A Gaza Deal Closed, but No Closure

Israel and Hamas have reached a hostage-release and cease-fire agreement, offering a measure of relief and hope to the region. But the deal brings no certain closure to the catastrophic Gaza war. It does not guarantee an end to the fighting, a full release of the Israeli hostages, or a lasting political solution for Gaza.

For Israelis, joy at the return of some of the hostages is tempered by trepidation about the fate of the rest. The deal provides for a six-week cease-fire, during which 33 Israeli hostages will come home—some alive, some for burial—in exchange for the release of a much larger number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. A second stage of negotiations will then begin, to include the return of the remaining 65 hostages in Gaza and a lasting cease-fire. The success of those talks is just one of the questions the current deal leaves open.

Another is why the agreement wasn’t reached months ago. The framework appears to be the same one—“but for a few small nuances,” the Israeli ex–cabinet minister and former general Gadi Eisenkot said in a radio interview yesterday—that President Joe Biden presented last spring. Had both parties agreed to these terms then, thousands of Gazans might still be alive, and the recent destruction in the northern Gaza Strip could have been averted. At least eight Israeli hostages—including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the best-known—might have survived, along with more than 100 Israeli soldiers.

So why was the agreement reached only now? The most significant development in recent days appears to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new urgency. This week, unlike in May, he pressed the leaders of his coalition’s two resistant, far-right parties to accept a hostage agreement. One new element is Donald Trump. The president-elect demanded a hostage deal before his inauguration, promising that there would be “hell to pay” otherwise. He sent his own envoy, Steven Witkoff, to Qatar, where the indirect negotiations were taking place. Witkoff went from Qatar to Israel on Saturday and insisted on having a meeting with the prime minister on the afternoon of the Jewish sabbath—a violation of Israeli protocol rudely designed to remind Netanyahu who was the vassal and who was the suzerain.

Israeli government and military sources have tried to explain the timing of the deal to national media outlets by pointing to the death of Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar in October; the defeats suffered by its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah; and the devastation of northern Gaza. But the purpose of this account largely appears to be presenting the agreement as the fruit of Israel’s military success—rather than a sharp change of course under pressure. In reality, Hamas managed to sustain its war of attrition despite being weakened.

[Read: Sinwar’s death changes nothing]

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s willingness to pursue a deal is a major reversal. Last summer, he reportedly stymied progress toward a cease-fire by raising new conditions, which infuriated his then–defense minister, Yoav Gallant. (The dispute was one reason Netanyahu dismissed Gallant in November.)

The Israeli right, which assumed that Trump’s bluster was aimed only at Hamas, is in shock. One clue as to what Trump may have threatened—or promised—the prime minister has come from leaks about Netanyahu’s talks with his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. The leader of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, Smotrich is a prominent patron of West Bank settlement. In a meeting between the two on Sunday, Netanyahu reportedly told Smotrich that “we must not harm relations with the Trump administration,” and explained that Trump would help with the government’s designs for “Judea and Samaria”—apparently referring to plans to expand West Bank settlement construction.

That promise did not satisfy Smotrich’s party. After a meeting of its Knesset members today, the party demanded a commitment from Netanyahu that he resume the war “after completion of the first stage of the deal.” This, it said, was “a condition for the party remaining in the [ruling] coalition and the government.” As of this writing, Netanyahu has not responded.

While the ultimatum is unlikely to scuttle the deal immediately, it underlines a central question: whether the first stage will lead to an agreement on the next one and a lasting cease-fire. The previous agreement, in November 2023, furnished only a pause. This one could be similar—a six-week hiatus, after which the fighting and destruction resume, while the rest of the hostages remain in Gaza.

A more lasting settlement would require political arrangements in Gaza that Netanyahu has so far studiously avoided discussing. Gaza needs a new Palestinian governing authority, with its own forces or foreign troops capable of keeping the peace. Without that, Hamas will almost certainly resume control in the shattered territory after Israeli troops pull out—and this war will have been just one particularly destructive round of fighting, but not the last. Israel should have been working with the United States, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to create the framework for a new government in Gaza from the very beginning of this conflict. Instead, by failing to define a policy for Gaza’s future, the Netanyahu government turned the war into a highway to nowhere.

[Yair Rosenberg: Trump made the Gaza cease-fire happen]

Netanyahu’s far-right partners have pledged to reverse the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and resume Israeli settlement there. Netanyahu has not endorsed that goal, but he has opposed any governing role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, despite the fact that foreign partners consider its inclusion essential. Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized as much in a speech on Tuesday.

For the second stage of the deal to succeed—for the war to end and for the remaining hostages to come home—both Hamas and the Israeli government will have to face the complex problem of Gaza’s future. Anyone who wants an end to the agony of the past 15 months must conjure up at least a quarter measure of hope. But best to hold off on any celebrations until a final deal is reached.