Incoherent Ceasefire Deal in Gaza Guaranteed to Fail

After fifteen months of brutal military hostilities in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Israel finally announced their acceptance of a multi-phased and gradual ceasefire, including a hostage/prisoner exchange deal. The conflict included acts deemed by the International Criminal Court as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Various organizations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine called Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide. The war has killed more than 47,000 Gazans, injured 110,000 others, and rendered the Strip a destroyed wasteland.

The agreement, whose implementation began on the morning of January 19, 2025, was not a total surprise, even though it has eluded the two adversaries for the past four hundred and seventy days of intense fighting. Indeed, the pursuit of a negotiated arrangement by key stakeholders in the conflict actually began shortly after the war broke out on October 7, 2023. International media coverage of this war of vengeance has also been predicting for eight months that a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal is close to fruition.

Finally, on January 15, 2025, the three mediating parties, namely the United States, Qatar, and the Arab Republic of Egypt confirmed in a joint statement that a deal between Hamas and Israel was reached. The deal was confirmed two days later by a conflicted Israeli government. So, is peace suddenly on the verge of breaking out between Israel and Hamas after more than 15 months of unprecedented brutal bloodletting? Or as NBC News asked, what changed since the Gaza ceasefire deal was rejected months before?

The brutal answer to this important question came from a surprising but well-informed and well-qualified source. Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who served as host mediator since the beginning of this war, referred to the recently approved deal as “basically 13 months of a waste of negotiating the details” of the same framework as agreed in December 2023. Nitpicking and last-minute retractions particularly by the divided and hesitant Netanyahu government have made it difficult to trust and rely on these overly optimistic announcements and media speculations.

Frankly, expressing optimism about the ceasefire deal is quite difficult for most observers, including this writer. After all, we have seen this movie before. Why would this particular attempt succeed after similar attempts failed over the past eight months alone?

Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted until the last minute that a deal has not been reached as final details were still being sorted out. As expected in Washington, the Israeli security cabinet proceeded to vote in support of the proposed deal on January 17, followed quickly by the full Israeli Cabinet’s voting 24 to 8 in favor of the ceasefire deal. The opposition included members of the ultranationalist Party Otzma Yehudit of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Religious Zionism Party of Bezalel Smotrich, and several members of Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Since that vote, Ben-Gvir and his party’s two other ministers have resigned from Israel’s coalition government.

The ceasefire deal, announced at the White House by President Joe Biden on January 15, has not been fully released to the public at large; however, operative phrases of the draft have been circulated by Reuters and other media outlets. As President Biden admitted, it is a similar framework to that proposed by his administration eight months earlier.

A few key facts are worth emphasizing: First and foremost, the highly touted draft deal is not new. It is a different rendition of the same proposal circulated by mediating parties, including the United States, back on May 31, 2024. Second, the deal is partial, multi-phased and gradual in nature, fails to solve fundamental issues separating Israelis and Palestinians, and is void of serious guarantees to proceed after the first phase. Third, the diplomatic efforts to rush the process have nothing to do with a genuine conviction or epiphany by the international community, particularly by the United States, to effect peace in the region. Instead, it seems determined to create a peace mirage to mostly satisfy political agendas and public relations needs by the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration. In this respect, the January 20th deadline was an American-driven target date and not a Palestinian or an Israeli one.

With that said, many of us concerned about the genocidal war still unfolding in Gaza, would gladly welcome a genuine ceasefire deal if that arrangement were guaranteed to deliver the following objectives highlighted by the mediators:

  1. The deal will indeed end the genocidal bloodletting still unfolding in the Gaza Strip by producing an enforceable, sustainable, or long-term ceasefire. There are no solid commitments within the agreed provisions to transition to a permanent ceasefire. Indeed, Israel proceeded to escalate its military attacks on Gaza targets the day before the ceasefire announcement was made resulting in over 100 Palestinians killed and more than 260 injured, according to Al-Jazeera.
  2. It actually leads to the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and political prisoners without delay and without legal schemes, including the prompt rearrest of those released earlier. Israel has in the past transformed the prisoners release arrangements into a revolving door policy by quickly rearresting those released.
  3. It leads to a total Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, not redeployment or repositioning of troops from populated centers, as indicated by Israeli and US officials, to facilitate future incursions at will.
  4. It will allow the almost two million displaced Gazans to return once and for all to their homes and resume a measure of normalcy in their daily lives. That will require serious commitments by Israel and the United States to facilitate and participate in a massive reconstruction effort needed to allow the displaced to return to their mostly demolished homes.
  5. As United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council on January 20, 2025, the parties must ensure a significant “scaling up” of life-saving humanitarian deliveries to the needy civilians in Gaza. The estimated 915 trucks that entered the Gaza Strip on Monday, January 20, must be sustained indefinitely and distributed fairly and safely to their recipient communities to overcome the previous challenges faced in this regard.
  6. The partial draft released last week also postpones substantive issues to subsequent phases in the process, thus leaving the future governance of Gaza too vague for comfort. Frankly, despite its approval by both sides, the agreement is predisposed to be short-lived and subject to further conflicts in the near future unless it leads sooner than later to a negotiated settlement capable of producing successful conflict resolution.

The views expressed in this publication are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors. 

Featured image credit: Shutterstock/Anas Mohammed