Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians of Gaza has now entered its sixteenth month. Despite the fact that outgoing President Joe Biden has been telling the public since May that a ceasefire was on the horizon, he and his administration have enabled a sustained campaign of diplomatic sabotage by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has continued its intense bombing attacks against the Gaza Strip and the civilian death toll has soared. By the most conservative estimates available—those provided by the health authorities in Gaza—more than 46,000 Palestinians have been confirmed dead, almost 18,000 of them children. Some 1,600 Palestinian families have been entirely erased from existence. Israel has laid siege to the few remaining hospitals in the strip, repeatedly attacked camps for internally displaced people, and has overseen a blockade of basic food and goods into large parts of Gaza. Children have frozen to death, and diseases, including hepatitis, have spread. Netanyahu and his inner circle have vowed to continue the war until they achieve what they have described as total victory and there are indications that Israel intends to annex at least parts of the Gaza Strip. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spent months gaslighting the public, casting blame exclusively on Hamas for failing to agree to an exchange of prisoners and a cessation of the war.
After his victory in the 2024 election, Donald Trump made clear that he wants a deal to release Israeli and international captives held in Gaza prior to his inauguration on January 20. Trump’s public posture has added urgency to what had become a diplomatic process surviving on the weakest of life support systems. The president-elect’s position on the Gaza war is largely in sync with that of Biden’s; Trump’s nominees for key national security positions and U.S. ambassador to Israel are a kettle of pro-Israel hawks, some of whom have openly declared there is no such thing as a Palestinian and no such place as the West Bank. At the same time, Trump clearly wants to proclaim a victory by securing the release of hostages as he resumes office in Washington, D.C.
Hamas agreed to a proposal endorsed by President Biden in May, but Netanyahu destroyed it by adding new demands after the framework was finalized. Drop Site News reviewed internal documents from the negotiations showing that on July 2 Hamas formally informed international mediators that it had accepted the framework, which Hamas said it was told had been amended by the U.S. and approved by Israel on June 24. Israel then proceeded to go on an assassination spree in the region, including killing Hamas’s political leader and top negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, effectively ending the diplomatic process.
Since Trump’s election in November, Hamas has directed its public statements not at Biden but at Trump. On Wednesday, a senior Hamas official told me, “We believe we can reach an agreement immediately if Netanyahu and his government stop their stalling and obstructing the deal.” He added, “We look forward to President Trump and his team exerting pressure on Netanyahu and his government to move forward with the deal before his inauguration.” Since Trump’s victory, international mediators from Egypt and Qatar have been meeting with Hamas, U.S., and Israeli officials and mediators have slowly projected a sense of cautious optimism that some form of an agreement was achievable.
By all accounts, the deal currently being discussed is almost identical to the framework Hamas agreed to last summer. The plan has three phases, the first of which would include the release of a category of captives held in Gaza designated as “humanitarian”—children, women, the elderly, and the sick—in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails and prisons. The next two phases envision an exchange of more captives, including Israeli soldiers and high-value Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, an official end to the war, and a multiyear plan for reconstruction.
While Israeli negotiators have engaged in these discussions and may sign a deal, Netanyahu has made clear he wants to ensure that Israel can resume its full military assault whenever it decides to do so. Prominent Israeli politicians continue to agitate for an indefinite occupation of Gaza as well as the building of settlements, sentiments that will hover over any purported deal. Hamas insists that any deal must include a clear path to an eventual full withdrawal of Israeli forces. Trump has threatened that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if the captives held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip are not returned before he is sworn in.
This morning, I spoke to Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian writer and journalist from Gaza who has been doing in-depth reporting on the negotiations for a ceasefire and exchange of captives. His most recent piece for the Center for International Policy is titled “The Biden Administration’s False History of Ceasefire Negotiations.”
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Thumbnail: Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on January 7, 2025. Image via Getty.
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