Hey, it's David. Obviously, there have been a lot of big developments in the Israel Hamas war over the last couple of days. Both sides have agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could go into effect soon as Sunday. So we've been covering all the fallout from this. On the other podcast I host, it's called One Thing. So right now we're going to play you our latest episode and make sure you follow CNN. One thing wherever you listen, because we're going to continue to follow developments out of the Middle East and other global conflicts. All right. Here's the show.

Hi, David. The atmosphere here in Gaza is electrifying. People go loud in the streets each minute or with each important report saying that the deal is done. We are all counting the minutes in these hours waiting for the final word.

'If this is Mahmoud Jarousha, I first spoke to him last May. The 19 year old and his family have been displaced three times since the Israel-Hamas war began. He told me that dreams he had of becoming a professional soccer player, of going to university, of having a house one day. They were all put on hold after the brutal October 7th Hamas attacks and the unrelenting Israeli bombardment that followed. But he sent me this voice note on Wednesday morning. There was hope in his voice I hadn't heard before.

We are much happier than you could imagine. We sit together and we ask each other questions like What's the first thing you're going to do when they declare the cease fire? What will you do when you go back to our destroyed house in Gaza? We be like making plans.

Well, just hours later.

Welcome back. And the breaking news is a ceasefire deal reached between the Israeli government and Hamas.

Celebrations broke out across parts of Gaza and Israel after we got word that after 15 months of war, there will be another pause in the fighting, a chance for much needed relief to enter Gaza and an opportunity for the relatives of the 46,000 plus Palestinians who have been killed to grieve. Dozens of hostages who were taken from Israel by Hamas. Some are Tobar seventh could be handed back to desperate families starting as soon as Sunday. Some are hoping for a reunion. Others, like the family of American Israeli soldier Omer Neutra, know they will only be getting a body back.

What's important is that finally, after over a year, there is an agreement to start bringing hostages. Omar still deserves to be brought back home.

But the question now from so many across the region, how long will this peace hold? My guest is CNN's Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond. We're going to talk about what's in the deal, why implementing it will be so tricky and how President elect Donald Trump helped to get it across the finish line. From CNN. This is one thing. And David Ryan. So, Jeremy, you and I have spoken probably close to like a dozen times since the last cease fire back in November of 2023. You know, there would be rumblings, we're actually closer than ever to a new deal. It could finally happen this time. But it never materialized. But now, as we sit here on January 16th, there is finally a deal in place. So how did this come together?

Well, it came together over the course of months and months of negotiations between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the Qataris, the Egyptians with, you know, heavy support and pressure from the United States. You know, it's hard to say whether ultimately there was one factor that that got this deal across the finish line. Perhaps it can just be summed up by talking about this notion of political will, which clearly had been lacking on one side or the other. You know, at various points over the course of the last several months. And ultimately, both sides decided that they wanted this deal. Both sides decided they wanted to get this across the finish line. Now, in terms of what changed in the environment, in terms of the people working on this deal, there are a few things. You know, the United States and Israel have pointed to a different environment in the Middle East.

We're following a major story out of Israel this hour. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved in principle the outlines of a cease fire deal that's being discussed with Hezbollah. That's what is.

There was this Hezbollah cease fire in late November that left Hamas increasingly isolated. Iran, you know, its biggest sponsor, was severely weakened by that and by other events in the Middle East.

I stand before you today to inform you that Yahya Sinwar has been eliminated. Today, evil has suffered a heavy blow. But the task before us is not yet complete.

The killing of Yahya Sinwar in October, not only did that weaken Hamas, but it also gave the Israeli prime minister something to stand on in terms of a military achievement in order to politically be able to move towards a deal. And then, of course, there is this very obvious notion of the impacts that President Donald Trump, the president elect, has had on this process.

If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East and it will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don't have.

To stand by. Not only threatening to bring, you know, all hell to the Middle East if if the hostages weren't released by Inauguration Day, but also by kind of just creating this deadline. And sometimes that's what's needed as well as to create these kinds of deadlines that bring both parties considerable amount of pressure to be able to get this across the finish line.

Standing with my son Eric is Steve Wyckoff, who's just got back from the Middle East and he's done a fantastic job.

And really interestingly, we saw both the current Biden administration working hand in hand with the incoming Trump administration to get this deal across the finish line. Brett McGurk, President Biden's Middle East coordinator, working really closely with Donald Trump's incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Whitcomb.

