Gaza Hostage Deal Marks First Step on Long Road to Peace

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

News, Daily News

4 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

A.M. Edition for Oct. 9. Israel and Hamas agree to the first phase of President Trump’s peace plan, with all hostages set to be released and Israeli troops to withdraw to an agreed-upon area. The WSJ’s Michael Amon explains what happens next. Plus, senior Republicans quietly advise the White House against mass layoffs and cuts during the shutdown. And France’s Macron says he plans to appoint a new prime minister, shelving the threat of snap elections… though as the WSJ’s Stacy Meichtry explains, the way out of the country’s fiscal quagmire is still far from clear. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brought to you by the Remax Collection.
0:02.4	Visit remax.com slash luxury.
0:04.5	Each office independently owned and operated.
0:10.3	After two years of fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to release all hostages in Gaza,
0:16.4	getting President Trump closer to his goal of resolving the conflict.
0:20.6	While this is a major breakthrough for peace in Gaza, we still have a long way to go to end this war.
0:26.4	Plus behind closed doors, Republicans express fears that Trump's shutdown strategy could backfire.
0:33.4	And France's president looks for a way out of a fiscal hole that's turned into a political crisis.
0:39.9	It's Thursday, October 9th. I'm Kate Bullivan for the Wall Street Journal.
0:44.2	And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
0:53.5	We begin with a breakthrough in the Middle East. Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal
0:59.0	that would see all of the remaining Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip released. There are
1:04.6	20 hostages believed to still be alive in Gaza. Egyptian officials who mediated the talks
1:10.2	said Hamas would let them go as soon as
1:12.5	Sunday morning, while President Trump told Fox News that they would probably be released on Monday.
1:18.6	Journal Deputy World Coverage Chief Mike Eamon said that while the deal marks progress toward
1:24.0	peace, the hard part is still to come. There are a lot of moving parts of this agreement, but this is the first step. And to make it
1:30.6	hold, President Trump is going to have to both pressure Israel to not start the war again if
1:36.8	Hamas doesn't follow through right away. And he will have to pressure Muslim world leaders
1:41.6	to stay on the back of Hamas to follow through its own agreements.
1:47.4	Hamas negotiators have confirmed that they will release the hostages. They've agreed to a prisoner
1:52.8	exchange, and they have also conditioned this on the end of the war. Now, these are all very vague
	...

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