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Source: Hamas And Israel Agree To Ceasefire-Hostage Deal. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 15, 2025 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Again, we are learning the Israeli government and Hamas have agreed to hostage release and ceasefire deal. Of course, we are waiting to learn more details of that, but this is a huge development months in the making.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. Our coverage of this breaking news continues right now on Inside Politics with Dana Bash.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where we are following momentous news. A source telling CNN that the Israeli government and Hamas have agreed to a deal that will pause fighting in Gaza and lead to a phased release of hostages. Israeli hostages taken on October 7, in addition to Palestinian prisoners. This comes at a gut wrenching 466 days after the Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

CNN is covering this breaking news from all angles, all across the globe. MJ Lee is at the White House. Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv. Jeremy, I want to go to you first. What are you hearing from your sources in Israel and in the broader region.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, this is an earth-shattering moment. 15 plus months in the making since Hamas' October 7 attack. We now have an agreement between Israel and Hamas for potentially the longest ceasefire that we have seen in this war to date.

A six-week ceasefire is expected to take effect once this agreement is actually signed on the dotted line and moves towards the implementation phase of this, which I'm told could come as early as this weekend.

Sunday is the date that appears to be targeted for the first hostages to be released from the Gaza Strip, for Israel to stop its bombing campaign, and for the troops there, the Hamas militants to lower their weapons, and for the ceasefire to actually go into effect.

And you just think about the many months of negotiations that have happened so many moments over the course of the last year, where we thought we were on the precipice of an agreement, only for talks to collapse, once again, largely because of the lack of political will on one side or the other to actually broker this agreement. But now we finally have this agreement, Israel and Hamas, at least for the moment verbally agreeing to move towards this ceasefire agreement, which is not an end to the war in Gaza. But should that political will carry forward in the six weeks of this ceasefire, it could very well turn into that. That is, in fact, the hope of the mediators involved here.

We know that the United States has made very clear for months now that they believed that getting to a temporary ceasefire was the best possible path to reaching an end of the war in Gaza. Altogether, that theory will now, of course, be tested by a new administration, which played a significant role as well in getting to this moment.

But for this agreement, once it will go into effect, Dana, six weeks of ceasefire, 33 hostages expected to be released during that time. Israeli government officials expect that the majority of those but not all of them, will be living hostages. You will see hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, some of them who have been convicted of killing Israelis, released in exchange for those 33 hostages and hundreds of trucks of humanitarian aid.

I'm told as many as 600 trucks of humanitarian aid per day making it into the Gaza Strip, which we should note. Over the course of the last 15 months, if there is one thing that we have learned, it is that no place in Gaza is safe.

And finally, once this agreement goes into effect, Gazans will experience at least a reprieve from the bombardment, a reprieve from this war that has shattered so many lives over the course of the last 15 months, truly an enormous moment, Dana.

Here in Israel, we will need to wait for the Israeli government to officially approve this deal. It will go before the Israeli security cabinet, then the full Israeli cabinet. The Israeli Supreme Court will hear petitions against the release of Palestinian prisoners, but once all that is concluded, this deal will go into effect. Dana?

BASH: It is so nice to be able to report some good news, particularly on this absolutely horrific situation that we've seen for over 400 days in the Middle East. MJ, I want to go to you. You have been talking to your sources in the White House and in the broader administration.

One of the things that when the history books and when the stories that we are all going to write will come out, that will be the most fascinating, has been the way that the Biden White House on its way out, and the Trump transition officials who will work in the Trump White House have been working together to make this happen in the final days of the Biden administration.

[12:05:00]

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana. I mean, think about the fact that we have been covering this story and this conflict for well over a year. And for the majority of that time, President Biden and his White House and administration officials have been working really nonstop to try to get a second ceasefire in place, and they had been until this point completely unsuccessful.

At times, there were moments when it was made clear that the will wasn't there from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There were other times when it was clear that Hamas was in no position to come to the negotiating table even. And we have followed those conversations of the negotiations at every step of the way.

And Dana, it is for certain that the one thing that made the biggest difference in getting us to this point finally of an agreement on a ceasefire, is simply the fact that Donald Trump is about to take office.

Now, I just want to be clear to our viewers. Of course, the current administration, the Biden administration and its top officials have been taking the lead for the U.S. in mediating these talks. But at the same time, as we have been reporting all along, Trump's national security team, and in particular the incoming Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff has physically been in the region.