I actually believe that we're working in tandem in a really good way, but it's the president, his reputation, the things that he that he has said that are that are driving this negotiation.

And I know at times they were divvying up meetings across the Middle East, including conversations with the Israeli prime minister himself, where Wycoff apparently brought McGurk in over the phone as he was sitting down with the Israeli prime minister. All of that combining to bring the kind of necessary pressure on both Israel and Hamas to get that political will that I was talking about to get this deal across the finish line.

Well, so what is actually in the deal? Like how is this going to work?

Well, what we're talking about right now is a six week cease fire, 42 days during which we will see 33 hostages released by Hamas. The expectation is that the majority of those hostages are alive. But the other expectation is that some of them are likely dead and that they will be returning in body bags rather than alive into the arms of of their loved ones. In exchange for those 33 hostages, we're going to see hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons. Some of those individuals have been convicted of killing Israelis, Those who do have blood on their hands, as the Israelis would say, will not be released into the West Bank. They will be released either in Gaza or in third party countries that have agreed to receive them. You're also going to see a massive influx of humanitarian aid going into Gaza at a time when it's incredibly needed, as many as 600 trucks of aid per day. And then, of course, there's going to be the movements inside of Gaza, the Israeli troops. Are going to move from populated areas into a buffer zone along Gaza's border with Israel. They will remain along that Philadelphia corridor that was the subject of so much contention along the Gaza Egypt border. And Palestinians who live, lived in northern Gaza will be able to return to that part of the strip.

Obviously, the question for a lot of Palestinians is, is the fighting just going to resume after the first six weeks?

Well, as we're speaking right now, David, there is this incredibly contentious issue inside the Israeli government where the far right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is demanding that the Israeli prime minister commit to resuming the war after this six week cease fire. And we've heard the Israeli prime minister before say that this cease fire deal, as it was being negotiated would not represent an end of the war, that Israel would return to the fighting until achieving this total victory against Hamas. But that, of course, undermines a tremendous centerpiece of this deal, which is, as President Biden said this week. His hope is that this cease fire can ultimately lead to a permanent cease fire, can ultimately lead to an end of the war. And the parties are, in fact, supposed to start negotiating that on day 16 of this agreement.

Then when phase two begins, there will be an exchange for a release of the remaining living hostages, including male soldiers. And all remaining Israeli forces will be withdrawn from Gaza and the temporary cease fire will become permanent.

All of that is very much uncertain, though, whether or not this cease fire can be extended once it reaches that six week and whether or not this actually does spell the end of the war in Gaza or not.

Well, Israel's aim when it responded to the initial October 7th attacks was to eliminate Hamas completely. Like, have they achieved anything close to that?

Well, the Israeli government claims that Hamas has been decimated as a military structure, and the United States has backed up that assessment, basically saying that throughout the majority of the Gaza Strip, Hamas no longer operates as kind of organized military battalions in the way that they did before October 7th, but rather that they are more engaged in guerrilla warfare at this stage. Sporadic attacks not quite as coordinated, not quite as planned. But at the same time, I want to point you to something that the Secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said this week.

Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and reemerge.

Which was that Hamas has been able to recruit just about as many fighters as it has lost over the course of this war. And that is just a startling statement.

That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.

Because we've reported on this before and we've certainly seen a lot of anecdotal reports of this, but the kind of destruction that Israel has wrought in Gaza, the the amount of death that that has come of its military campaign in Gaza, that has been a recruitment tool for Hamas. And there have been individuals who were not part of Hamas's fighting forces before October 7th that now have taken up arms against Israel.

That would be why those far right politicians would advocate for more war down the line, because the forces, you know, keep getting replenished. And there is still this threat as they see it, from Hamas.

Yeah, that's right. And what the United States and what Secretary Blinken laid out this week as an alternative is if you don't provide a political alternative to Hamas, if you don't provide Palestinians with a path towards a credible governing alternative, then you are going to see this continuation of this cycle where people die and maybe their relatives as a result will choose to take up arms against Israel. It is the cycle of extremism that has been examined in so many conflicts around the world and certainly is true inside the Gaza Strip.

More destruction equals more anger equals more recruitment. Rinse, Repeat.

That's right.

Well. So I do want to dig into the why now, because this deal, the outlines. Wasn't this basically the same framework that President Biden proposed last May, that Netanyahu and Hamas waffle bound for all this time? So you mentioned deadlines like is it as simple as Trump is getting inaugurated on Monday? Like why didn't Biden just provide a deadline then to make this happen sooner?

