Major challenges remain for Gaza and Israel if ceasefire deal rolls out
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on the Sabra neighborhood in southern Gaza City, as Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, continue without interruption and military activity in the region persists, in Gaza City, Gaza on October 08, 2025. (Photo by Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — As U.S. officials and leaders in the Middle East are celebrating the proposed Gaza ceasefire deal between the Israeli government and Hamas but there are still many questions over the timeline and challenges to end the fighting and return the hostages that lie ahead before a deal to completely end the war is in place.
These include details of the deal’s timeline, and challenges to end the fighting and return the hostages.
The first phase of the deal, which is slated to be approved by the Israeli government on Thursday, will see all remaining hostages returned from Gaza, a number of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons and the partial withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces inside the Gaza Strip.
It is expected that humanitarian aid will move quickly into Gaza once land crossings are opened back up.
A senior Israeli official told ABC News on Thursday that the 72-hour window for Hamas to release all hostages will begin after the Israeli government ratifies the deal.
The 20 hostages believed to still be alive are expected to be released all in one group on Sunday or Monday, the official said. President Donald Trump, speaking at a cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, said that the release of the hostages could be Monday or Tuesday.
Then, negotiators will move to the next phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which was unveiled in late September.
Sources familiar with the negotiations told ABC News agreements still need to be reached on some of the most difficult points of the plan.
These include the total withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, Hamas ceding control of Gaza, disarming and decommissioning the militant group’s weapons, and turning Gaza’s governance over to an international trusteeship overseen by the U.S. and Arab allies.
The challenges to implementing these terms are immense, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations.
European and Arab allies plan to convene in Paris on Thursday for a Gaza “day after” meeting.
The meeting will focus on three main areas: security, governance and reconstruction. Conversations on Palestinian statehood will also be discussed, a French diplomatic source said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was initially considering participating in the Paris meeting, but he told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that he is not expected to attend the meeting due to the rapidly moving situation in the Middle East. Rubio made the statement before it was announced that the first phase of a ceasefire deal had been reached.
An administration official told ABC News that if President Trump heads to the Middle East this weekend, Rubio will be traveling with him.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
Yevhen Titov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — The United States-proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan now has fewer points following negotiations in Switzerland to try to make the draft proposal more acceptable to Ukraine, according to a Ukrainian official close to the matter.
The initial 28-point peace plan now has 19 points, according to the official. It is unclear what points were removed.
U.S., European and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva to discuss the contentious proposal put to Kyiv last week, with terms critics say would constitute a Ukrainian capitulation.
On Monday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump hinted at headway being made. “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine???” he wrote on social media.
“Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” Trump added.
The talks come as fighting continues to wage in the nearly four-year war. At least four people were killed and 17 were injured in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv in what the local mayor called a “massive” Russian drone attack on Sunday night.
“Every night and every day bring new challenges for our city, new destructions and new work,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a post to Telegram.
Kharkiv was among the targets of Russia’s latest overnight attack, which Ukraine’s air force said saw 162 drones launched into the country. Air defenses shot down or suppressed 125 drones, the air force said, with 37 craft impacting across 15 locations.
“The most damage was suffered by civilian infrastructure and private households in the Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” the air force said in a post to Telegram. “Unfortunately, there are civilian casualties.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least 103 Ukrainian drones overnight and into Monday afternoon. Four drones were shot down over the Moscow region, of which two were heading toward the capital, the ministry said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that the Geneva talks were “probably the most productive and meaningful meeting we’ve had so far in this entire process since we became involved.”
Rubio told reporters that the presidents of both countries would have to approve any framework, but said he was “comfortable” they would.
“We’re making some changes and adjustments in hopes of further narrowing the differences and getting closer to an outcome that both Ukraine and the United States can be comfortable with,” Rubio said.
Rubio later Sunday said that all parties had made “great strides” on a potential peace settlement with Russia. He also said that the deadline for the parties to reach an agreement is “as soon as possible” and that the process could extend past a Thanksgiving deadline set by Trump.
