At 11:15 a.m. local time on 19 January 2025, the guns fell silent in Gaza as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, three hours late but holding. The deal, brokered over weeks by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, had been signed in Doha just hours earlier, and its first phase committed Hamas to release 33 hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
For the people of Gaza, the moment brought the first quiet dawn in 15 months. A war that began with Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, had killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, flattened entire cities and left most of the territory’s population displaced and facing famine.
The ceasefire’s first hours were marked by an outpouring of emotion, as displaced families began moving back to what was left of their homes and the first hostages were handed over to the Red Cross. But the truce was fragile, and its second and third phases, covering a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza, would remain fiercely contested long after the shooting stopped.