al-Hayya, the de facto Hamas leader, got a cast-iron guarantee of… something.

Arab states will greet this agreement with joy. Some of that is to do with empathy for the Palestinians in Gaza, where 67,000 people have been killed and more than 10% of the population has become a casualty of war.

But they will also welcome a path to stability, where there is less fear of spillover from the Gaza conflict and more confidence about the region’s economic and political unity.

Trump’s worldview – that everything comes down to business and deal-making – is welcomed by some of these leaders as a smart way of seeing diplomacy.

Jared Kushner has plenty of friends among these nations, and his input was important.

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For many Israelis, this comes down to a few crucial things. Firstly, the hostages are coming home. It is hard to overstate just how embedded that cause is to Israeli society.

The return of all 48, living and dead, will be a truly profound moment for this nation.

Secondly, their soldiers will no longer be fighting a war that, even within the higher echelons of the military, is believed to be drifting and purposeless.

Thirdly, there is growing empathy for the plight of the Gazans, which is tied to a fourth point – a realisation that Israel’s reputation on the world stage has been desperately tarnished.

Some will object to this deal and say that it is too weak; that it lets Hamas off the hook and fails to punish them for the atrocities of October 7.

It is an accusation that will be levelled by far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition government. It could even collapse the administration.

But for most people, in Israel, Gaza, across the Middle East and around the world, it is a moment of relief. Last week, I was in Gaza, and the destruction was absolutely devastating to witness.

Whatever the compromises, the idea that the war has stopped is, for the moment at least, a beacon of optimism.

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.