“It evolved. This is a work — this is a living, breathing document every day with input, it changes,” he said of the proposal.
Trump told reporters on Saturday that there is room for further negotiation. Asked by reporters whether the 28-point plan was his last offer, Trump replied, “No.” He added, “One way or another we’ll get it ended.”
But on Sunday, the president criticized Ukraine and its European backers, saying Ukrainian “‘leadership’ has expressed zero gratitude for our efforts” and noting that “Europe continues to buy oil from Russia.”
Asked later on Sunday whether the president still considered the Ukrainians “ungrateful,” Rubio said he believed Trump was now “quite pleased” with progress at the negotiating table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said in a post to social media on Sunday that his delegation in Geneva “held a series of meetings — with the American side and with our European partners as well.”
“The delegation has just reported on the results of their discussions, and these were substantive conversations. A lot is changing — we are working very carefully on the steps needed to end the war,” Zelenskyy added.
“It is important that there is dialogue with the American representatives and there are signals President Trump’s team is hearing us,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Speaking at a forum in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, the president said Kyiv will “continue working with partners, especially the United States, and look for compromises that strengthen, but not weaken us. And we will continue explaining how dangerous it is to pretend that aggression is something one can simply overlook and move on.”
In talks with the U.S. so far, Zelenskyy added, “we’ve managed to keep extremely sensitive points on the table, including the full release of all Ukrainian prisoners of war under the all-for-all formula and civilians, and the complete return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. These are important steps, but to achieve real peace, more, more is needed.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Russia had “not received anything official yet” regarding the outcomes of the Geneva talks.
“We are, of course, closely monitoring media reports, which have been abundant over the past few days, including from Geneva,” Peskov said.
“We have not seen any plan yet,” Peskov continued. “We have read the statement following the discussions in Geneva. Some adjustments have been made to the text we saw earlier. We will wait. Apparently, the dialogue is continuing there, and some contacts will continue. So far, I repeat, we have not received anything officially.”
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting of his Security Council that the Kremlin had received the new 28-point U.S. proposal. “I believe that it could also form the basis for a final peace settlement, but this text has not been discussed with us in detail,” Putin said.
“I believe the reason is the same: the U.S. administration has not yet managed to secure the agreement of the Ukrainian side, as Ukraine is opposed to it,” Putin added. “Apparently, Ukraine and its European allies are still under the illusion that they can inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield.”
ABC News’ Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.
(KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip) — While there was joy on the faces of some Palestinians returning to the Gaza Strip this week after two years of war, many said they found their old neighborhoods unrecognizable from the relentless fighting that reduced many of the buildings to rubble.
Following the historic ceasefire agreement enacted on Monday, tens of thousands of displaced residents and nearly 2,000 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons made it back to Gaza, only to find themselves homeless.
“Of course, I was happy about being released, but not happy of being displaced with no safety in place, no life necessities,” said 23-year-old Abdullah Wa’el Mohammed Farhan, one of the former Palestinian prisoners freed on Monday as part of a ceasefire deal that President Donald Trump helped broker.
Standing outside a tent in Khan Younis, where he and his family are living, Farhan told ABC News that he was imprisoned for 20 months as the war with Israel raged on. He said that while detained, he and the other Palestinian prisoners were “completely isolated from the world.”
“When I was told about my release, I didn’t believe it because more than once [Israeli authorities] told us about our release and moved us from one prison to another while being tortured and beaten,” Farhan said.
ABC News has contacted the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Prison Service about the allegations from Farhan and other released prisoners about being tortured and subjected to starvation while incarcerated, but have not received a response.
Fahan’s sister, 21-year-old Samaher Farhan, told ABC News that while she is thankful they have been reunited, she conceded that she was saddened her brother had to return to a community wrecked by the war.
“When I saw Abdullah yesterday, it was mixed feelings of happiness and sadness because of how he looked before he went to prison and how he looked now,” Samaher Farhan said.
