Hamas-Israel ceasefire: Delays, political maneuvering undermine fragile deal

It is to be expected that the Hamas-Israel ceasefire and captive exchange will not proceed as planned. Although the first three Israelis held by Hamas and 90 Palestinians detained by Israel were successfully freed on January 19, the second swap a week later did not conform to the agreement. This was advertised to cover Israeli civilian women who had been named as Arbel Yahoud and Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfar and Ariel. Instead, Hamas identified and freed four female Israeli soldiers at a media event in southern Gaza. Israel responded by demanding the release of Yahoud before meeting its obligation to allow Palestinians driven from northern Gaza to return to the wreckage of Gaza City, Beit Lahia, Beit Hannoun and refugee camps. Hamas has said Yahoud, and two others would be released today ahead of the next exchange.

Neither side is being transparent. In November 2023, Hamas published a video of separately held hostage husband Yarden Bibas being informed his wife and children had been killed in an Israeli air strike on Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Hamas claimed it was prepared to release Shiri, Kfar and Ariel's bodies as part of the first ceasefire in November 2023 but said Israel would not accept them. Hamas has not released videos or pictures of Shiri and her children either alive or dead, giving family members slender hope that they are still alive. Hamas has not said that their bodies and the bodies of their captors remain buried in the rubble of the building where the three were being held.

Neither side has stated that the ceasefire could have been concluded many months before and saved the lives of Israeli hostages and soldiers and tens of thousands of the 47,000 Palestinians declared dead and the 11,000 listed as missing by the Gaza health authorities. Gaza would also have been spared from most of the devastation wreaked by constant Israeli aerial bombing, shelling and Israeli ground troops who have wrecked and torched homes, schools, and universities.

On January 17, Qatari Prime Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told Sky news, "The framework that we have signed two days ago is the same framework that we agreed on in December 2023, which is basically 13 months of waste, of negotiating details that have no meaning and [aren't] worth any single life that we lost in Gaza or any single life of those hostages that lost their life because of the bombing..."

The Biden administration colluded with Israel by refusing to call for a ceasefire and vetoing UN Security Council resolutions demanding a truce. Finally, at the end of May 2024 President Joe Biden proposed the 2023 framework and said it had been cleared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who thereafter sabotaged negotiations and delayed the deal by demanding conditions Hamas could not accept.

Phase one of the deal, which began on January 19, covers six weeks and mandates the release of 33 of the 100 Israeli women, children, injured civilians, and elderly who are to be exchanged for Palestinian security prisoners, some of whom are serving life sentences for harming Israelis. Israel will withdraw from urban areas in Gaza, allow 600 humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza daily and reduce its deployment along the Egypt-Gaza border and the Netzarim corridor which bisects Gaza east to west. Negotiations for phase two will begin on the sixteenth day of phase one.

Phase two involves the release of the 65 remaining hostages, most being male Israeli soldiers, in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners and a complete Israeli troop withdrawal.

Phase three provides for reconstruction under a plan supervised by international entities. The governance of Gaza has not been settled. Israel rejects both Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Palestinians call for reuniting the West Bank and Gaza under a national government. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia could provide peacekeeping forces once Israel has withdrawn fully and only if the government in charge is independent of Israel.

While he has signed onto the deal, Netanyahu has declared he has no intention of abiding by his commitment to the entire three-phase plan. He has not achieved his war objectives: total victory over Hamas and freedom for Israeli captives. Hamas has replenished fighters killed and wounded in the war and once the ceasefire began, Hamas reasserted its administrative activities in Gaza and deployed police to protect aid convoys from criminal gangs.

Netanyahu has promised right-wing ministers that he will resume the war after the first phase. If he fails to honour this commitment, his government could collapse, and fresh elections would be scheduled. During the campaign, he would face demands for an inquiry on how Hamas managed to stage its October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel. He could also face jail time if sentenced in his trials for fraud, bribery and breach of trust.

The key external actor on the Palestinian-Israel scene has thrown his considerable weight behind Israel. Donald Trump has lifted a ban on the delivery of 90-kilogram bombs which Israel has used to level Palestinian residential areas and kill Palestinian civilians. He has also called for the temporary or permanent exile of more than a million and a half Gazans to Jordan and Egypt. Palestinians regard such a project as a second Nakba, the catastrophe caused by Israel's expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their cities, towns and villages in 1948. While exile has been rejected by Gaza, Amman and Cairo, this proposal by ignorant Trump is in itself a flagrant violation of international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits occupying countries from deporting occupied peoples from their homeland. Despite this prohibition, there were no major objections when Israel deported to Egypt for semipermanent resettlement elsewhere of 70 of the 200 Palestinian prisoners released last weekend.