As President Joe Biden announced the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas from the White House on Wednesday, he repeated a key detail throughout his address: that the deal accepted today was the same deal he helped put on the table in May.

“This is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring,” Biden said, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “The road to this deal has not been easy — I’ve reached this point because of the pressure that Israel put on Hamas, backed by the United States.”

It was a clear attempt by Biden to claim credit for the historic agreement forged in Doha, Qatar — a final part of his legacy on his way out of the White House. And it was a bid to take some of the spotlight from President-elect Donald Trump, who declared the deal “could have only happened” because of his involvement.

But experts and Palestinian Americans who have been advocating for a ceasefire for months saw Biden’s speech as an admission that a deal should and could have happened far sooner, a delay resulting in the deaths of thousands more Palestinians, as well as Israeli hostages. And now, as the deal is set to go into effect on Sunday, many worry about how many more lives could still be lost between now and then.

“It’s welcome, of course, and very, very, very long overdue — this could’ve been reached six, seven months ago,” said Khaled Elgindy, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University who helped negotiate deals between Palestinian leadership and Israel in the past.

There is hope the deal can bring relief to the many Palestinians who remain in Gaza, said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington D.C. and former executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

“Tens of thousands have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and so many more affected in ways that they’ll continue to feel for the rest of their lives, whether illness, injury, loss of their homes or family members,” Munnayer said. “I’m thankful it’s finally here, but it absolutely should not have taken this long — it absolutely was possible much earlier than this.”

The three-phase ceasefire deal promises an end to fighting, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and the release of all remaining Israeli hostages — both alive and the........

© The Intercept