The politics of the Hamas-Israel truce plan

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel killing about 1,200 people, including more than 300 soldiers, and 252 people were taken as hostages. It is believed that 133 are still in captivity. The attack has prompted an unprecedented and massive military retaliation from Israeli forces resulting in the nearly eight-month Israeli war in Gaza where more than 34,844 Palestinians have been killed and 78,404—the vast majority women and children—have been wounded. The tally includes at least 28 deaths on May 1, 2024. Israel estimates 263 soldiers have been killed and 1,592 wounded since the launch of its military operation in Gaza. The military offensive has devastated much of the coastal enclave and caused a humanitarian crisis.

On May 7, 2024, Israel seized the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, forcing its closure. This facility was the main entry point for food, medicine, and other supplies essential for the survival of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians. The seizure came despite weeks of calls that the US, other nations, and international bodies hoped would deter a big offensive in the Rafah area, which Israel says is Hamas’s last stronghold. Meanwhile, America’s rift with Israel is widening over the issue of the Rafah attack: the Biden administration’s “intensive public and private campaign to forestall Israel’s assault on Rafah has become its toughest test to date with its Middle East ally”. President Biden, on May 6, 2024, warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against a full-scale assault on Rafah city.

The leaders’ call occurred before Hamas announced that they had accepted a ceasefire proposal. Biden told Netanyahu he still believes reaching a ceasefire with Hamas is the best way to protect the lives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Biden also met King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House on May 6, 2024, to discuss the war and hostage talks. Jordan’s embassy in Washington said in a posting on the social media site X following the leaders’ meeting that Abdullah warned that an Israeli operation on Rafah “threatens to lead to a new massacre.” Today, the US has signaled “optimism” for the Gaza cease-fire as Israel moves into Rafah, with the ceasefire negotiations taking place in Cairo. Delegations from Hamas, Israel, the US, Egypt, and Qatarare are participating in the talks beginning on May 7, 2024 and all parties have reacted positively to the resumption of negotiations. The US believes the remaining differences between Israel and Hamas can be bridged in negotiations over the latest ceasefire proposal, as talks resumed in Cairo on May 8, 2024.

Meanwhile, International efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel continue: on May 8, 2024, Israel said that it “sees no sign of a breakthrough in Egyptian-mediated talks on a truce with Hamas. Notwithstanding Israel’s stance and official doubts, several very recent developments indicate a breakthrough in a ceasefire in Gaza is yet achievable. Most importantly, the very recent Israeli attack on eastern Rafah did not appear to be the start of the full-scale invasion of the city that Israel has repeatedly promised. Another key development is the seemingly slight shift in the policy of the Biden administration which had been giving blind support to Israel all through the Gaza war. Meanwhile, there is now a serious rift over the major Rafah offensive between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government. During the first week of May, the US had paused a bomb shipment to Israel over concerns whether they were going ahead with a major ground operation in Rafah, southern Gaza. This is “a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the war.”

Egypt has proposed to Hamas a comprehensive framework for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between them and Israel. The first stage of the proposed agreement entails a 40-day temporary ceasefire, with the possibility of an extension, and releasing all civilian Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Stage two is the matter of conclusion of prisoner exchange and reconstruction efforts. The third and final stage of the agreement involves completing the reconstruction process and exchanging the bodies of individuals killed during the conflict. The proposed agreement identifies Qatar, Egypt, and the United States as guarantors responsible for overseeing the implementation of the ceasefire, prisoner exchange, and reconstruction efforts outlined in the agreement. The proposal is certainly doable, and it is now primarily the responsibility of the US to get it somehow approved by Israel, and Hamas will surely follow. France and Saudi Arabia need to get involved, as they have some leverage in the whole matter of operationalizing the Hamas-Israel agreement. At least, they can help in footing the bill for the reconstruction of Gaza. However, doubts over the fate of a Gaza truce plan that, as the week began, had raised hopes of an end to nearly seven months of war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants have surfaced.

Critics in Israel have accused Netanyahu of seeking to prolong the war. The coalition he leads includes religious and ultra-nationalist parties which fiercely oppose any end to hostilities. A deal might lead these allies to quit the governing alliance, threatening Netanyahu’s grip on power. Global public opinion matters, especially global youth, and will certainly shape politics in some manner, as Israel is already feeling the growing outside public pressure and has made a concerted effort in recent days to show it's stepping up aid distribution in Gaza. There's pressure for a cease-fire, too, from college campuses across the US, which is Israel's most important ally and benefactor, and also parallel protests taking shape on European university campuses. The anti-war demonstrations have not gone unnoticed by displaced Palestinian students in Rafah, whose education came to an abrupt halt on October 7.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians continue to suffer the Israeli brutal offensives. The White House isn’t doing enough to stop Israel from destroying what remains of Gaza. Their plans to eliminate Hamas must be scuttled by the Biden administration since Hamas is much more than a military force: it is an idea of resistance in the popular Arab mind that cannot be ended now. Global public opinion has turned against Israel and is now calling for an end to the Gaza war. World leadership must now move on to a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict and only the US can force Israel to move in that direction, but the Biden administration is still playing politics with the whole Palestinian-Israeli conflict issue. That is most tragic and unfortunate but remains a hard reality, nonetheless.

However, given the domestic pressure on the Biden administration because of the massive ongoing student demonstrations in the US may yet become enough significant political pressure to somehow turn the tide and affect the outcome of the Gaza war situation. The new globalist student movement is a product of new global political forces unleashed by global media, especially social media, 24/7 news, and global networking as a byproduct of the Internet's global expansion, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before. The Biden and the Netanyahu administrations are clueless about the power of this new phenomenon. They are grounded in old knowledge and decadent brick-and-mortar institutions and think-tanks feeding them constantly. They will soon learn at their peril. The world is changing right before our eyes, and an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal may indeed happen, sooner than later.