WSJ What’s News - Gaza Hostages Are Free After Two Years of War

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

A.M. Edition for Oct. 13. Cheers and celebrations erupt in Tel Aviv as all twenty living Israeli hostages are released by Hamas. It is a pivotal moment with President Trump telling reporters that “the war is over,” however WSJ correspondent Jared Malsin explains that significant obstacles remain in securing a long-term peace plan for the Middle East. Plus, President Trump threatens to send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine in a bid to pressure Moscow into negotiating a peace deal. And Paramount is circling Warner Bros. Discovery as the push to take over the media giant appears to be heating up. Caitlin McCabe hosts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings, February 24 through January, 2025. Trump lands in Israel as Hamas releases all living hostages, capping two years of war. And every country, they're dancing in the streets. That's a great deal. It's a unique period in time. Plus, the president threatens to send long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine

to force a peace deal with Russia. And Paramount makes a bold move to buy a company twice its size. It's Monday, October 13th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal, and here's the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin today in Gaza, where a significant exchange is unfolding. All 20 living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas and are now in Israeli hands. Thousands of people in Tel Aviv erupted in cheers and applause as they watched live footage of the first group of hostages being handed over. The release of the hostages are the first steps of a ceasefire deal agreed to last week, in which some say could lead to lasting peace in the Middle East.

Journal correspondent Jared Mousin is with us. Jared, it's a pivotal morning after more than two years of war. Can you put this into context for us? This is a moment of high emotion in Israel and in the Palestinian. territories, you have in Tel Aviv thousands of people in hostages square, which is the emotional heart of the movement to free the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. And then also in Gaza crowds gathering around a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, awaiting the release of Palestinian prisoners who are set to be freed in exchange for those hostages. The release of

the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages is the culmination of two. years of trauma for both of these peoples, the Palestinian people and the Israeli people, this ceasefire that's gone into force in the Gaza Strip, finally giving a reprieve for the nearly two million Palestinians who have been living through the war. And a very, very significant moment in this crisis that began when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel on October 7, 23, killing about 1,200 people and laying waste to a whole stretch of Southern Israel. And I think the hope for many people is that this is an opportunity to finally turn a page on that. There's obviously a lot of uncertainty in terms of how this is going to play

out, a lot of fragility to the current deal that has put this ceasefire in place. But for now, it's a moment of high emotions as families on both sides are reunited. And the first hostages were released just moments before President Trump landed in Israel. It seems safe to say he has played a significant role in bringing the ceasefire about. Trump's arrival in Israel is significant because he used the threat of him coming to the region, really, to help force through the deal. When he announced that a deal had been done on Wednesday night, There was still actually a lot that was up in the air in the negotiating rooms.

And what he did was he forced the hand of both parties saying, get this done because I'm coming. And it really put everyone in a position of having to negotiate the remaining details or be in a position where they'd be saying no to the visiting president. And that's how this came together. And that's what we saw this morning with Air Force One touching down just minutes after the release of the first group of hostages. and that's really significant in terms of how he was able to use his kind of unorthodox style of diplomacy to get this done. Jared, Trump has been sounding positive about the prospects of long-term peace telling reporters that the war is over. Today, he's meeting with several world leaders in Egypt to discuss the ceasefire plan. But what kind of obstacles are there to lasting peace?

In the region, in general, I think there's a sense that this deal is a high, hostage deal, it gets the hostages out, it gets Palestinian prisoners released, and it gets a ceasefire in place in Gaza for now. The longer term aspects of the plan have a lot of fragility built into them in the sense that there still needs to be a negotiation around an actual Israeli withdrawal, and longer term, one of the concerns from the Palestinian side is that this plan does not provide a clear path to Palestinian statehood. No one really knows big picture whether there would be some kind of political resolution that would actually stop this conflict in the long term. That doesn't seem to be a concrete plan for that right now. Yeah, obviously a lot

to be worked out here still. Do we know any details about Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and what that might look like? We know that the Israeli army has redeployed within Gaza. That's the word they're using. they are still on the ground in some parts of the Gaza Strip, and their future withdrawal closer to the Israeli border is contingent on how the next round of negotiations unfolds. And Jared, I think the big question on everyone's mind is, and obviously this is further down the line, but how will Gaza be governed after this? That is one of the huge questions that's hanging over this entire situation. Trump's plan calls for a new government.

of Palestinian technocrats that would take charge from Hamas, but who those people are and how much power Hamas is going to cede and how that transition would actually go is all up in the air right now. And there's also supposed to be a role for an international force of peacekeeping troops that's envisioned under Trump's plan, but that's also still to be formed. And again, it's all to be determined who those troops would be, which countries they're coming from when they're arriving, what role they're going to have, how they would coordinate with Israeli forces and interact with Palestinian forces on the ground. These are all questions that are still to be answered. Jared, you've also been reporting on how U.S. troops began to arrive in Israel late last

week. What will the United States role be in all of this? So those troops that are in Israel are supposed to arrive in Israel there to help coordinate the ceasefire itself. They are playing a kind of supporting role. We understand in making sure that this goes smoothly on an operational level. U.S. officials have repeatedly said that there will be no boots on the ground in Gaza itself. So my understanding is that it's really an operational role that they're playing, making sure that this goes smoothly. As you know, one issue that they're going to have to figure out is the fact that both the IDF, the Israeli military, and the fighters affiliated with Palestinian factions are both still on the ground in Gaza in close proximity, so they'll have to de-conflict.

