Beirut, Lebanon – The ceasefire agreed to by Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas has generated some optimism that Israel’s 15-month war against Gaza will finally end and Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners will be freed.
But some analysts are still unsure whether the deal, announced Wednesday and set to begin Sunday, will go ahead as planned.
Israel’s security cabinet gave the green light to the deal on Friday night after postponing a meeting initially scheduled for Thursday. Still, dividing the deal into three phases opens the possibility that its terms will be violated or that the parties – particularly Israel – will backtrack on its terms, analysts said.
The agreement stipulates that an initial 42-day phase (which will consist of the handover of some captives and prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from populated areas and an increase in aid) will be followed by additional phases that will also involve more exchanges of prisoners. such as a permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a sustainable ceasefire.
Experts who spoke to Al Jazeera fear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted a ceasefire for months and insisted that Hamas must be destroyed, will resume hostilities after captives are recovered to apparently “punish” the Palestinian group, bolster Israel’s security and ensure its own political survival while somehow blaming Hamas for the failure of the deal.
“Israel is very good at breaking ceasefires and making it look like it wasn’t their fault,” said Mairav Zonszein, an Israel-Palestine expert at the International Crisis Group.
Temporary relief
The ceasefire in Gaza was announced by outgoing US President Joe Biden and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. US President-elect Donald Trump also announced his support, and it has been widely reported that it was pressure from Trump, who will take office on Monday, that led ceasefire negotiations to an agreement.
The agreement aims to end a devastating war that has led jurists, human rights groups and United Nations experts to accuse Israel of “genocide” due to its policy of starving Palestinians and destroying services. necessary to sustain life. South Africa has also launched a case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide, which has been supported by numerous countries.
Israel has killed more than 46,700 people – men, women and children – and uprooted almost the entire pre-war population, 2.3 million people, from their homes through attacks and orders to flee or face bombings and raids. terrestrial.
The war began after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive.
Many of the captives were freed in a previous ceasefire in November 2023, and the remainder are expected to be freed for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, an exchange that could unfold over several weeks.
However, Zonszein believes the deal could collapse after that point.
“This (agreement) will provide immediate relief by delivering humanitarian aid and allowing the release of hostages and prisoners. The (deal) is more of an immediate pause than a long-term solution,” he told Al Jazeera.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian jurist and former Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator, also fears that the vagueness of the agreement could allow Israel to terminate it at any time.
One term, for example, calls for Israel to withdraw to the “border” of the Gaza Strip, as opposed to the 1967 border, which demarcates Israel’s borders from occupied territory.
This wording, Buttu said, raises concerns about whether Israel will actually withdraw completely from the enclave.
“The agreement is very vague and there are many places where Israel can – and will – maneuver its way out of it,” Buttu told Al Jazeera.
Political fears
The ceasefire agreed on Wednesday is roughly the same as one proposed earlier in May, which was accepted by Hamas but rejected by Israel, which quickly invaded the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
At the time, Biden warned Israel that Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians lived, was a “red line” for fear that an invasion would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However, the United States did not follow through on its threat to punish Israel after its ally sent troops to Rafah.
Israel’s move was part of a broader pattern by Netanyahu to torpedo ceasefire proposals, ostensibly to hold his fragile far-right coalition together until he regained enough popularity to run in new elections.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have exploited Netanyahu’s political fears to push their own agenda, such as keeping the war in Gaza indefinitely, experts said.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are part of Israel’s religious nationalist settler movement and have threatened to leave the coalition if Netanyahu signs a ceasefire, a move that would potentially collapse the government and trigger elections.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir again threaten to leave the coalition if the current ceasefire goes ahead. It is unclear whether those threats are mere posturing or whether the two are willing to try to overthrow Netanyahu.
“Everyone sees Netanyahu as a dominant force in Israeli politics, but it is remarkable the extent to which Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have been able to exploit his political fears to pursue their own agendas,” said Hugh Lovatt, an Israel-Palestine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Netanyahu appears to have regained most of his popularity since the October 7, 2023, attacks, which saw his approval ratings plummet.
However, he still appears cautious about going ahead with the ceasefire for fear of his political survival.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said he was “postponing” a cabinet meeting needed to approve the ceasefire and blamed Hamas for backtracking on the terms of the deal. The security cabinet finally approved the deal on Friday.
Mediators have said Hamas has already accepted the proposal, as it has done on several occasions since May.
“The Netanyahu of today is not the one of the past. He is more afraid and unable to make decisions, which has led to strategic paralysis,” Lovatt said.
Other?
Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the United States has advocated for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has some control of the occupied West Bank, to return to Gaza to govern.
The Palestinian Authority was born from the 1993 Oslo I Agreement, which was signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders and began a peace process with the ostensible goal of creating a Palestinian state.
For more than two decades, the peace process has been dormant due in large part to Israel expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, and imposing restrictions that have politically, economically and territorially isolated Gaza from West Bank. , according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The Palestinian Authority is also led primarily by Fatah, a Palestinian party that fought a brief civil war with Hamas in 2007, causing a split in the Palestinian national movement.
The war saw the PA driven from Gaza and confined to the West Bank, where it has limited authority under Israel’s entrenched occupation.
Hamas seized the Gaza Strip, which Israel later labeled “hostile” territory, and placed it under a land, sea and air blockade.
Any plan to bring the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza worries Israel because it would politically and territorially reconnect the occupied areas and revive calls for a Palestinian state, according to Omar Rahman, an Israel-Palestine expert at the Middle East Global Affairs Council.
“If you have a united Palestinian territory under a united Palestinian leadership, then Israel will be under pressure to engage in a political endgame, and Netanyahu does not want that to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.
Furthermore, experts told Al Jazeera that they do not see Israel completely withdrawing from Gaza in a vacuum, mainly due to Israel’s fear that Hamas could reassert control over the enclave and rebuild its capabilities.
Netanyahu has previously said that Israel should have “general security control” over Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time.
“The sad story of Gaza shows us that there is a cycle of escalation and de-escalation because there is no political framework to address the root causes,” Lovatt said.
“Those who want to resume fighting in Gaza will probably have an opportunity at some point.”
