By Euronews | Created at 2025-01-22 16:26:17 | Updated at 2025-01-22 21:00:38
6 hours ago
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In truth, the first phase of the deal is relatively easy to implement and gives all parties a respite from draining conflict. After the six-week ceasefire, any extension will depend on the success of future negotiations, Soli Özel writes.
With the release of three civilian women on Sunday, the first phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has begun, followed a few hours later by the release of 90 prisoners from Israeli jails.
This first phase will continue for six weeks, at the end of which Hamas will release 88 hostages (whether dead or alive), and Israel will have freed a total of 1,904 Palestinian prisoners. However, the most politically important prisoner perishing in an Israeli jail, Marwan Barghouti, will not be among them.
The deal was brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. The latter two seek to begin rebuilding the devastated enclave during the first phase rather than in later stages.
Most commentators doubt that the deal will actually go through its second and third phases. The expectation is that absent great pressure from involved outside parties, either the Israeli government or Hamas — which made a show of force during the release of the first three hostages — will break the process as such a development would serve their interests better.
Or, as Paul Pillar put it, “the negotiators reached a short-term bargain while punting more difficult issues”.
In truth, the first phase of the deal is relatively easy to implement and gives all parties a respite from draining conflict.
As the hostages are exchanged with prisoners for the long-suffering and displaced Palestinians of Gaza, there will be a substantial flow of food, medicine and other basic necessities.
After the six-week ceasefire, any extension will depend on the success of future negotiations. In the second and third phases of the deal, more hostages, some of whom may already be dead, ought to be exchanged with more prisoners.
In the meantime, Israeli forces are to withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu consistently refused to concede in the past.
These withdrawals by the Israeli military, along with a reconstruction plan, are envisaged, but so far, those phases are just outlines of objectives and not tightly formulated.
It is widely believed that the intervention of US President Donald Trump’s team and his stern warnings to the parties helped the Biden administration finally reach the elusive ceasefire deal.
Irony or tragedy?
The irony or the tragedy of the deal is that the hapless outgoing American administration failed in obtaining an Israeli commitment to a ceasefire prepared by now-former President Joe Biden in May, which the Israeli side succeeded in derailing, although almost all its main tenets are embodied in the new deal.
Trump made it clear that he did not want this crisis to continue to simmer as he assumed office. Indeed, his inauguration was free of Middle East troubles. Yet, based on his first decisions related to this matter and his comments about Gaza, Trump did not give the impression of being fully engaged with the plan that he forced both parties to conclude.
He told reporters on his first day in office that he is "not confident" that the Gaza ceasefire will last, adding that "it’s not our war; it’s their war."
His first decisions in office also highlight his partiality towards Israel. Trump’s suspension of all foreign aid for 90 days will likely affect the Palestinians, who rely on US donations to multilateral organisations as well.
Furthermore, Trump reimposed sanctions against the ICC that issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Galant, lifted sanctions imposed on violent settlers by the Biden administration and decided to resume the delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to the Israeli military.
The military incursion in the West Bank town of Jenin and civilian settlers’ violent attack against the village of al-Funduq and three other locations, burning cars and property, suggest that an undeclared quid pro quo for signing on to the ceasefire deal that everybody expects will not be finalised, was a free hand for Israel in the West Bank.
The fundamental problem persists
The situation on the ground in Gaza suggests that Hamas, despite the enormous beating that its military wing took, is now back in charge of providing security for the Strip and police the distribution of aid.
For all intents and purposes, this gives the image of an organisation that has not been defeated totally and annihilated despite the loss of thousands of its fighters. In fact, outgoing US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken revealed in his last press conference that Hamas was able to recruit as many fighters as it lost.
The organisation managed to replenish its forces, restore part of its infrastructure and dig bypasses to sections of tunnels that the Israeli air force destroyed. Meanwhile in Israel, the reservists in rising numbers are refusing to answer the call for duty.
All these concerns actually point to one fundamental reality: so long as Palestinians remain where they are and cannot be forcefully displaced either from Gaza or the West Bank, the fundamental problem for Israel of finding a political solution to the Palestinian problem remains as well.
Whether the Trump administration will want to spend time and energy to pursue what has proved to be an elusive goal is in doubt.
Only if Saudi Arabia sticks to its commitment to a serious two-state solution to be in place before it normalises its relations with Israel would Trump pay attention to the subsequent episodes of the Israeli-Palestinian drama.
Soli Özel is currently a visiting fellow at IWM (Institute für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen) in Vienna. Previously, he was a guest lecturer at Yale University, Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Sciences-Po Paris and Menton.
