Bottom Line Up Front:
* President Trump announced Wednesday that a deal for the release of all remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza has been reached, paving the way for an end to the war.
* The timing of the release of the hostages and of Palestinian prisoners remains uncertain, but Trump seeks to time the exchange with his visit to the region to formally seal the agreement.
* Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Hamas must disarm in return for a full Israeli withdrawal, but Hamas hardliners in Gaza object to doing so, viewing it as an unacceptable surrender.
* If, in subsequent talks, Hamas refuses to disarm, it is difficult to envision a permanent end to the Gaza conflict.
Late yesterday evening, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas “have both signed off on the first Phase One of our Peace Plan.” Phase One of the Trump 20 Point Plan (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt — talks which were joined Wednesday by Trump’s top Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. Trump recently brought on Kushner to incorporate his work on an Israeli-Palestinian peace into the Gaza talks, of which he conducted during the Trump’s first term and did not come to fruition.
Left unclear from the announcement of the deal is the timing of the hostage release, as well as its scope. Trump has indicated he likely would travel to Egypt this coming weekend to preside over a signing of the initial deal, and experts indicated Trump would prefer that the Israeli hostages be released prior to, or at the very least, upon his arrival. Hamas leaders have indicated they will need at least 10 days to locate the bodies of dead hostages (believed to be 28 out of the 48 total hostages) in order to return them to Israel along with those living, but the release of those living is expected to begin within 72 hours of the Wednesday announcement of an agreement. Israel and Hamas reportedly have exchanged names of the hostages and prisoners to be released by each side. Coinciding with the hostage release, Israel is expected to pull back to the lines it held in August, before it began its all-out assault on Gaza City. The extent of Israel’s ultimate withdrawal will be discussed in
further negotiations on a final Gaza settlement. Israel had previously suspended its military operation (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
U.S. officials hailed the announcement as an end to the Gaza conflict, anticipating that the subsequent phases of the Trump plan, which outline security and governance arrangements for post-war Gaza, will be settled in further talks. The U.S. and regional optimism is based, in part, on assessments that Hamas will lose its remaining leverage once it releases the remaining hostages, and the threat of an unrestrained Israeli advance on remaining Hamas strongholds (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
In its announcement accepting the Trump peace plan on Friday, Hamas had already confirmed that the reports put forward by Arab mediators that the group is willing to abandon a role in governing postwar Gaza (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
“de-radicalize” Gaza, as a prelude to eventually returning to power in Gaza. But, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not indicated full support for this provision — a continuation of his resistance to U.S. advice over the past two years that he outline a “day after” plan centered on a PA return to Gaza. Netanyahu and his hardline coalition partners perceive PA rule in Gaza as furthering the Palestinian goal of establishing an independent state — an outcome that has generated substantial opposition in Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack.
Neither Trump’s Wednesday announcement nor any comments by any official mediators have indicated the two sides are close to an agreement on a key point — Hamas’ disarmament and the departure of its hardline militia members from Gaza. Without an agreement that Hamas disarms (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
However, Hamas negotiators in Egypt do not appear to have agreed to the group’s disarmament. A New York Times report on Tuesday suggested the group might agree to “partially disarm” — giving up some, but not all, of their weapons — if Trump can guarantee Israel would not resume its attack on Hamas strongholds. Still, Hamas commanders inside Gaza view an agreement to disarm as an unacceptable “surrender” that would end Hamas’ ambition to lead the Palestinian national movement toward a policy of armed resistance and opposition to final status negotiations with Israel.
If Hamas refuses to cede all of its arsenal, the pathway to implementing the postwar security arrangements of the Trump plan becomes complicated. U.S. and regional mediators might argue that the Trump plan’s proposed “International Stabilization Force” (ISF) — a peacekeeping unit (https://thesoufancenter.org/i
directed at Israel over unintended Gaza civilian deaths. Whether Trump’s Wednesday announcement that an end to the Gaza war is at hand is accurate or premature will be determined under challenging negotiations in the coming days.