there's a breakthrough at least temporarily in the Middle East Israel has agreed to a 4-day pause in the war with Hamas and exchange for the release of at least 50 out of the 240 hostages taken captive during the militant group's attack on October 7th according to the Israeli government the agreement will also see the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli jails and holds out the potential for an extension the government said in a statement in extra day of a pause in the assault could be added for each additional 10 hostages released the deal comes after nearly 7even weeks of devastating fighting where Israeli air strikes in Gaza have killed more than 13,000 Palestinians mostly women and children according to the Hamas-run health ministry and left more than thousands more civilians displaced the deal brings both hope and anxiety to the Israeli families of hostages in Gaza who are now desperately waiting to find out the condition of their loved ones it's also the result of many complex negotiations mediated by the United States and cutter for more on that and what the pause means more broadly for the region I'm joined by Trita Parsi parsey an expert on geopolitics in the Middle East and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for responsible statecraft TR Pary thank you for coming on the show uh I want to ask you first about what we know in this deal this breakthrough over night aside from the hostage exchange do we know how this will be carried out or a timeline and if it could all unravel at any moment well it certainly could unravel and unfortunately there's an inherent problem with all of these different deals which is that there's no guarantee that the two sides would uphold it in the manner that they have agreed to but as based on what we know there's going to be about 50 uh of the Israeli hostages that will be released a larger number number of Palestinian prisoners that have been held women and teenagers that will be released as well this will take place over the course of a few days the question is what happens afterwards will Israel go back towards bombing Baza Gaza again uh and do more operations in southern Gaza or is there an opportunity and is there political will on the Israeli side as well and on vion's side to actually turn this into a longer ceas fight yeah well let's go there then is there a path here for a broader deal which is what has increasingly calls for ceasefire this is not exactly what critics of this war um Wanted uh although it is a pause and it will hopefully lead to the exchange of some of these hostages but is there a path for a broader peace deal here there is no immediate path for a peace deal there is definitely a path for a ceasefire however and it's very important to note this is what the entire International Community with the exception of of a few States and the United States is calling for and the reason they're doing this is one because we know from experience militarily you cannot defeat and take out Hamas entirely it's not going to solve the problem we have that own experience in Iraq in Afghanistan in Yemen and has only led to more deaths and more killing and more radicalization secondly the degree of Civilian deaths in this war is just completely uh out of proportion from everything we have seen in the last few Wars just take a look at the numbers in Ukraine for instance which of course horrified the entire world about 600 children were killed there over the course of 20 months we have now more than 5,000 children killed in uh just six weeks in Gaza if this war continues the amount of children and civilians that will be death will simply be unforgivable and may very well bury any path to peace going forward that's why the world is calling for a ceas there were a lot of concerns at the the beginning of this war that it would lead to a broader regional conflict where do those concerns stand today those concerns are still very very valid I think to be frank we have simply been lucky that this has not led to a larger war on October 26 for instance there was an Iraqi militia that struck uh the airbase in airbill Northern Iraq and American base there uh the Drone managed to get through the American air defense as hit the barracks but by pure luck it malfunctioned and did not explode had it exploded we would probably have seen a dozen or two American soldiers killed under those circumstances the pressure on the Biden Administration to strike hard in the region would have been extremely high we would probably not have been able to withstand it and we would very easily have been dragged into a major war does the United States deserve the Biden Administration deserve Credit in this negotiation um does it prove that in tense diplomatic efforts can achieve concrete results it certainly proves that diplomacy can achieve results and it's necessary but the credit here should go to Kutter who's done the actual mediation uh and brokering of this agreement the United States has increasingly been turned on the sidelines by its own choice by being on the side of Israel rather than trying to be an honest broker in these agreements it played a role but the credit has to go to Trita Parsi is the co-founder of the Quincy Institute for responsible statecraft, Trita Parsi thank you so much thank you so much for having me