Well, Jared, thank you so much for filling us in on this. Really appreciate you taking the time today. Thank you. On route to the Middle East, President Trump weighed in on a different war and threatened to send long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine as a way to put pressure on Moscow to negotiate a peace deal. Trump made the comments to reporters on Air Force One. I might say, look, if this war's not going to get settled, I'm going to send them Tomahawks.

I may say that the Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that. They don't need that. Yeah, I might tell them that if the war is not settled, that we may very well. We may not, but we may do it. I think it's appropriate to bring up. I want to see the war settled. Trump met with Volodymyr Zelensky last month and told the Ukrainian president that he was open to lifting restrictions on Keeves' use of American-made long-range weapons to strike inside Russia.

The president didn't make any commitments to reverse a U.S. ban on such attacks. And back in D.C., the government shutdown is finally starting to bite, with federal workers already starting to mispay and some businesses who count on a functioning federal government saying layoffs and costly delays, will accelerate. Over the weekend, one of the most potent consequences of the shutdown was resolved as President Trump announced a move to pay the 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as well as members of the military reserves and National Guard. Meanwhile, over at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Trump administration is moving to keep some staffers after telling them Friday they were being laid off. According to the National Public Health Coalition, which represents laid off CDC employees,

out of the estimated 1,300 workers who were cut at the end of last week in response to the shutdown, about 700 of them were rehired on Saturday. Despite informal talks taking place on how to exit the shutdown, both sides remained firmly dug in on their positions. Republicans blame Democrats for failing to provide the votes to approve a spending bill passed by the House, while Democrats want assurances that Congress will extend health care funds. Coming up, the battle brewing for the future of Warner-Broner.

Brothers Discovery. And we take stock of markets this morning following Friday sell-off after the president threatened new tariffs on China. That's after the break. Boardrooms love buzzwords. AI, climate, resilience. But what do they actually mean for CFOs and execs trying to survive the next earnings call? That's where the pre-read comes in. Real experts and real talk. Subscribe to the pre-read, presented by Workiba. Paramount's push to takeover Warner Brothers' discovery appears to be heating up. According to people familiar with the matter, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison is making a play for all of Warner before it splits off its cable business from its TV,

film, and streaming business. We understand the majority cash offer would be heavily backed by the Ellison's, and that while Warner's board is aware of the proposal, Ellison is also considering taking a more aggressive approach, such as taking an offer directly to shareholders. The bold move comes just a few months after Ellison's Skydance media closed its deal to acquire Paramount. U.S. stock futures are heading higher this morning following a sell-off Friday that sent the S&P 500 falling 2.4%. The decline, which was the biggest for the index since April, was fueled by President Trump's threat of massive tariffs on goods from China,

a position he seemed to walk back slightly last night. In a social media post, Trump said, quote, it will all be fine, and that, quote, highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment, unquote. He added that the U.S. wants to help China not hurt it. Asian stocks fell Monday after Trump's post, but U.S. stocks, in contrast, appeared poised for a rebound. Gold, meanwhile, continued to rise above $4,000 a Troy ounce. Well, despite fresh tensions in the trade war with China, prospects for U.S. economic growth are looking up. That's according to the journal's latest survey of economists, which was conducted earlier this month. Anthony DeBarros is the journal's data news editor.

He says, well, economists have raised estimates for economic growth, thanks in part to the Trump administration signing agreements with key trading partners, including Japan and the European Union. They've lowered prospects for jobs. Well, what we've noticed in the last few surveys is a weaker job picture overall. As opposed to GDP and growth, economists are seeing. the labor market as weaker coming up. For the next 12 months on average, they see about 49,000 jobs added a month down from 74,000 in the previous survey. And I think one of the reasons behind that is that even though there's more certainty around tariffs, employers

still have been reluctant to hire because there's been a lot of political uncertainty about rising costs and their investment. And artificial intelligence is also boosting productivity at the same time. And Anthony says economists don't see slower job growth translating into notably higher unemployment. So even though economists are foreseeing fewer jobs created on average each month, they're not forecasting that unemployment is going to notably rise. And one of the reasons is because of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration. It's reducing the supply of workers. So the economists are expecting that the jobless rate is going to hover around four and a half percent over the next year. For more on this survey and just how the U.S.

economy is shaping up, go to WS.J.com. And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach and Kate Bullivant. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening.