OSLO, Oct 10, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday, a day after a Gaza deal likely reached too late for US President Donald Trump to have any chance to win the award he desperately wants.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce the recipient of the Peace Prize, the most highly anticipated of the prestigious Nobels, at 11:00 am (0900 GMT) in the capital Oslo.

The announcement is due just hours after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could help end the over two-year war in Gaza.

But while Trump's pressure on the two sides has been seen as instrumental for the breakthrough, the deal has probably come too late for the Nobel Committee to take it into account.

The five members of the committee held their final meeting on Monday, when they put the final touches on the statement they will release explaining their pick -- usually decided several days before their final meeting.

The Gaza deal "has absolutely no significance" for the choice of the 2025 laureate because "the Nobel Committee has already made its decision", historian and Peace Prize expert Asle Sveen told AFP.

"Trump will not win the prize this year. I'm 100 percent certain," he said.

Trump has long given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "free rein" to bomb Gaza and provided the Israeli army with significant military aid, Sveen said.

Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, the US leader has repeatedly insisted that he "deserves" the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts -- a claim experts say is broadly exaggerated.

Asked Thursday by AFP what he thought his chances were of winning the prize, Trump replied: "I don't know what they're going to do, really. But I know this, that nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months.

"And I've stopped eight wars. That's never happened before," he said, adding that Gaza was "the biggest of them all".

But in Oslo, experts insist he has no chance, noting that his "America First" policies run counter to the ideals of the Peace Prize as laid out in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will creating the award.

- No obvious favourite -

Speculation is rife about who will get the nod this year, with 338 individuals and organisations nominated. The list of names is kept secret for 50 years.

With no obvious favourite, several names have been circulating in Oslo.

Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms -- a network of volunteers risking their lives to feed and help people enduring war and famine -- have been mentioned, as has Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights election watchdog.

The Nobel Committee could also go with a laureate that may expose it to criticism from the United States.

That could happen if it chooses to reaffirm its commitment to a world order currently challenged by Trump, for instance by giving the prize to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, or a UN body like its refugee agency UNHCR or Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.

It could also give the nod to international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court, or champion press freedoms currently under attack by giving it to the Committee to Protect Journalists or Reporters Without Borders.

What is known for sure is that "there will be a laureate this year", Nobel Institute spokesman Erik Aasheim told AFP, quashing speculation that the committee could decide not to award the prize given the bleak geopolitical situation.

Last year, the honour went to Nihon Hidankyo, a group of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings campaigning against nuclear weapons.

The Nobel Peace Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million cheque.

After the Nobel prizes awarded this week for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace, the economics prize on Monday wraps up the 2025 Nobel season.