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A Few Comments on the Gaza Agreement
Many details haven't been spelled out, leaving much room for uncertainty about the future
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Let me begin by acknowledging the biggest achievement of the Gaza deal credited to Trump, and rightly so: ending the war, at least for now.
For the Palestinians in particular, this is a godsend. Some 67,000 of them have met violent deaths but the count is reckoned to be much higher if deaths from other war-related causes and bodies still buried beneath the rubble (more than 50 million tons) are taken into account. Still, Gazans are rejoicing over the ceasefire, and rightly so.
Plus, humanitarian aid trucks will start rolling into Gaza: the estimates range from 400-600 per day. This, too, is a huge change for the better given the deaths from starvation in Gaza, as well as the various ailments caused by malnourishment.
And hospitals will begin getting the supplies they need to care for the sick, the wounded, pregnant women, and premature-born babies (many have spotted on hospital hallways, sharing oxygen masks). Conditions in hospitals—the few that still remain standing—are horrendous.
But here’s what’s missing from the deal:
—Trump said Israel will redeploy its forces to the first agreed upon line. But that will still leave the IDF holding more than half of Gaza. Israel has not committed to fully leaving the territory and will try to remain in areas beyond the buffer zone, the width of which Trump’s plan does not specify.
—Trump’s 20-point plan is vague in the extreme: it is not supplemented by detailed maps, timelines for the IDF’s withdrawal, and monitoring and enforcement provisions.
—There have been no specific agreements reached on Hamas’s demilitarization, and this aspect of the Trump plan was not even mentioned by Hamas in the statement it issued after this deal was reached. Hamas obviously fears that it will be left naked if it disarms and the IDF refuses to leave Gaza. Moreover, Hamas does not believe that it was defeated; it believes that Netanyahu, who vowed to destroy it, was forced to reach an accommodation with it.
—Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said yesterday that Israel will not depart from Gaza absent the full disarmament of Hamas (and presumably other armed groups), and no Israeli leader has promised a full IDF withdrawal even if that condition is met.
—This raises the question of who will break this logjam and how.
—Gaza’s postwar security (which Gazans as well as Israelis have a stake in) will supposedly be guaranteed by an International Security Force (ISF) comprised of troops from regional countries. But what will be the nature and scope of the ISF’s authority, and how exactly will the ISF enforce it, especially if Israel resumes military operations? Does Israel even want such a force in Gaza, where it has been the dominant external power for decades, all but unchecked by another state or organization?
—How exactly will Trump’s “Peace Board” govern Gaza, and how will the non-Hamas interim government of Gaza be able to ensure that it has a genuine, as opposed to token, role in what this Board decides so that Gaza’s new rulers don’t look like quislings, which is how many in the West Bank see the Palestinian Authority?
Bottom line: Trump and Netanyahu, who designed the 20-point plan, focused on getting the hostages back in a trade for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and some 1,700 Gazans Israel detained after the October 7 attack and ending the war.
But note that Israel has yet to approve the list of the Palestinian political prisoners Hamas wants released and has already ruled out freeing the most important ones, above all Marwan Barghouti.
The two parties have agreed on a ceasefire, but if Israel were to resume the war will really Trump take the tough measures that will be required to stop IDF operations? Hamas doubts they will and the historical record shows that no president has exerted truly serious pressure on Israel.
So we have a ceasefire, but can we be certain that it’s permanent and that unresolved issues will in fact be resolved?
Maybe yes, maybe no—but that’s my point.