It's a good point. And and it is true that the deal that we have now is strikingly similar to the framework that was announced in May of last year. The framework that we learned in early July that Israel and Hamas had effectively agreed to. And I and I also think before we get into why that is, it's important to look at what has happened since then, since late May. More than 9000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. We know of at least six hostages who were executed by Hamas in August. At least four of those hostages would have been part of this agreement. And, you know, the Israeli government has claims that it was Hamas that that resisted this deal for for so long. But we do know that over the summer, the Israeli prime minister introduced new conditions to this deal. That was where the issue of the Philadelphia corridor came up. And yes, ultimately in this agreement, Hamas has agreed to allow Israeli troops to remain along the Philadelphia corridor. But other than that and a few other minor issues, this is basically the same deal. And so it does raise the question of what exactly was Israel holding out for? You know, some of the demands that Israel had made that previously held up This deal never materialized. Israel demanded that Hamas provide a list of living hostages. Never materialized. And we still got a deal. Israel demanded security inspections on people returning to northern Gaza that Israel conceded on. As part of this agreement, there will be unfettered access to northern Gaza. And so there certainly can and should be questions raised about Hamas and whether or not they truly wanted a deal, whether they needed the military pressure, whether Sinwar needed to die in order for this to come true. But there's also considerable evidence to suggest that not only is this deal very similar to the framework that President Biden presented in late May that Israel had agreed to then, but that this is also effectively the deal that has been on the table since then, and that what it really took ultimately was the Israeli prime minister recognizing that he was facing this insurmountable pressure from. The incoming president elect Trump and that perhaps that is what made the difference. Certainly, there's been a lot of analysis in Israel to that effect, and there's a lot of evidence of that's true.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are wondering, like, what was it all for? And I remember the early days right after the initial Hamas attacks, like you were covering the story on TV, ducking behind cars as rockets were intercepted overhead. You've been into Gaza under IDF escort. You've spoken to so many hostage families and Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank who have been impacted in some way by all of this. So can you just kind of explain what this moment means for the people of the region who have lived through all this hell for the last 15 months?

I mean, it was really quite surreal to finally see this cease fire agreement coming together. It is a moment that it so many in this region, myself included, have have hoped for, have have waited for, have wondered if it would ever actually materialize. And so to see this agreement actually come together, I think can really just best be described by the reactions of of the people in the region that we saw. I mean, we saw people in Gaza jumping for joy. Children smiling wider than they have in 15 months of of war. We also saw people in Gaza reflecting on those who were not with them and who they wish could be there celebrating alongside them. And then in Israel. We saw a wave of relief, I think is the best way to describe it. Kind of crash over. People here relief that that finally some hostages would get out relief that their weekly protests that they're fighting their advocacy to get the hostages out to get a hostage deal was not in vain. But there is also still considerable uncertainty.

How are you feeling at this very moment?

Actually, frightening. Terrified to hear what? Because we don't know. First of all, we don't know if it's going to happen.

I spoke with your Keshet, the uncle of Dardenne bus, who was taken hostage on October 7th alongside his wife, Sherry, and their two babies, Thier and Ariel.

We do not know what we are going through. It really is going to come back. How they're going to come back. Their physical condition. Their mental condition. Well, we don't know if they are going to win them back.

And yet you told me he's he's frightened. He's terrified of what a deal actually means because he doesn't know what condition his nephew will emerge in and he doesn't even know if his family is alive. He doesn't know if they're going to emerge alive from Gaza or come back in body bags. Is your is your family still hopeful that Sheri and the children may perhaps come out alive.

Yet that you hope that we are hopeful or that we have we have a phrase that we are saying, you know, up for the go for the best and prepare for the worst. We are preparing.

And then, of course, there are those who don't know if their loved ones will come out in this first phase of the agreement and whether we will actually get to the next phase of the deal, which would see the remainder of the hostages be released. And the same questions are beginning to be asked in Gaza, as well as to whether or not this six week cease fire will actually extend into something longer lasting. And right now, I just don't think that's a question that any of us know the answer to.

Yeah, just a major moment, but a deeply uncertain one for so many people just waiting to see if this will actually happen the way it's supposed to and how long it will all last. Thank you, Jeremy.

Thanks, David.

One thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producers are Felicia Patinkin and Faiz Jamil. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pessaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Zeena Saifi, Caroline Patterson, Tamar Michaelis, Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Sunday. I'll talk to you then.