PDB Situation Report | January 18th, 2025: Gaza Ceasefire Deal Reached & Why Greenland Matters
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What breakthrough occurred in the Middle East?
Hi, Mike Baker here. I'm still out in the desert. It's an amazing trek into great cause, raising awareness for the UK's Special Forces Benevolent Fund. While I'm gone, Mike Slater is stepping in to deliver the President's Daily Brief.
Welcome to the PTV Situation Report. I'm Mike Slater filling in for Mike Baker, who's currently making his way through the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Jordan on Camelback. Because why not, right? We've all done that before. It's Baker's turn. In the meantime, let's get briefed. Kick it off today's show. We got a major development from the Middle East. Israel and Hamas have struck a deal to stop the fighting in Gaza and release some hostages. Part of the agreement, Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners could be released as early as this Sunday. We'll be joined by Jonathan Shanzer from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's for all the details. Then later in the show, President Trump's recent remarks about Greenland, drawing some questions about America's role in the Arctic, where rivals have been steadily expanding their footprint in the region, raising questions about our priorities and our influence, and China's influence as well.
Author and national security analyst at The National Interest, Brandon Weikert, joins us for more on that coming up in just a few minutes. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. At long last, it seems Israel Hamas I've reached an agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza, bringing the promise of a long-awaited ceasefire. It's a few days before President Trump takes office.
2023. So I want to emphasize that. In exchange, Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. If implemented, the agreement would provide the first meaningful pause in violence for Gaza's war-weary population over a year. It could also pave the way for Palestinian civilians to return to northern Gaza and significantly boost humanitarian aid into the region. While the deal offers a moment of hope, its success depends on the cooperation of both sides in this fragile moment of diplomacy. For the people of Gaza and Israel, it could mark a turning point. Maybe just another fleeting pause in a long conflict. For more on this, let me bring in Jonathan Shanzer, Executive Director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who is currently in Israel as we speak. Jonathan, thank you for being here. My pleasure. Where is your head at on this Hamas deal? What do you think?
Well, I got here on Monday, and we all knew that the deal was close. They'd been circling over this for a couple of days. I spent the last days trying to just talk to senior people here, talking to the people who've been involved in brokering this deal. First, I'll just start by saying this was a deal that was put on the table by the Israelis back in May. The same deal could have been accepted by Hamas, but it wasn't. Really, three reasons for that. One is, you know, Israel killed Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, last year. They also really just gave Hezbollah a shellacking, which took a lot of pressure off of Israel, put more pressure on Hamas. But I think the real game changer was the election of Donald Trump.
It really, I think, changed their view of how much time they had to continue to kind of jerk everybody around and to keep this crisis going. They knew they had to get this thing done, and we're going to see that this thing is going to get implemented on Sunday, one day before Trump's inauguration, and this is going to alleviate pressure on Hamas. From the Israeli perspective, they don't love the deal because it is likely going to see the release of about 1,600 Hamas and other terrorist fighters that have blood on their hands, that have been sitting in Israeli jails. They're going to be sent back out into the wild. And so there's a lot of people here in Israel who are grumpy about this. But it's going to see the release of 33 hostages, the majority of whom are going to be women, elderly, sick,
uh children you know these are the sorts of things that has it's just been breaking the hearts of israelis here but the key i think for the israeli negotiators was that they did not agree to end the war not in phase one after phase two if there is a phase two they might agree to it but i don't think that's where the heads of the israeli negotiators are i think the way they look at it is if they're able to get everybody back i think they're gonna go right back into that gaza battlefield and try to finish off hamas
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