EDITORIAL: Israel and Hamas are reported to have reached a ceasefire agreement at last. According to press reports, final draft of a ceasefire deal hammered out at talks in Doha by US and Israeli officials and Hamas representatives achieved a breakthrough on Monday midnight.
The US, Qatar, and Egypt had been working for more than year on talks without any success. What is different this time around is that along with the outgoing Biden administration officials present at the latest round of negotiations was Steve Witkoff whom President-elect Donald Trump nominated as his envoy to Israel.
Trump, of course, is no friend of the Palestinians. During his last presidency he had moved US embassy from Tel Aviv to East Jerusalem that Palestinians want as the capital of their elusive future state; also, he got some of the Arab states normalise relations with the Jewish state under the so-called Abraham Accords.
A few weeks ago, he had warned the Gaza Palestinians that after he takes office on January 20 “all hell will break out” — as though that was not happening already — if Hamas did not release Israeli hostages before then. Nevertheless, contrary to Joe Biden’s financial, military and diplomatic support to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza — in his farewell speech he flaunted Gaza and Ukraine wars as triumphs of the US-led world order — Trump seems to have no appetite for either war.
Not long after Prime Minister Netanyahu had claimed he had a “very friendly, warm” discussion with the president-elect about hostage negotiations and his Syria policy, Trump posted a video on his Truth Social platform sharing content of his conversation with economist Jeffry Sachs in which he calls Netanyahu a “deep, dark son of a bitch.”
The pressure he may have privately kept on has changed the atmosphere in Israel. As the current US ambassador to that country, Jack Lew, said while commenting on the ceasefire proposal, there is a broad support in Israel for a deal, and that Netanyahu, despite some resistance from his coalition government, believes he can push it through. He has no choice but to accept the deal on offer since America’s material and moral support he used to wage war on the hapless residents of Gaza will no longer be available in less than a week’s time.
Details of the proposed deal remain wrapped in secrecy except that it would be implemented in phases. In the first phases, said Lew, a group of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners would be released, followed by talks on the release of additional captives.
So far, the real sticking point has been the Hamas insistence that Israel pull out all of its forces from the besieged enclave. Some within that county have also been calling for the same, arguing that Israel had weakened Hamas to a significant extent. But Netanyahu had expansionist plans, cut short at least for the time being. Having endured 15 months of relentless bombings, people in Gaza wait for peace with a blend of hope and doubt.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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