People walk past the rubble of collapsed buildings along Saftawi street in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo / Omar Al-Wattaa, AFP
People walk past the rubble of collapsed buildings along Saftawi street in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo / Omar Al-Wattaa, AFP
Analysis by Steven Erlanger
Steven Erlanger, a former Jerusalem bureau chief, has covered the Mideast wars for decades.
THREE KEY FACTS
A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Sunday
There will be 16 days before talks are expected to begin on the second phase of the three-phase deal.
The deal is considered to be fragile as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces tremendous political pressure at home.
The delayed start to the truce was a minor problem compared with the difficult choices and American leverage needed to get both parties to the second phase, which could end the war.
At the end of a war in the Gaza Strip in 2021,Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was photographed sitting in an armchair in his ruined home, a symbol of continuing resistance to Israel.
Sinwar was killed in this latest Israel-Hamas war, in which Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, vowed to dismantle and destroy Hamas. And yet, as a ceasefire took hold Sunday after 15 months of massive destruction and death, Hamas – badly wounded and diminished – has survived and, at least for now, will remain in charge in Gaza.
Thousands of Hamas fighters have re-emerged from hiding and fanned out to re-establish control.
“In blunt terms, Hamas are not only still standing, but they remain the most significant force in Gaza,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator and president of the US/Middle East Project, a research organisation based in London and New York.
The situation underlines the fragility of a deal reached with Netanyahu, who is facing tremendous political pressure at home. It also comes as Donald Trump is sworn in as US President again amid great uncertainty over how he plans to deal with a landscape in the Middle East that is much altered since his first term.
And the war is not over. The three-phase ceasefire deal, largely unchanged from a plan former US President Joe Biden announced eight months ago, is extremely fragile, as evidenced by the tension-filled delay in starting it Sunday morning. There will be 16 days before talks are expected to begin on the second phase.
Israeli tanks inside the Gaza Strip as the first phase of the ceasefire agreement comes in. Photo / Getty Images
Getting from this first phase to the second, which would really mark the effective end of the war, with the nearly complete withdrawal from Gaza of Israeli troops, is considered by many to be enormously difficult, even improbable, given the concessions required and the political dynamics on both sides.
Trump was credited by many for demanding that Netanyahu do this deal now, providing the Israeli Prime Minister with the cover to do so. Whether Trump and his team, with so much else on their plate, will spend the time and leverage to push through the next, most fraught phase remains unknowable.
“Trump is not going to want fighting to resume on his watch,” said Natan Sachs, director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a Washington research institute. But Netanyahu, faced with strong opposition to the deal within his own coalition, “does not want to end the war, and Hamas, too, intends to continue its military struggle and rearm,” Sachs said.
Netanyahu is likely to search for any Hamas violation of the terms of the truce as “justification for why phase two can’t and won’t happen,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, a research institute in London. “And he’ll play real hardball about the conditions of the Israeli withdrawal.”
The deal may end the fighting for now, but as in Lebanon, it gives Israel and its military “the perpetual freedom to act,” Vakil said, referring to the ceasefire signed in November with Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia. Netanyahu said Saturday, in a speech to the nation, that Israel “reserves the right to resume the fighting if Israel reaches the conclusion that negotiations over stage two are hopeless”.
Netanyahu has consistently refused to discuss who or what will govern Gaza instead of Hamas, essentially ceding the territory to the group Israel has spent the last 14 months trying to destroy, killing tens of thousands of people, both civilians and combatants, in the process. The war erupted after Hamas led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1200 people and capturing about 250 others.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in 2023. He has consistently refused to discuss who or what will govern Gaza instead of Hamas. Photo / Kenny Holston, The New York Times
Now back in control in Gaza, Hamas will be effectively in charge of a massive influx of humanitarian aid. Yahya Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, now runs Hamas in Gaza.
Trump, too, is going to face a complicated and knotty choice about how much to invest his authority in the Middle East, especially if he wants, as he says he does, to revive plans for the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. A deal between the two countries had seemed on the verge of happening before the war erupted in Gaza.
Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said the ceasefire deal was good for the Palestinians – “the killing will stop and prisoners will get out of jail” and there would be a surge of humanitarian aid. But there were no guarantees the deal would hold, he said, adding that Palestinians “need a true process that leads to the end of the Israeli occupation” of both Gaza and the West Bank.
The Saudis have made it clear during the war that they now demand concrete steps on the path toward an independent Palestinian state, which Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to prevent. And some of those around Trump favour a further or even complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank, which could make a viable Palestinian state almost impossible. His nominee for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said during a visit to Israel in 2017 that there “was no such thing” as a West Bank or occupation.
“Annexation of the West Bank would kill any chances for a two-state solution,” Barghouti said.
At some point, said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat now with the Carnegie Endowment, “Netanyahu is going to come into conflict with Trump, who wants a deal with the Saudis and Iran”.
Even the Gaza deal presents a serious domestic political challenge for Netanyahu. One of the far-right parties in his coalition, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, has quit, vowing only to return if the war restarts. If the coalition’s other far-right party, led by Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, also defects, Netanyahu would be leading a minority Government nearly two years before the next election.
In addition to Gaza, Netanyahu also faces two thorny domestic issues, a new budget and a bill over conscripting the haredim, or ultra-Orthodox, ensuring conflict with the far right and the religious parties. The budget is vital. If it is not passed by the end of March, Sachs said, the governing coalition is automatically dissolved.
Iranians celebrating the announcement of a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel, in Tehran, Iran. Photo / Arash Khamooshi, The New York Times
“There could be a real political crisis, so we may see Trump versus Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as we approach phase two,” Sachs said.
Those political considerations could come to a head if Trump decides to push for a deal with Saudi Arabia – and present Netanyahu with a difficult choice.
The Israeli leader could cede to his coalition partners, hold back a deal and likely anger his most important ally, the United States. Or he could dissolve the Government and call for elections based on working with Trump for a more lasting regional peace – including real steps toward a Palestinian state.
That final option would present a considerable risk for Netanyahu, whose unpopularity among centrist voters forced him to join up with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in the last election.
Hanging over everything is Iran, which is enriching uranium to the edge of weapons-grade at a rapid pace. Iran denies it is aiming for a bomb, but it is badly diminished regionally and its economy is tanking. Israel and the United States have vowed to prevent any Iranian nuclear bomb, and there is a strong argument inside Israel that now is the time to strike Iran.
But Trump is thought unlikely to want to get dragged into another war, and he is said to be open to a bargain with a weakened Iran. The President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, has been reaching out to European diplomats and Trump officials to say his country also wants a deal on its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting punishing economic sanctions.
Trump is essentially unpredictable, Sachs said. Netanyahu and the Israelis, he said, “will face a US President who will certainly be very pro-Israeli – and whose favour they are keen to receive – but who will also be forceful in demanding whatever he thinks is in his interest”.
