Armed Peace in Gaza
Armed Peace in Gaza
Israel, Hamas with Bated Breath
After overcoming last-minute obstacles, the path to reaching a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas should be clear.
The crisis should be over according to an American source quoted by Axios, unresolved issues in the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel were resolved on the evening of January 16. The agreement is now ready to be announced, awaiting its formalization.
The agreement was announced on January 15 by both parties as well as by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. However, the next morning, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement accusing Hamas of backing out of some details of the agreement, causing a crisis in completing the agreement. The Israeli war cabinet is likely to convene on January 17 to vote on the ceasefire agreement. According to informed sources, the disagreements are over the identity of Palestinian prisoners that Israel does not want to disclose, while Hamas wants to know their identities before their release.
The Palestinian Islamist movement, for its part, denied these accusations and stated that it is committed to adhering to the agreement announced by mediators on Wednesday.
White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby earlier told NBC News that the United States is confident that the issues preventing the agreement’s confirmation can be resolved in time for the scheduled start on Sunday.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, at least 70 people have lost their lives in recent airstrikes.
The war cabinet vote, initially scheduled for 11 o’clock, has now been postponed, and as a result, hopes for ending the 15-month war that has devastated Gaza and triggered an unprecedented humanitarian crisis remain suspended.
A Completely Israeli Crisis
Following announcements made by Qatar’s Prime Minister, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, the timing that Israel introduced the morning after the agreement’s announcement to dampen excitement has raised many doubts. This retreat actually occurred immediately after a member of the extreme religious right-wing party, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, declared that he would leave the government if the agreement was approved.
Smotrich, who repeatedly called the agreement bad and dangerous, clarified that his condition for remaining in the government is that Israel can resume the war in Gaza with full force after the hostages are released.
According to some reports, the finance minister has requested that Netanyahu provide a written guarantee on this matter.
This request could destabilize the foundations of negotiations for the second phase of the agreement, in which Hamas will release other hostages who are still alive in exchange for more prisoner releases and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The Times of Israel writes that this motivation, rather than minor changes in the agreement by Hamas, has been the root of the last-minute crisis among Israelis.
Netanyahu Between Two Fires
For a long time, Netanyahu was reluctant to accept an agreement with Hamas due to fears for his political survival. In the months he rejected a plan previously proposed by the Biden administration in May, Netanyahu was particularly concerned that his extremist allies, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, would break up his coalition.
Therefore, according to his critics, it is not unusual that today he is trying to maintain this coalition even at the cost of jeopardizing peace negotiations.
Even if Netanyahu loses the majority in parliament, this does not automatically mean his downfall. The Israeli political system does not dismiss minority governments. Minority governments refer to those that do not have a majority in parliament but can govern with the support of smaller parties or opposition parties, and opposition parties have already announced that they are ready to provide the necessary support to the government to reach an agreement over the hostages. However, losing his two extremist allies could weaken Netanyahu’s power and push the country towards early elections, forcing the Prime Minister to face political accountability, something he has so far managed to avoid.
The Ceasefire Could Continue
However, it seems the entry of Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer and personal friend, into the negotiations has suddenly accelerated the process, allowing mediators to reach an agreement that had eluded the Biden administration for over a year. Trump, when he sounded the alarm in December, was as direct as ever, saying that if the Israeli hostages in Gaza were not released before his inauguration, hell would break loose in the Middle East.
Regardless of any last-minute surprises, ignoring this deadline will be difficult.
However, the key question is whether the ceasefire can continue or not.
Will this be a temporary pause or lead to a permanent ceasefire that mediators, Palestinians, and the region desperately wish for? There is no certainty about this, just as there is no certainty about who will govern the Gaza Strip after the conflict ends.
Neither Israel, the United States, nor Arab countries want Hamas, which has been in power since 2007, to regain control. However, Netanyahu has not provided any practical plan for the day after.
With the rise of the Prime Minister and his far-right allies, Israel has become more focused on annexing the West Bank or escalating tensions with Iran rather than granting concessions to the Palestinians. The Financial Times noted today that nearly a year of negotiation was needed to stop the war, but compared to the daunting task of rebuilding Gaza and even more difficult, achieving lasting peace in the region, this might be the easier part.
While the world waits with bated breath for the Israeli war cabinet meeting that must decide on the anticipated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, lives continue to be lost in Gaza.
And in Israel, many people are asking themselves how many of the hostages are still alive and how many more could have returned home alive if Netanyahu had not been a hostage to his extremist allies and if there had been political will to reach a ceasefire sooner.
The content of the document these days is actually very similar to the draft rejected in previous rounds of negotiations. What has changed today is the new tenant of the White House, with whom Israel will have to interact for the next four years, and it is important not to make a misstep from the beginning.