She said she hopes to resume living in their home, which is still intact but in an area that is not habitable. For the time being, she said her family is living in a tent.
“We felt bad that this is not a worthy welcoming of a prisoner,” Samaher Farhan said. “How can he come out to a worn tent? So, it was a sad feeling. I even tried not to meet him or sit with him for a long time because the situation is dire in this worn tent.”
She said that when her brother was taken prisoner, their neighborhood was still in good shape, adding, “It was barely 1% of the destruction we have now.”
The United Nations and other organizations have reported that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, which is about 25 miles long by 7.5 miles wide. The IDF has designated most of the war-torn territory a “no-go zone,” issuing evacuation orders for civilians there, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to a damage assessment by the U.N. Satellite Centre, 83% of all structures in Gaza City, the capital of the Palestinian territory, are damaged. The assessment identified at least 17,734 structures that have been destroyed, about 43% of the total number of structures damaged.
In a report issued on Tuesday, the U.N. estimated that it will cost around $70 billion to reconstruct Gaza.
In its latest report on Wednesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that nearly 68,000 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip during the war, which started when Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 others as hostages.
The final 20 living Israeli hostages were released by Hamas on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal.
Shadi Abu Sido, a Palestinian photojournalist who was among those released from an Israeli prison on Monday, said he was shocked by the widespread devastation that has occurred in Gaza since he was detained in March 2024.
“I entered Gaza and found it to be like a scene of Judgment Day,” Sido said in a video testimony. “This is not Gaza. Where is the world?”
He said that while he was in prison, he was told by an Israeli prison officer that his wife and two children had been killed during the war. But once he returned to his home in Khan Younis, he said he learned that was not the case.
“I heard her voice, I heard my children, I was astonished. It cannot be explained, they were alive,” Sido said in an interview with Reuters.
But for another Palestinian prisoner, the euphoria of being freed was quickly replaced by agony when he learned his three children — ages 2, 5 and 8 — had died in the war.
In a video testimony, the man, whose name was not released, is seen falling to his knees and sobbing.
In the video, the man held a bracelet in the palm of his hand and said he had made it in prison and planned to give it to his youngest daughter.
“I made this for my daughter, whose birthday was supposed to be in five days,” he said in the video.
A general view of the aftermath following an overnight wave of Russian strikes on November 14, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Kyiv was attacked by a wave of Russian drones and missiles on the night of November 14, with the Ukrainian president alleging that Russia had launched 430 drones and 18 missiles, damaging dozens of high-rise buildings. Search and rescue operations are ongoing as damage is reported across nine districts of the capital. (Photo by Maksym Kishka/Frontliner/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least six people have been killed and 35 injured, including a pregnant woman, from ongoing Russian attacks in the Kyiv region early Friday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
Sections of certain heating networks in the region were damaged from the attack, and some buildings were without heat supply, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram.
At least 15 buildings have been damaged in Kyiv so far from the attacks, the Kyiv City State Administration said in a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian officials said that 430 drones and 18 missiles were launched as debris from the strike rained down on Kyiv.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Ukrainian forces were forced to withdraw from several positions in the Zaporizhzhia region, the southeastern front, due to intense Russian assaults, according to a spokesperson for the army.
Russian forces have launched more than 400 artillery strikes per day and Ukrainian troops faced the destruction of defensive fortifications, Southern Defense Forces spokesman Vladyslav Voloshyn told ABC News.
The withdrawal affected the areas around Novouspenivske, Nove, Okhotnyche, Uspenivka and Novomykolaivka, according to Voloshyn.
“The situation there remains difficult, in part because of weather conditions that favor the attacks. But we continue to destroy the occupier, and I thank every one of our units, every warrior involved in defending Ukraine’s positions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
Ukraine is also facing the potential fall of Pokrovsk — a city home to around 60,000 people at the time of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine — to Russia after an 18-month battle of attrition. This could be one of the most serious defeats of the war for Ukraine.
