From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

Donald Trump announces a ceasefire deal in Gaza that includes the immediate return of all

Israeli hostages held by Hamas, alive or dead. Could this be a prelude to a larger peace in the

Middle East? And why did Hamas suddenly change its mind on the Trump peace plan? Welcome, I'm

Paul as you go here on Potomac Watts, the daily podcast of Wall Street Journal Opinion. And I'm here

with Elliot Kaufman, who covers the Middle East

for us and will analyze the Gaza peace deal why it happened and what to look for here in the

coming weeks. First, let's listen for a moment to the moment on Wednesday when Marco Rubio,

the Secretary of State, told Donald Trump that a deal was at hand.

Okay.

I'm just given a note by the Secretary of State saying that we're very close to a deal in the Middle East.

All right. So not much more than that. Trump then took to social media, as he often does,

Elliot, and announced the deal in fairly grandiose terms. But it does look like this is holding.

Hamas and the Arabs have agreed to this. Most of the Arab world is rallying around it.

The Israeli cabinet's voting on it as we speak, but the prime minister clearly is behind it.

And you can tell by the reaction in Israel, in videos of people celebrating in the streets and so on,

that they seem to think that this is a good deal too.

I guess the key question is, why do you think Hamas finally agreed?

It's the key question because there are terms of this deal that Hamas had not agreed to previously,

and nobody thought it would either. And those are, namely, releasing all 20 remaining living hostages up front right away, so that its best leverage is gone after that.

That's number one, and number two, is doing that while Israeli troops are still in most of Gaza, over 50%, just over 50% of Gaza, they would stay in even after receiving back all of those hostages.

How much of the territory will Israel have to move out of here in the first stage of this

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