And based on my reporting it has been in all of these critical conversations, even having joint conversations with the Israeli prime minister, being intimately involved in hammering out these final issues to get us to this point.

I should also just quickly note one piece of reporting. According to one U.S. official, you know, we have been waiting for a couple of days now for final word that Hamas had said, yes. I am told by a U.S. official that there were some last minute, sort of final details and issues that had come up that the parties had to address.

Now, obviously those appear to have been resolved because otherwise Hamas wouldn't have said yes. But I do think it is worth talking about why that was really the reason that everybody involved had been so cautious in not making any predictions about whether this moment would come, because at the end of the day, they were dealing with Hamas and that final green light had to come from that group.

The one other thing that I think is worth underscoring. You know, Jeremy was very clear in reminding everyone that this does not mean that the war is definitely over. We are talking about, Dana, a six- week ceasefire.

What that means is that whenever this agreement is actually signed and begins to be implemented, and we don't know yet whether that's going to be starting tomorrow, over the weekend and perhaps even next week. Whatever the case may be, the majority, if not all, of the implementation of this ceasefire is going to fall on Donald Trump and his administration.

So, the overseeing of that is going to be passed on to the incoming administration and having covered the last ceasefire and just seeing everything over the last year. Plus, that process is going to be incredibly difficult for the new government that's coming in.

BASH: Yeah. No question about it. MJ, thank you so much for that terrific reporting. Jeremy as well, obviously, let us know if you get any new details. I've got a great group of colleagues here at the table to talk about all of this. CNN's Audie Cornish, CNN and Bloomberg's Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN's global analyst Kimberly Dozier, and CNN's Alex Marquardt.

Alex, I know you've been talking to your sources as well about what we expect here. And one of the things that I'm wondering at this point is how the -- not only, of course, how the people inside Gaza who are going to get a reprieve for the first time in almost a year are feeling. But the families in Israel who have been waiting for 440 something days to see if their loved one is alive. And then, if so, which one will come back?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's fair to say, there is extraordinary relief on all sides. This is just an incredible moment. We've been talking about this for more than 13 months now, since the end of the last truce.

And my friends and colleagues there are very right in emphasizing this is a pause in the fighting. There's a very good chance that the fighting picks back up again after six weeks. Of course, the current and future administrations are hoping that that is not the case.

I think it's very important to emphasize what we know and what we don't know. And this is very much Biden's model, his ceasefire, the three phases that is now getting pushed across the finish line with that nudge from Donald Trump.

And what we're expecting to see in the coming days, in terms of these Israeli and some American hostages, Israeli Americans are -- what they're calling the humanitarian cases, the women, older men, injured, wounded, and some will be deceased. There has been a lot of back and forth between the two sides about who is alive, who is, where they are.

[12:10:00]

Of course, the hostages have been held by different groups all over the Gaza Strip for the past 14 months. We do not -- as far as I know, have a solid figure of the number of Palestinians who are going to be released from Israeli prisons --

BASH: Below hundreds.

MARQUARDT: Hundreds. And they will range in terms of what they have done from the least serious to, we believe, some of the most serious. And on the most serious side those -- they will probably be exiled to other countries like Turkey and Qatar.

One thing that Hamas has been really, really strict on, and that has held up a lot of this, is their insistence that the IDF completely leave Gaza and that the war end. That has not happened in this case. So, Hamas backed off those demands.

We are going to see the IDF, the Israeli military pull back from population centers, from cities, but they will stay within the Gaza Strip, in certain strategic areas that Netanyahu has insisted on. This war will not end. So, there are big, big questions about what comes next.

This is now Trump's ceasefire. He will have to put it into effect. He will have to pressure the parties to make sure that that this is maintained. This is Biden's structure, but now it is going to be owned by the Trump administration.

BASH: And he just put on social media the following. We have a deal for the hostages in the Middle East. They will be released shortly. Thank you. You know, you never know in times like this, sometimes it takes some time to figure out who was involved and who really put the pressure point on.

It is very clear, although it was, as you said, Joe Biden's plan, and they've been pushing it since they made it public in the early spring of 2024. But the political pressure from Trump coming in and a whole bunch of other factors clearly have gotten them to this point.

