david makovsky: thank you. the cease-fire deal will end the agonizing wait of dozens of families whose loved ones have been held hostage in gaza. some of them are american. as nick reported earlier, the first phase of this deal will include the release of two americans. one of them is sagui dekel-chen, kidnapped from kibbutz nir oz while trying to defend his family on october 7. i spoke to his father, jonathan, before the u.s. confirmed that sagui was on the list to be released in phase one. jonathan, thank you so much for being with us. good to see you. >> thank you for having me. amna: i just want to begin with your reaction to the announcement of today's deal. what did you think when you heard the news? >> well, my first reaction is gratitude to the two administrations, the outgoing biden and the incoming trump administrations, for really being the catalyst to make this happen. you know, it's a very rare thing, i think, in american politics today, and for something like this to happen, to sort of put aside t

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david makovsky is director of the washington institute for the middle east peace process.od to have you joining us from israel today. what are you hearing on the contours of the agreement and how it will be finalized? >> thank you for having me. it is always good to be back with you and the bbc. look, i think there is a sense, talking to officials here today, and i will be having more talks tomorrow, that they were are very close. henry kissinger famously said negotiations in the middle east do not end in exhilaration. they end in exhaustion. brinksmanship is par for the course. it's clear -- and the news coverage is wall-to-wall. saturation, prime time. it is clear that israel would like, in the negotiations, hostages frontloaded, as many as possible in the early part of the cease-fire. and, whether hamas wants to hold others back, i don't know. it is clear that they will -- there will be prisoners. the hostages will be released. the sequencing, according to news reports here, and what i am hearing from officials, not everything is finalized. and they are waiting for moha

geoff: for more on all of this, we turn to two newshour regulars, david makovsky of the washington instituter east policy, and hussein ibish with the arab gulf states institute in washington. thank you both for being here. president biden today made clear that he laid out the precise contours of this agreement back in may. it was almost agreed to in july. why now? >> it had an going back to january and even november of 2023. these ideas have been around for a long time. the inflection points are the election of donald trump the pressure he put on prime minister benjamin netanyahu with builds -- -- which builds on pressure from the israeli public and military to make such a deal. i think trump was very clear he did not want this war to go on during his inauguration, and on the other hand, major change of power within hamas inflicted mainly by the fall of the assad regime which signals a rise of turkey and qatar in the region at the expense of iran and hezbollah and shifts power within hamas away from the gunmen on the ground in gaza who did the october 7 attack back to the politicians that ha