SECURITY: Al Jazeera: Qatar Reports Positively On Ceasefire Agreement

Al Jazeera's Arabic newswire reporting that, according to a Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman, "Israel agreed to the ceasefire proposal and we have initial positive confirmation from Hamas." Note: The news is unverified and yet to be confirmed by a secondary news service, but Al Jazeera's connections with the Qatari government often allows it to break news related to the Qatari mediated talks.

• The ceasefire proposal under consideration is understood to involve three phases, the first of which would deliver a roughly six-week pause in fighting in return for the exchange of various hostages and prisoners.
• Should both sides agree to the first phase of the agreement, additional negotiations are likely to take place on the specific details of the next phases.
• A ceasefire agreement is widely seen a crucial step in de-escalating regional hostilities, particularly from the constellation of Iranian proxies in Syrian, Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon.
• The report of an agreement comes after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today restated that the US will respond militarily to a drone attack on a US base in Jordan, but declined to reveal any specific actions: "We will have a multi-tiered response...we have the ability to respond a number of times depending on what the situation is.