After months of indirect peace talks between Israel and Hamas, both sides have never been closer to reaching an agreement than they are now in Doha, capital of Qatar. This was expressed this Tuesday by the spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry. But no one wants to take anything for granted and all parties involved are striving to exercise extreme caution. As the hours progress, more details about the phases of the agreement emerge and internal criticism within the Israeli coalition government itself from its most ultra sector also emerges.
Several Israeli analysts rhetorically wondered why Netanyahu, who always spoke of the “total defeat” of Hamas, is now defending a plan that is basically the same one that the Administration of US President Joe Biden has been promoting for months. And almost all experts agreed that what has changed is the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House, whose inauguration is scheduled for next Monday. Trump set that date as the deadline to reach an agreement and everything seems to indicate that the message was not only captured by Hamas, but by its ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The question is whether he has incentives to sign it now or prefers to wait until next Monday. This could offer Trump the possibility of ensuring that, as soon as he took over the presidency of the United States, he has managed to pacify the Middle East.
Every last-minute breakthrough seems to be accompanied by obstacles. An unidentified Hamas source told Reuters on Tuesday that it has not yet delivered its response to the mediators because Israel has not presented maps of the withdrawal of its forces from Gaza. On the other hand, the same agency reported that the Islamist group Islamic Jihad, independent of Hamas and which also has an indefinite number of hostages in its possession within the Strip, reported that it had sent a delegation to Doha, to participate in the final touches of the ceasefire.
The peace agreement, similar to the one presented to the parties last May by the Biden Administration, is made up of three phases. In the first, Hamas would hand over 33 hostages among the hundred that the Palestinian organization and other Islamist groups have held in their possession since October 7, 2023. A third of those hostages are dead, but the families claim their bodies. If the agreement goes ahead, the first to leave the Strip would be women, minors, the sick, injured and those over 50 years of age. In exchange, Israel would begin the progressive withdrawal of its troops in northern Gaza and release 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of them with sentences of several decades to serve. The prisoners who participated in the October 7 massacre, where 1,200 Palestinians died and 251 were kidnapped, will not be able to benefit from that exchange.
This first phase is scheduled to last six weeks. And while it is being executed, starting on the 16th day of the signing, the details of the second phase would begin to be negotiated. The withdrawal of the army in several areas of the Strip, the return of the Gazans to northern Gaza and the handover of the remaining hostages, including the bodies of the dead, will then have to be resolved.The families of the captives who are not included in the group of the first delivery fear that the negotiations will be interrupted just when their loved ones have yet to be released. They also fear that Hamas will take advantage of the opportunity to regroup and the prisoner exchange negotiations will drag on. The third and final tranche of the pact will include long-term discussions about the new Administration that will govern the Strip.
Although optimistic voices resonate from the White House to Qatar, in Israel that optimism also comes mixed with criticism. The Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, published a video on the social network Religious Zionism Party, to join him and warn Netanyahu that they will leave the Government if he signs the agreement.
“Last year,” Ben Gvir noted, “thanks to our political power, we managed to prevent this agreement from being approved. “However, since then, other parties that support the agreement have joined the Government and we are no longer the decisive factor.” Ben Gvir alluded without mentioning the Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope party.
Ben Gvir’s movement is astute, because he does not threaten to abandon the Government alone, but instead delegates responsibility to the ultranationalist Smotrich. The latter already warned on Monday, also on social network X, that the agreement is “a catastrophe” for the country. However, despite harsh criticism, neither Smotrich nor Ben Gvir have left the Government.
