Yesterday, in an unexpected move, and one that doubtless shook Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said that Israel “must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza.” Trump’s demand came after Hamas’s written response to his twenty-point plan of Monday. Trump insisted Hamas had to accept in three or four days, adding that he’d fully back Israel’s efforts to crush Hamas if it were to reject it.
Now, taking to his Truth Social platform, Trump has declared that Hamas’s response showed that it was “ready for a lasting PEACE.” The President sees this turn of events as an opportunity to ensure the return of the hostages held in Gaza (48 in all, with 28 assumed to have died in captivity), end the war, increase his chances for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and clear the way for the massive economic development plan he has in mind for Gaza—at a time when he and his family have substantially expanded their business dealings in the Middle East.
The Israeli public desperately wants the hostages released, and it’s safe to assume that the people of Gaza urgently want the war to end, given the enormous death, destruction, and dislocation it has caused.
But it may be premature to predict peace.
In its reply, Hamas agreed to two of the Trump plan’s stipulations: releasing all hostages and handing over the governance of Gaza to a technocratic group not connected to the movement.
Yet neither concession was wholly new. Hamas had agreed to release the hostages in previous agreements (see here and here) reached with Israel—but in phases and in exchange for Israel’s freeing of Palestinian prisoners from its jails, with the ratio of hostages released to prisoners freed skewed substantially in favor of the latter. What’s new is that it is now willing to hand over the hostages in one go (again as part of a lopsided prisoner release). This is no small matter. Hamas’s willingness to relinquish political power is also not new.
So far so good—now to the complications. Each pertains to Hamas’s punting on important items in the Trump plan, which it wants to finalize in discussions in which it will participate, likely through the key Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar.
In its statement Hamas agreed to hand back the hostages—but “provided that appropriate field conditions are secured for the implementation of the exchange process.” This may be a roundabout way of saying that the hostage release must be linked to the IDF’s withdrawal from territory in Gaza that it now controls, in particular the Philadelphi Corridor just north of the Rafah crossing point on Gaza’s border with Egypt. Israel’s rationale for maintaining a military presence there is that it needs to be able to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza.
Hamas’s concern is that if it releases all the hostages at once, it would be left with no leverage and that Israel might then hold on to areas it occupies in Gaza. Hamas is likely to seek an American-guaranteed commitment by Israel for a full IDF withdrawal in exchange for the handover of the hostages.
The Trump plan does stipulate that the IDF will withdraw “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF [the International Security Force that will handle security in Gaza], the guarantors, and the United States.” Trump’s plan does propose that the IDF will “progressively hand over territory it occupies” to the ISF until Israeli troops “are withdrawn fully from Gaza.”
But this formulation still gives Israel a lot of leeway. Plus, the IDF’s departure isn’t guaranteed by the U.S. or any other country. By contrast, Trump’s plan requires that “regional partners” guarantee that Hamas will implement all parts of the President’s plan.
That’s not the only problem related to the release of the hostages. Hamas’s “field conditions” may also refer to the depth of the buffer zone Israel insists on maintaining along Gaza’s perimeter. Naturally, Israel will want the zone to push deeper into Gaza than Hamas would find acceptable. Hamas would also seek a timeline for Israel’s withdrawal from the buffer zones, but Israel would like any withdrawal to be at a pace and timing of its choosing. Trump’s plan contains no schedule or guarantees related to the IDF’s departure from the buffer zones.
Trump’s plan also requires Hamas to “decommission” its armaments and agree to the destruction of all its weapons-building facilities and its subterranean tunnel network. In its response to Trump, Hamas makes no reference to this point. Hamas no doubt fears that if it surrenders its arms and destroys all of its military infrastructure, it will have no means with which to resist if Israel resumes the war. Hamas will therefore likely insist on linking this part of the Trump plan to another US-backed guarantee, this one designed to close off Israel’s option to restart the war.
Yet another obstacle to peace is that while Hamas is the main resistance movement in Gaza, it’s not the only one. Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian Resistance Front are also fighting the IDF. Not only might they be holding some hostages, something Hamas has alluded to, one or both may reject Trump’s plan. The question of just how much influence Hamas has over these two groups remains murky, as does the question of how much consensus exists within Hamas’s military wing and the extent to which the movement’s political leaders, who are outside of Gaza, and its military commanders inside the territory see eye to eye on the Trump plan.
Hamas is no doubt under tremendous pressure. Netanyahu is determined to continue the war if there’s no agreement and the IDF has fearsome firepower. Moreover, Trump’s plan has gained considerable international support, including from key Muslim countries: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
But it’s important to keep in mind that in their September 29 joint statement on the Trump plan, these countries called for a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza as well as “a path for a just peace based on a two-state solution,” with Gaza “fully integrated with the West Bank.” Netanyahu has not committed to a full IDF exit from Gaza or to a Palestinian state of any kind, let alone one that unites Gaza and the West Bank. The Trump plan makes only a vague, perfunctory reference to a Palestinian state. Plus, at the Monday press conference Netanyahu thanked the President for understanding Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood—something that Trump, who spoke first, had already said he sympathized with.
It’s unlikely that Hamas will seize on the joint statement and insist that a provision for statehood be inserted into the agreement, but if it does, that will create yet another obstacle to peace.
Hamas is under immense political and military pressure to end its resistance. Still, it’s also evidently not of a mind to swallow whole a plan that it had no role in producing. For his part, after Trump called on Israel to cease military operations, Netanyahu said that he would cooperate with Trump to end the war but “in accordance with the principles Israel has established.” Notably absent from the Prime Minister’s response to Trump’s demand to end the war was any mention of an immediate ceasefire.
These principles Netanyahu refers to are spelled out in Trump’s plan, which the Prime Minister helped to produce, with Hamas playing no role. They give the Netanyahu just about everything he wanted and don’t require a single firm commitment from him.
In short, Netanyahu’s message to Hamas is that it must accept Trump’s plan as is, or prepare to continue the war. Yet the Prime Minister seemed upbeat on Saturday evening, saying that Israel was “on the brink of a great achievement” and that he anticipated announcing soon that the hostage would be released. Though the tempo of the IDF’s offensive may have slowed since Trump called for an end to its attacks, at least 30 Palestinians have nevertheless been killed by Israeli strikes since then.
So that’s where things stand. The prospects for peace look more promising than they have since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack inside Israel. But there are still major unresolved disputes on the conditions needed for peace—and too much uncertainty about how Hamas, Netanyahu, and Trump will act in the coming days.
This much we can be sure of: the people of Gaza desperately want the war to end. Alas, of all the parties involved in this conflict, they have the least influence.