President Donald Trump appeared to secure a huge political victory on Wednesday evening when he announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed to implement “the first Phase of our Peace Plan”. Trump’s Truth Social post continued, “This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed-upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.”

Axios reports that, under the deal, all remaining Israeli hostages would be released by Hamas within 72 hours of Israel’s formal acceptance. The Israeli government is expected to meet Thursday to approve the agreement. Officials believe roughly 20 hostages are still alive in Gaza, with dozens more confirmed dead. In exchange, Israel would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners — including several serving life sentences — and suspend military operations in Gaza, pulling its ground forces back to positions along the territory’s perimeter.

This is a big deal. If, indeed, Hamas now releases all the remaining hostages under its control, it will be sacrificing the central, indisputable plank of its leverage in any future negotiations. That the terrorist group is willing to do so indicates three things. First, that Qatar and Egypt have persuaded Hamas that Trump’s word can be relied upon and that he will not allow Israel to suddenly resume military action if it lives up to its pledge. Second, Hamas believes this deal offers its best chance at salvaging some relevance in the future Palestinian administration of Gaza. The group clearly also believed Trump’s warning that were it to reject his ceasefire, he would give Israel his full support to militarily crush the organisation.

Here, Trump demonstrates his remarkable knack for corralling rival factions into alignment with his goals. He leveraged his close ties to the Sunni Arab monarchies (particularly Qatar) to press Hamas towards accepting the deal. In the same vein, he had shown Netanyahu that his patience with the war had run out and that he expected the Israeli Prime Minister to swallow this bitter, if ultimately acceptable, diplomatic pill to end the war. Netanyahu understands that Trump’s success in securing vast economic investments from the Sunni monarchies has given them significant influence over him and a direct line to advocate for ending the war.

Still, it is not easy for any Israeli leader, let alone one as proud as Netanyahu, to agree to release convicted terrorists in return for innocent civilian hostages. Nor is it easy for the Israeli PM to accept the uncertainty of where negotiations go from here.

This agreement also emphasises Trump’s broader fixation with securing landmark peace deals. Willing to expend significant political capital in pursuit of these deals, Trump now has the prospect of a victory that will earn him near-universal praise. If things fall into place, Trump is likely to re-energise his efforts to secure an end to the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin should be wary of increased US pressure towards that end.

This is not to say that a final agreement is sealed between Israel and Hamas. Hamas will surely push hard to secure a role in post-war Gaza. It will almost certainly attempt to prevent effective efforts to disarm it. Israel will, of course, take the opposite approach. Negotiations on these issues will be complex. Nevertheless, by moving to release its hostages, Hamas is signalling that it is ready for this conflict to come to an end.

The extremes on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides won’t like it, but this deal lays the foundation for the resumption of some kind of peace. It represents progress of a most welcome kind.

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Tom Rogan is a national security writer at the Washington Examiner

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