A ceasefire deal has been reached in Gaza.

Long-running negotiations among Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Qataris, and Egyptians yielded an agreement on Wednesday that will, in the coming days, at least temporarily end the fighting in Gaza and return some Israeli hostages home. The agreement also contains a framework for making the short-term ceasefire permanent — parameters that, if honored, would finally bring an end to the bloodiest chapter in the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In theory, this is all to the good. It’s long been clear that the Gaza war is a disaster both in humanitarian and political terms: a mass slaughter of Palestinians that has made the prospect of a true Israeli-Palestinian peace even less likely than ever. Gazans will now have a chance to begin rebuilding their lives after unthinkable devastation; Israelis will be able to welcome home at least some of the hostages who had been suffering in Hamas cells.

But agreements like these are never guaranteed. There are real reasons to think that the deal might turn into something permanent — but also good reasons to believe that it might fail, allowing the carnage to start up once again.

What we know — and what we don’t — about the deal’s terms

Because the full text of the deal has not yet been made public, we can’t be sure about every single detail in the agreement. But reporting on the deal’s terms, which appears to mostly track the Biden administration’s May ceasefire proposal, has converged on some key points.

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