From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams. This is The Daily. Today, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas enters its final phase, no one knows who will control the future of Gaza. Israel, Hamas, or possibly President Trump.

My colleague, Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, walks us through this delicate moment

and the questions hovering over the future of the war.

It's Wednesday, February 26th.

Patrick, we're in the final days of the first phase of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas,

which was outlined very clearly in terms of what each side had to give to the other.

And now we're entering into

this next phase, which is not yet negotiated, and could lead to more talks, but it could also

end up leading just to more war, which we'll get to in a moment. But just to start, how in your

estimation has this first part of the process actually gone?

Several mini-crisies aside, it has gone roughly to plan.

And that plan was to exchange 33 hostages held in Gaza by Hamas and its allies for roughly 1,500 Palestinian prisoners

and detainees held in Israeli jails.

Just to recap, at the start of the war, Hamas and its allies raided Israel, captured roughly 250 hostages, both dead

and alive, brought them back to Gaza. Some of them were exchanged in a previous hostage for

prisoner deal in late 2023. A handful have been rescued in Israeli military operations, but roughly 100 was still in

captivity in January when this ceasefire was sealed. And the deal allows for roughly a third of them, most of them alive,

but some of them dead, to be swapped for Palestinian prisoners who variously had been jailed

20 years ago for their role in terrorist attacks on Israelis, but also hundreds of Palestinians

who had been arrested without charge inside Gaza by the

Israeli military and held in difficult conditions inside the Israeli prison archipelago.

And as I say, the broad picture is that those have mostly gone as they were expected to.

...