Updated 9.30pm

Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages being held in Gaza following separate meetings with Qatar's prime minister.

Qatar and the US confirmed the deal.

Pressure to put an end to the fighting had ratcheted up in recent days, as mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States intensified efforts to cement an agreement.

On Wednesday, Qatar said Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza starting on Sunday and a hostage and prisoner exchange after 15 months of war.

The announcement comes after months of failed bids to end the deadliest war in Gaza's history, and days ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, who immediately hailed the deal before it was officially announced by the White House.

"We have a deal for the hostages in the Middle East. They will be released shortly. Thank you!" Trump said on his Truth Social network.

In a Tweet, Prime Minister Robert Abela said the Maltese government welcomed the Gaza ceasefire deal.

"Countless lives have been lost and hostages endured untold ordeal.

"This ceasefire is what the world has hoped for and what the Israeli and Palestinian people need. Malta shall continue to support peace initiatives as it has always done," he said on X (formerly Twitter).

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola called the ceasefire and agreement to release hostages "the breakthrough the world has waited for and that so many have needed". 

"It is critical that it is upheld. This can be a turning point for sustainable peace, a surge of aid, and a catalyst that changes despair to hope," she added.

Qatar PM confirms ceasefire, hostage deal

Thirty-three Israeli hostages will be released in the first phase of the agreement that could become a "permanent ceasefire", Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani said.

"The two belligerents in the Gaza Strip have reached a deal on the prisoner and the hostage swap, and (the mediators) announce a ceasefire in the hopes of reaching a permanent ceasefire between the two sides," he said.

"We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement," the prime minister added.

During the initial, 42-day ceasefire, 33 hostages seized in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel will be released, "including civilian women and female recruits, as well as children, elderly people, as well as civilian ill people and wounded".

Also in the first phase, Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza and remain positioned on its border to "allow for the swap of prisoners, as well as the swap of remains and the return of the displaced people to their residences", the prime minister said.

The number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for the Israeli hostages in the second and third phases would be "finalised" during the inital 42 days, he added.

Joint mediators Qatar, the US and Egypt will monitor the ceasefire deal through a body based in Cairo, Sheikh Mohammed said, urging "calm" in Gaza before the agreement comes into force. 

"We hope that over the next few days there will not be any aggressions or any military operations," he said.

There was "a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three", and that the details of the agreements would be published "in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised", Sheikh Mohammed added.

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza by staging the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Palestinian militants also took 251 people hostage during the attack, 94 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed 46,707 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

Sticking points

Among the sticking points in successive rounds of talks had been disagreements over the permanence of any ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the scale of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory.

The UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, facing an Israeli ban on its activities set to take effect later this month, said it will continue providing much-needed aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack, has opposed any post-war role for the militant group in the territory.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday Israel would ultimately "have to accept reuniting Gaza and the West Bank under the leadership of a reformed" Palestinian Authority, and embrace a "path toward forming an independent Palestinian state".

He added that the "best incentive" to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace remained the prospect of normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, speaking in Oslo, said the latest push for a Gaza ceasefire showed international pressure on Israel "does pay off".

The October 7 attack on communities in southern Israel sparked uproar around the world, as did the scale of the suffering in Gaza from the retaliatory war.

World powers and international organisations have for months pushed for a ceasefire, which up until Wednesday had remained elusive.