And just to go back to kind of the deal right now. We're talking about probably 33, 34 hostages, most of whom are civilians. There are some IDF hostages who are there. We don't know if they will be among those who will be released, but about 34 to be sent back to Israel in exchange for hundreds of prisoners who -- many of whom have done some pretty horrible things.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes. And Israelis can petition to the high court against any one of those releases, though the high court has not stepped in and stopped the releases in the last exchange. Now we have to make clear that Biden's White House aide Brett McGurk has been working with Steve Witkoff on this.

And that even if this goes into effect on Sunday, only three hostages would be released on that day, four more, once Trump is inaugurated. But the real bottom line for Trump will be, when do the Israeli Americans get out? Most of the Israeli Americans still being held are of military age, and that wouldn't even be decided or negotiated until this first -- going to worked out.

BASH: So, seven of the remaining hostages are believed to be American citizens, four of whom are confirmed dead. So, we are talking about three living American hostages.

MARQUARDT: And those male hostages of military age, or who are in the IDF --

BASH: Like Adon Alexander?

MARQUARDT: Correct.

BASH: We talked to his family multiple times.

MARQUARDT: Are likely not going to come out in this first phase. And Hamas will hold them because they see them as the most valuable hostages, and they will exchange them in later phases for an end to the war and for that withdrawal from Gaza that I was talking about.

BASH: And we're looking at live pictures of what has become known as hostage square in Tel Aviv. And Audie, just thinking about the moment of where we are now, five days left of Joe Biden's administration. If everything goes as we are told it will, Kim just said, Sunday is the day we are likely to see some of the hostages being released. We haven't seen that since last November. I mean, it has been a very long time since we've seen those joyous reunions, and it's going to be the day before Donald Trump is inaugurated, the last full day of Joe Biden's presidency.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: No, people want to draw a lot of parallels there, maybe even to Carter in Iran.

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BASH: Right.

CORNISH: You know, there are some big differences here. We don't know if those will be joyous reunions, right? This is going to be a complicated day for Israel. It's also going to be a moment, frankly, where there is bipartisanship, as in everyone had the same goal right, to bring people home.

And even right now, Marco Rubio in his Senate confirmation hearings, is talking about -- spoke today about Israel and the hostage deal. And he said things have changed on the ground in very fundamental ways in the last, I think he said couple of months, talking about Syria, et cetera.

So, as you mentioned, this is now Trump's story. And going forward, how will this administration, "take advantage" of these fundamental shifts on the ground, and how will they handle the big questions?

You know, who governs Gaza. What does it mean to eliminate Hamas to Israel's satisfaction. There's a lot of questions here that I think we're going to be -- going to be presented very quickly because of how this has moved.

BASH: And as I bring you in Nia, I do want to play as hopefully we can keep up the pictures, because that's happening live. But Christiane Amanpour spoke just a few hours ago, I believe, to the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who has been instrumental since October 7, 2023, in trying to find that very impossible balance.

We don't have the sound bite. I'll let you know when we get to it. But what he effectively said was, like we've been saying, they worked with -- they have been working with the incoming Trump administration. But, you know, make no mistake about it.

Number one, this has been held up because, Alex, you mentioned this, Hamas has been dragging its heels. Because, by all accounts, when you get to the end of this whole ordeal, Hamas a terror organization. The whole point of the bombardment is that Hamas would be no more.

And then when that equals a political solution, ideally for the west and for the Arab neighbors who just want peace in the region, that would also mean the end of Hamas. So, we'll see what it ultimately bears out. And I just want to say again, Nia, sorry to make you wait here. But what you're looking at is the state of Qatar. They, of course, the Qataris were instrumental in helping to broker this, and we're waiting for Qatari officials to come out and make the statement official.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, this was certainly months and months of work by the Biden administration, people on the front line, like Antony Blinken. But to have Donald Trump come out with in some ways it was meaningless bluster this idea that he would, you know, unleash Holy Hell. Guess what? Holy Hell has already been unleashed. So, it was unclear exactly what he meant.

But his -- he has tremendous political capital with Israelis. He has tremendous political capital with Netanyahu as well. And that ended up making a difference, naming sort of a time and a date saying this is -- this has to happen before he gets into office.

Going forward, who knows what happens? What kind of negotiator Donald Trump is in terms of securing the peace in Israel and making that region much more stable? We know he has aspirations, right of being the peace through strength president, somebody who envisions himself as somebody who could win the Nobel Peace Prize.

