Jewish, Palestinian Advocacy Groups Applaud Peace Deal But Warn Of 'immense Work' Ahead

Several Jewish and Palestinian advocacy groups welcomed the prospect of bringing the two-year Gaza war to an end while pointing to the work that remains, following President Donald Trump’s announcement that Israel and Hamas reached a peace agreement.

Trump said Wednesday evening that both parties had agreed to “the first phase” of a 20-point peace plan that was announced last week during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and apparently solidified this week during diplomatic talks in Egypt.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, called the announcement “long overdue” while faulting pro-Israel lobbying groups and the Biden administration for standing in the way of peace.

“We must work to ensure that those who enabled and supported this genocide, from lobby groups like AIPAC to former Biden foreign policy officials, never again influence our nation’s direction,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement. “The past two years of horror must mark the last chapter, not the latest chapter, in decades of oppression, conflict and tragedy.”

Pro-Israel organizations — including AIPAC, J Street, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Democratic Council of America — also welcomed the deal, with JDCA CEO Halie Soifer saying the ceasefire “must be the first step toward rebuilding Gaza and ultimately working toward a two-state solution.”

Several, including AIPAC and the ADL, explicitly lauded Trump and his administration for working to broker the deal.

“This agreement is a vital first step toward lasting peace, but immense work remains to turn this fragile beginning into a durable resolution of this conflict,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, which has advocated for a two-state solution, said in a statement.

The deal Trump announced would see Israel and Hamas exchange hostages and prisoners and cease hostilities, after which — if the agreement holds — Hamas would cede control of Gaza to an international board overseen by the U.S. and Arab allies. It remains unclear whether Hamas has yet agreed to those stipulations.

The announcement was also met with approval from several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. In a statement, U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk called on member states “to work collectively to ensure that the ceasefire plan is implemented in good faith.”

“As part of the recovery, there must also be a comprehensive process of transitional justice, with accountability for the gross violations and abuses of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law we have witnessed,” he said. Türk has been harshly critical of the Israeli government, which has in turn rejected his office’s work as misleading and false.

Still, the future of Gaza remains uncertain. Israel’s two-year offensive in the enclave has damaged or destroyed an estimated 80 percent of Gaza’s structures, per UNRWA, and killed more than 67,000 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health The health ministry is under the Hamas-run government; U.N. agencies and independent experts consider the ministry's casualty records as generally reliable.