While Hamas and the Israeli government appear to be close to a ceasefire agreement, analysts remain deeply skeptical that the two sides will follow through on anything beyond a temporary ceasefire.
At issue is a three-phase agreement proposed by Israel and supported by the United States and some Arab countries that, if fully implemented, could ultimately result in a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the return of all remaining hostages taken in the October 7 attack, and a plan for the reconstruction of the area.
But reaching the finish line will be impossible if the parties are neither willing to start the race nor willing to agree on where it should end. Essentially, the dispute is not just about how long a ceasefire in Gaza should last and at what point it should be implemented, but whether Israel can accept a long-term ceasefire as long as Hamas retains significant control.
For Israel to agree to Hamas’ demand for a permanent ceasefire from the start would require it to acknowledge that Hamas cannot be destroyed and will continue to influence the future of the region, a situation the Israeli government cannot tolerate. Meanwhile, Hamas has said it will not consider a temporary ceasefire without a guarantee of a permanent ceasefire that would effectively guarantee Hamas’ survival, even at the expense of countless Palestinian lives, so that Israel does not restart the war after the hostages are returned.
But after eight months of brutal warfare, there are signs that both sides are approaching the first proposed stage of a conditional six-week ceasefire. While there is little guarantee that this stage will be achieved, analysts say the second stage of the plan, which envisages a permanent cessation of hostilities and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, is even more unlikely.
“It would be a mistake to view this proposal as anything more than a stopgap measure,” said Natan Sachs, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. “Most importantly, the plan does not answer the fundamental question of who will control Gaza after the conflict. This is a ceasefire plan, not a tomorrow plan.”
Hamas leaders and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are weighing what the deal means not just for the future of the war, but for their own political futures. Netanyahu has been particularly careful to keep his commitments to later stages vague in order to win the support of partners skeptical of the first phase of the plan.
There are influential figures on each side who want to prolong the war. Some within Hamas, led by those still in the Gaza Strip, such as Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, believe no deal should be agreed that does not bring about an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In Israel, even the mention of a halt to the war and a complete troop withdrawal has Netanyahu’s far-right allies threatening to topple his government.
Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said at a press conference on Tuesday that Hamas would not recognize any agreement that did not include provisions for a “serious and realistic deal” that began with a commitment to a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops and an exchange of the remaining hostages for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel.
“To anyone’s eye, this proposal is clearly highly political,” said Shlomo Blom, a retired brigadier general and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies.
“The first step is good for Netanyahu because it will free some hostages,” Blom said, “but we will never get to the second step. As always, he will find something wrong with Hamas’ actions, and it will not be hard to find it.”
More than 100 hostages were released. More limited deals in November last yearThe ceasefire lasted about a week. Netanyahu said Hamas had not handed over all the female hostages it had promised, and Hamas said Israel had rejected alternative plans. When the ceasefire expired, Hamas fired rockets at Israel. The fighting has continued unabated ever since.
Again, there is no guarantee that phase one will be followed by phase two, and analysts agree that it may be convenient for Netanyahu to appease the U.S. with a temporary ceasefire and increased aid to Gaza, while finding reasons not to move forward with the deal.
Analysts say Netanyahu hopes Hamas will never agree to the proposal, allowing him to avoid responsibility. With hostilities with Hezbollah in the north escalating, he has signaled to his allies that the second phase of talks could continue indefinitely, even if they have to agree to the Gaza plan.
President Biden, who announced the plan from the White House last week, is trying politically to get the two sides to reach a deal sooner rather than later. The president clearly wants to end the Gaza war well before the November presidential election, said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, adding that “Biden is the only one who’s really in a hurry.”
That has prompted Biden to pressure both Netanyahu and Hamas to accept the deal quickly.
With Israeli troops reaching the Egyptian border and the main operation of the war drawing to a close, the president has said Hamas no longer has the capacity to carry out another attack like the October 7 attack, and is pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu to publicly accept his proposal.