And we know that he will, and his supporters and his allies will frame this as a new era in American, sort of diplomacy and American presence on the world. And that this was Donald Trump's might alone that made this happen. It is obviously --

(CROSSTALK)

CORNISH: I think, Alex can talk about this more, but --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Audie, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just -- I want to go to Christiane Amanpour. I'm told she has some breaking news from the state department. Christiane?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR.: Well, yes. Dana, I've been at the state department today, interviewing Secretary of State Antony Blinken, his final interview before leaving. And we were talking just as this deal was being worked on, and in the interim, 30 seconds, while other anonymous sources have been confirming. We have a senior U.S. official concerning to us now that this deal has been reached.

As you know, it's a first phase, it's a ceasefire, hostage release, and then it will be prisoner release, plus pumping aid into Gaza and having a six-week kind of breathing space before hopefully a second phase of actually ending this war could take place. This is what Secretary Blinken told me about what this phase would contain. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're on the brink, and it could -- it should happen in the coming hours, but until it actually does, we're not there. But if and when it does two things, it will be on the basis of the plan that President Biden put forward back in May and that we rallied the entire world behind.

[12:20:00]

And ever since then, we've been working to negotiate the details, the implementation. It's been delayed and derailed by different events, but we're -- I think, finally, at the point where this gets over the line. Once that happens, here's what happens.

First, the firing stops. Hamas Israel stop firing. Israel pulls back its forces. Hostages begin to be released. Prisoners come out of Israeli jails and go back. And we surge humanitarian assistance to people who so desperately need it.

All of that happens during a six-week period, but also during that six weeks, we have to negotiate the understandings to get to a permanent ceasefire, so that Israel pulls all of its forces out of Gaza, Hamas doesn't come back in. And there's the necessary governance, security, reconstruction arrangements so that Gaza can move forward.

AMANPOUR: Is that sorted?

BLINKEN: That's not sorted. We've worked on it intensely for the last six or seven months, intensely, but quietly, with our partners, with others. I think there's some basic understandings that we've reached, but the ceasefire itself hopefully would concentrate minds and get people to agree on what's necessary to get that day after a post conflict plan in place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, Dana, this is the really big deal for the moment, that some 30 or so Israeli hostages would be released, as you've been discussing, and all the other things that would hang on it, like Blinken just said.

But as you know, and as he said, this is the same deal that this administration had proposed back in May, and that had been thwarted by both Israelis and Hamas in different periods of time. And how many people and how many lives could have been saved had this deal gone through back in May? So that's one issue.

And then the other issue, which is very interesting to me and to all of our viewers, is that we know that the Biden administration did keep the Trump administration totally in, you know, connected on what they were doing to the fact that two of their negotiators sat side by side in this last phase.

And that Blinken told me that he's been in touch regularly on this and other issues with his successor. Marco Rubio, who today is undergoing his own confirmation hearings right here in Washington. So, it is something that's happening between the two administrations.

BASH: Yeah. We have done some great reporting on that, and it is one of the things that should give everybody a modicum of faith when it's understandable -- when it's understandable that they don't. And when I'm talking about that, I just, am specifically very narrowly talking about the fact that this is one area where the incoming Trump administration, the outgoing Biden administration do go hand in glove on the need and the desire to get these hostages home to get this cease-fire temporary as it may be, Dana.

AMANPOUR: Yes. So, it's on this phase alone that they're handling gloves --

BASH: I understand.

AMANPOUR: -- and not on the rest of it. And there are -- I don't know how many more dozen hostages left inside a Gaza.

BASH: That's right. And that's part of the issue is, how many there -- how many are there and how many are alive? Christiane, thank you so much for bringing us that really important issue. Timing is everything, huh? I appreciate that.

Bianna Golodryga, I want to go to you because you are in hostage square in Israel, in Tel Aviv. What's the mood there?

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Dana, there's a big sigh of relief, collectively here. Things are a bit quiet, but people are coming out more now in mass. I think, as this news is getting out, there have been people here, as you know, for the past 15 months, 466 days, and it took hell to finally get to this day right now.

The last major hostage release we saw was last November, as you noted, where over hundred hostages were released. And since then, so many families have been waiting desperate to hear anything, any sign of life, any word on their loved ones, any indication as to when they would come home.

And for now, finally today, they got that news. I spoke with a number of the hostage families that are actually going to be part of this initial phase one. Their loved ones are among those that fall into the category of the 33 that would be released.

