ON JANUARY 17, 2025, after more than 15 months of fighting, the Israeli government approved the long-awaited ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. On January 19, three women―24-year-old Romi Gonen, 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher and 28-year-old Emily Damari―finally arrived home in Israel.
Hamas and its allies still hold 94 people. At least 34 of them are dead, according to the Israeli government, though the actual number is expected to be higher. All but 10 of the 94 hostages are Israeli or dual citizens, while eight are from Thailand and one each from Nepal and Tanzania.
The deal constitutes three phases. The first phase, expected to last six weeks, will see a pause to the fighting in Gaza and release of 33 abductees from there. Humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip will also be ramped up. As part of phase one, 737 prisoners and security detainees will be released by Israel, in addition to 1,167 residents of the Gaza Strip who were not involved in the massacres of October 7, 2023. A majority will be released in the West Bank, but those with Israeli blood on their hands will be expelled abroad.
Negotiations for the second phase are to begin 16 days after the implementation of phase one, the goal being the release of all remaining hostages in exchange for additional Palestinian prisoners and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
The third phase would see the return of the bodies of hostages in exchange for a Gaza reconstruction plan spanning three to five years, supervised by international entities.
The Hamas condition to liberate all hostages only if Israeli forces leave the Gaza Strip represents an insurmountable political obstacle for Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and more so for the radical right-wing politicians, Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Otzma Yehudit Party, and Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party, who want to restart the fighting at any cost and even dream of occupying militarily the strip and implant new settlements there. The Israelis wanted all the hostages to be released immediately, but Netanyahu decided to do it in stages because he does not want to give out the signal that this will be the end of the war, which could trigger the fall of his government.
The agreement supplements the Israeli proposal for a deal with Hamas, publicly presented by US president Joe Biden on May 31, 2024. In his announcement of the deal on January 15, 2025, Biden specified: “This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May.” Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East and his close friend, confirmed this point. So, why did it take seven months to sign the agreement?
The mediation of Biden and Trump was decisive in the negotiations: Qatar, Hamas and Israel were forced to follow their line. It is probable that Netanyahu, who has a good sense of history, approved the plan to be implemented when Trump came to power as a political token. Tehran’s decision to release 52 American diplomats, held hostage in Iran for 444 days since November 1979, was negotiated by President Jimmy Carter, but the prisoners were released on the first day of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, on January 20, 1981.
Witkoff met Netanyahu and delivered a strong message: “It’s time for a ceasefire deal in Gaza. If you don’t want to work like this, everyone can just pack their bags and go home.” It was the last stroke that convinced the hesitant Israeli PM, under pressure by his radical coalition members and his political “base”.
Also, Witkoff most probably pressed the Qatari leaders, a strategic ally of the US, albeit a controversial one. Qatar hosts in the Al Udeid Air Base a forward headquarters of the United States Central Command and units of the United States Air Force. At the same time, it hosts and finances all the remaining Hamas political leadership, upon which it holds major leverage.
Under pressure by Qatar and Egypt, the two mediators, Hamas was deterred into more flexibility by the arrival of Trump to the presidency. With Gaza in ruins, demolished militarily, without the support of the weakened Hezbollah and Iran, and after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas preferred to make the deal now.
The full scope of the plan for a post-war Gaza is yet to be determined, including who would govern the territory. Israel has insisted that Hamas should not be involved in a post-war Gaza and has also opposed the involvement of the Palestinian Authority.
President Trump enters office with leverage. At the outset of his administration, key Israeli and Arab leaders alike will fear the cost of saying no to him. That might be precisely what is needed to fully end the war in Gaza.
On January 26, Trump, after a talk with King Abdullah II of Jordan, told reporters that he had alerted the latter that he would like Jordan to “take people” from Gaza. He said that he would also be suggesting the same to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
In its response to Trump’s suggestion, