Peace at last? Lasting truce demands good faith by Israel and Hamas

Lasting truce demands good faith by Israel, Hamas

Despite jubilation around the world, the prospects of a lasting peace in the 15-month war between Israel and Hamas, with 120,000 dead or wounded, many of them women and children, and 1.9 million Gazans displaced, appear shaky. At stake is the absence of good faith over the terms of a three-stage ceasefire deal to which Israel and Hamas have reportedly agreed after painstaking indirect negotiations by Qatar and the United States (US), owing to the deep mutual distrust. As things stand, the Israeli Cabinet has delayed a final signoff, which was due on Thursday. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is deeply unpopular in Israel, has since stated that the Cabinet will not meet until Hamas backs down on what he claims are “last-minute concessions”. Mr Netanyahu’s reluctance to agree to a ceasefire is rooted in domestic political compulsions.

 

Heading a government in coalition with hardline right-wing parties since 2022, his continuance in power hinges on prolonging the conflict with Hamas, which his government had vowed to destroy after the latter’s surprise attack on Israeli citizens in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage. The fact that Israel launched an attack on Gaza within hours of the ceasefire accord, killing more than 70 people, is also unlikely to build confidence that the terms of the accord will be honoured. 

The ceasefire is expected to come into effect on Sunday. It has been greeted with relief not just by the Palestinians, who had anticipated little advantage from an incoming Trump presidency, but also by Iran, the proxy player in this war via its Lebanon-based group Hezbollah. Although the details are yet to be announced, the broad contours of the deal include an exchange of hostages, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the unrestricted flow of aid to rebuild Gaza, and the return of displaced Palestinians. Hamas is still reportedly holding 94 of them. In return, Israel is expected to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been in jail for over a decade. The troop withdrawal and prisoner exchanges will comprise the first two stages of the deal and the third would comprise the reconstruction of Gaza. The deal is spread over 84 days but that is just one aspect of the many unanswered questions involved. 

For one, Israel is to maintain a presence in a buffer zone in Gaza during the first stage of the ceasefire. The continuing presence of the Israeli defence forces in Palestinian territory is unlikely to promote trust ahead of prisoner exchanges. For another, the complexity of the deal makes the ceasefire somewhat fragile so that any small incident could spark a resumption of hostilities. The Israeli side has complained that Hamas’ commitments on hostage releases are opaque. Equally, the ceasefire does not fully address Palestinian concerns. Since 2023, the Israelis have attacked and displaced hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank after the October 2023 Hamas attack. Without some assurances of Palestinian security in this area, a ceasefire is unlikely to hold. In this long and dispiriting conflict, where millions have been displaced from their homeland, history suggests that ceasefires have proven temporary. Hopefully, this time it will be different.