Netanyahu has done his best to confuse everyone about his intentions, denying that the goal of dismantling Hamas has changed and refusing to support a permanent end to the fighting, which he called “unfeasible” on Sunday.
Biden also stressed that Hamas “should accept the agreement,” but said only that Hamas has not accepted the agreement and views the proposal “positively.”
As Biden and his associates have explained, the proposal has three phases.
In the first phase, both sides will observe a six-week ceasefire. Israel will withdraw from densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip and many hostages, including women, elderly and wounded, will be released. The hostages will be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, whose names are still under negotiation. Aid supplies will begin to flow into the Gaza Strip, with around 600 truckloads delivered per day. Displaced Palestinian civilians will be allowed to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip.
In the first phase, Israel and Hamas will continue to negotiate toward a second phase: a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, and the release of all surviving hostages. If the talks take longer than six weeks, the first phase of the ceasefire would continue until an agreement is reached, Biden said.
What if that happens?
Israeli officials, from Prime Minister Netanyahu on down, insist that Israel must maintain security control over the Gaza Strip and are unlikely to agree to a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the buffer zone it has established within the Gaza Strip, and even if they did, Israel maintains the right to enter and leave the Gaza Strip whenever it deems necessary to combat remaining or reunited Hamas and other militants, as it currently does in the West Bank.
A former senior intelligence officer put it bluntly: “There are no good solutions here, and everyone knows it.”
Stopping the war without preventing Hamas from coming back is a real challenge, he says. But is it realistic to expect that continuing the war will achieve this objective? Releasing the hostages is a top priority; an estimated 125 of them are being held by Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip, while dozens are believed to have been killed. But it is unclear whether continuing the war would increase pressure on Hamas to make a deal for their release, or put those still alive at further risk. And even if Israel were to end the war after months of captivity, the release could take longer.
The timing could also be good for a first-phase agreement, as Israel fights to complete its military control of Rafah, at Gaza’s southern tip, and the border with Egypt. Under U.S. pressure, Israel is fighting with fewer troops, less bombing, and more consideration for civilians, but Israeli officials expect the fighting to continue for another two to three weeks, suggesting that that’s about the same time it would take to negotiate the first phase of a ceasefire agreement.
Israeli forces are slowly advancing into densely populated areas of the city of Rafah, evacuating civilians westwards to the coast and areas officially designated as safe zones, even though shelter, water, food and medical care are rudimentary at best and civilians continue to die in Israeli attacks.
According to Israeli officials and the Institute for War Studies, Tracking disputesIsraeli forces “continued their clearance operations in central Rafah” and also conducted “intelligent, targeted operations.” They raided what Israel called “active fighting facilities” on Monday and launched drone and air strikes on what it called “Hamas weapons manufacturing facilities in Rafah.” Hamas fighters responded with mortars, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades along the border.
With Hamas forces effectively dismantled as an organized force and fighting mostly only as small units, analysts say Israel could declare an end to the full-scale war in Gaza, while continuing fighting in places where Hamas and other fighters have emerged or are still concentrated, paving the way for a temporary ceasefire.
“Israel has accomplished a lot and Hamas has been dramatically weakened,” Sachs said, but Israel has done nothing to prepare for control of Gaza once its troops withdraw.
Blom agreed that the Israeli military has made real progress. “My interpretation is that Hamas’ military and terror capabilities have been severely weakened,” he said. It’s always difficult to declare victory in such an asymmetric conflict, he said. “Did we defeat ISIS? ISIS is still there and still operating,” but it has been significantly weakened.
Analysts said that despite constant urging from the United States, Netanyahu is refusing to decide who or what will govern Gaza, rather than Hamas.
“This should be an integrated political and military strategy, but it completely lacks the political dimension,” Blom said. “You can stop Hamas from controlling Gaza, but who will replace them? That is the Achilles heel of the whole operation.”
