It was improbable from the start.
For months, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted he wanted to bring the hostages home from Gaza, he resisted signing a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Sustained pressure from thousands-strong marches could not get him to the signing table.
But the combined pressure of the outgoing and incoming American presidents got Netanyahu to agree to a 42-day truce for the release of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,700 Palestinian prisoners, and an infusion of aid into Gaza. (Ultimately, 38 hostages were released over 39 days.)
The agreement he did ultimately sign, then-US President Joe Biden argued, was essentially the same deal that had been on the table for nearly a year.
The final, 42nd-day of that truce is Saturday. The ceasefire agreement stipulates that the truce can continue so long as negotiators are talking, so it may well hobble on. But as tough as negotiations for the first phase were, whatever comes next will be much more difficult.
Phase two of a ceasefire, which is supposed to last another 42 days, would see the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of all living hostages held by Hamas – estimated to number 24 men – in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
But talks about what comes next have only just begun, and Netanyahu has made it increasingly clear that he has no interest in that framework.
Netanyahu blew past the February 3 deadline to send a negotiating team to talk about phase two, choosing instead to visit US President Donald Trump in Washington. At the 11th hour, on Thursday, he announced that he would send a team to Cairo – but without its chief negotiator, his close political ally, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
“We are committed to the release of all hostages, and we will continue to search for different ways to do so,” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Thursday while meeting with his Czech counterpart. There was no mention of the fact that that framework exists – agreed to in the Qatari capital in January.
Hamas has repeatedly committed itself to the ceasefire. Despite walking close to the edge when it sent to Israel the body of an unknown Palestinian woman instead of Shiri Bibas – mistakenly, the group says – it has largely stuck to the agreement.
But it has yet to answer the big question: Will it disarm and leave Gaza?
Hamas’s leaders, scattered between Gaza and across the region, are bullish one moment and conciliatory the next – but have consistently refused to engage on the question of disarmament.
Hamas “was not erased” by the war, Osama Hamdan, a member of the group’s political bureau, said in Qatar last week. “Whoever comes to fill Israel’s place (in Gaza) will be treated like Israel.” Hamas, he said, has “an opportunity to expand.”
Hazam Qassem, a spokesperson for the group, said that week that he was “surprised” by a suggestion from an Arab League official that the “resignation of Hamas represents the interest of the Palestinian people.”
And yet on Wednesday, another political bureau official, Husam Badran, said that the group was willing to step aside from governing Gaza. “Our only condition is for this to be an internal Palestinian matter – we will not allow any regional or international party to get involved,” he told Al Arabiya. “As long as there is national consensus, Hamas will not be involved in the governance.”
Netanyahu still refuses to say what he envisions for Gaza’s post-war future, except to say that he endorses Trump’s plan for “a different Gaza” – the emigration of all 2.1 million Palestinians in the enclave, and the construction of a Gulf State-like Xanadu. And he thinks neither the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority nor Hamas should govern Gaza.
Objectionable though it may be, Trump’s plan capitalized on a vacuum of leadership not just from Netanyahu, but in the region. Arab leaders are scrambling to come up with their own vision for rebuilding Gaza – while allowing the Palestinians to remain.
Extending phase one indefinitely would suit an Israeli prime minister whose extremist ministerial allies want to start bombing Gaza again and then re-establish the Jewish settlements that Israel forced out 20 years ago.
That does not mean war is imminent in Gaza.
“There isn’t a desire to relaunch the war,” the Israeli source said. “However there is a desire to go along with the US, hand in hand with the US.”
“There is an understanding in Israel that Trump wants a more regional settlement. So that obviously doesn’t mean that the war will start again right away.”
Netanyahu may seek to get more hostages home while continuing to keep the military massed on Gaza’s borders on a hair trigger.
The question for the coming hours and days will be whether Hamas would agree to give up its most important negotiating asset – hostages – without any commitment to end the war.
“Netanyahu’s plan to extend phase 1 in order to release more hostages without obligating to end the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza will be totally rejected by Hamas,” the longtime former Israeli negotiator-turned-peace activist Gershon Baskin said on Monday.
Hamas’ leaders inside Gaza, he opined, “are becoming increasingly independent from the Hamas leaders outside.” Those exiled leaders, he said, are more willing than the battle-front commanders to resume the war, “with the full awareness that their leverage is the lives of the remaining hostages.”
Those inside Gaza “will not hesitate taking revenge on the hostages if the fighting resumes,” he said. “The war is over, even if Netanyahu fails to recognize it. The alternative to Hamas will be the result of political decisions and not more warfare.”
Kareem Khadder and Zeena Saifi contributed to this report.
