The View From India | A ceasefire in Gaza is on the horizon Today World News

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Israel and Hamas are in the final stages of accepting a ceasefire in Gaza which will see the release of Israeli and foreign hostages as well as Palestinian prisoners and a gradual end of hostilities in the enclave. According to Arab officials involved in negotiations, both Israel and Hamas have accepted, in principle, terms of an agreement, but the final wording of the deal is still in the works. The deal is likely to be announced in a joint statement from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt, the countries that have been mediating between Israel and Hamas. The Biden administration has been pushing both sides to reach an agreement before its term expires next week. Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy of the incoming Donald Trump administration had also persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make some compromises for the deal. ‘The Trump aide did more to sway the Premier (Netanyahu) in a single sit down than outgoing President Joe Biden did all year,” reported Times of Israel, quoting two Arab officials.

The deal will be implemented in three phases. In the 42-day first phase, Hamas will release 33 hostages, most of them alive, for roughly 1,300 Palestinian security prisoners. Israel will also partially withdraw the IDF from Gaza, and allow the entry of about 600 trucks of humanitarian aid into the enclave every day. The IDF is expected to withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor, which separates northern Gaza from the south. But in the first phase, Israeli troops will remain in the Philadelphi Corridor in the south. On the 16th day of the first phase, discussions are expected to begin on the second phase. If the first phase is implemented as per plan, 65 hostages will still be in Hamas’s captivity and Israeli troops will still be there in Philadelphi and some buffer zones. In the second stage, Hamas will be required to release most of the remaining living hostages and both sides should declare a permanent end to the hostilities. The third phase will involve discussions on the ‘day after’.

This will be the most difficult phase because Hamas has demanded a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Israel’s declared objective has been the total decimation of Hamas, which it hasn’t achieved. On a more practical side, Israel doesn’t want to leave Hamas as a ruling or fighting force in Gaza. In 13 months of fighting, Israel has destroyed much of Hamas’s military infrastructure. But Hamas has evolved into an insurgency, its original avatar, and is still killing Israeli troops in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the American assessment was that Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost. This poses a dilemma for Israel. If it agrees to end the war and leave Gaza, Hamas would remain a militant insurgency. If Israel continues to stay in Gaza, there won’t be a lasting ceasefire agreement. But at this point, the focus of both sides is on the first two phases. Israel wants to get the hostages back and Hamas wants a reprieve from fighting. This increases the possibility for at least a temporary ceasefire deal. 

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