And understandably, they're excited. They're nervous, but they also said they'll believe it when they see it. They don't want to be speaking to anybody about this right now until they see their loved ones come home. They don't want to jeopardize this deal at all.

But Dana, as one mother told me, every day for her has been October 7, every day has been a terror attack without her daughter at home. No doubt, the onus, the blame obviously goes first and foremost to Hamas. It is on them to release the hostages. But there have been times over the past several months.

[12:25:00]

When I have spoken to families, where they felt that they were left out and left -- and let down by the mediators and their own government, as well. As you noted, a very similar deal was on the table.

Months ago, there was a schism within the government here between Prime Minister Netanyahu and members of his right-wing coalition, and the defense establishment that last summer said that the time was ripe for a deal that their -- they had accomplished their military goals against Hamas for the time being, and that they could see the release of hostages.

That was in July. We know what happened in August. Six hostages were tragically killed at the hands of Hamas, including one American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. That was a very dark day, yet another dark day here in Israel.

And finally, for these families to know that in the coming days, God willing, they will start to see their loved ones come home. This has been an open wound that they said the country cannot heal until they start to see these family members come home. So that's what they're anticipating right now. The hospitals are ready. The country is ready to start to see them come back.

BASH: And Bianna, it's interesting, as you are talking, we're looking at pictures on the other side of the screen from us of hostage square. I'm sure it's not too far from where you're standing. And the mood strikes me as interesting because it's not jubilant, it's not solemn, it just -- it looks like it feels like suspended animation.

GOLODRYGA: I have that feeling here too. I just arrived, Dana, today. And I thought that I would be see -- I didn't know actually what I would see because it's been 15 months. It's been a little over a year since we last saw hostages come home. We've been in close and only seen deals fall apart.

So, I didn't know what to expect here, coming here tonight, but it's what you just described. It's -- I think people are all in a state of perhaps shock. Perhaps they've just built themselves up to prepare for the worst, even though there is a deal has been agreed to, according to our reporting, and it's just a matter of actually seeing these hostages come home.

And then, Dana, also just anticipating what kind of state these hostages may be in. You remember back in November, after just over 50 days in captivity, those that were released were dehydrated, they were frail, not to mention the mental anguish and psychological trauma that they experience.

One doesn't even know where to begin to imagine. How these hostages are going to be released? What their condition is going to be like? Obviously, these families want them here first and foremost.

As one mother told me, I will heal that my child. I will work on healing my child once I have my child in my arms. But to know that that's coming in the next several days, I think there's a lot of anticipation and nervousness.

BASH: Of course, absolutely understandable. Never mind. It's unclear who is going to be released as part of this first phase. Bianna, thank you so much. It's great to see you there. I want to -- we've heard a couple of people mention that Marco Rubio, who is widely expected to be confirmed as the next secretary of state is now before the Senate committee that will determine that at least the first part of that confirmation. He was asked about this situation in the Middle East, this potential deal. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: I can tell you what I know. Obviously, I'm not in the state department yet, but I can tell you, as an example, the President's envoy to that region, who is charged -- Steve Witkoff, who is charged with being an envoy towards reaching an accommodation between the Israelis and the Saudis, has been working cooperatively and together with the Biden administration.

And in fact, I dare to say that all involved deserve credit for the ceasefire that the chairman has just announced. But Steve Witkoff has been a critical component of it, and he has been involved in it from day one. I think the broader consideration about whether we want to see a Saudi, Israeli mutual recognition and relationship would be one of the most historic developments in the history of the region.

For all the factors we've discussed here today, it would be -- and one of the impediments to it has been this conflict, and the ongoing conflict and the lack of a ceasefire. I also think it's going to be important for the Saudis and others to be participants in post conflict stabilization efforts in Gaza and beyond.

So, all I can tell you is that what I've said from the very beginning, from the opening statement, and that is our foreign policy is going to be driven, as president made abundantly clear by whether some action makes some -- is in the interest of the United States and our national security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was Marco Rubio, who was the nominee to be the next secretary of state. I want to now go to Barak Ravid, who is a reporter for Axios, a contributor here at CNN. Barak, what are you hearing from your very deep bench of sources in the region?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Hi, Dana, well, you know, do we have a deal? The deal will be implemented within days, tomorrow morning, local time. The Israeli cabinet will approve the deal.

[12:30:00]