Hello everyone and welcome to Amunpur. Here's what's coming up.

The Israeli government and Hamas reach a ceasefire agreement. We have the latest on the long-awaited move, the hostage release deal.

We speak to Sharon Lifshitz, whose father was kidnapped by Hamas, and to Mustafa

Barguti, president of the Palestinian National Initiative. Also on the program, my exclusive

conversation with the outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. It is his last TV interview

before leaving his post. Then, the UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher

joins the show to talk about the ceasefire news as well as Christiana Manpoo in Washington, D.C. A ceasefire

hostage release agreement has been reached by the Israeli government and Hamas,

a senior U.S. official confirms to me.

Now this deal has been a long time coming for hostage families in Israel and for Palestinians

in Gaza who've been under an endless assault for more than a year.

I spoke about this breakthrough in an exclusive interview with U.S. Secretary of

State Anthony Blinken. I started by asking him what exactly the ceasefire means, and we spoke

just as it was being announced. First, the firing stops. Hamas, Israel stopped firing. Israel

pulls back its forces. Hostages begin to be released.

Prisoners come out of Israeli jails and go back, and we surge humanitarian assistance to

people who so desperately need it. All of that happens during a six-week period, but also during

that six weeks, we have to negotiate the understandings to get to a permanency's

fire so that Israel pulls all of its forces out of Gaza, Hamas doesn't come back in, and there's

the necessary governance, security, reconstruction arrangements so that Gaza can move forward.

Is that sorted?

That's not sorted. We've worked on it intensely for the last

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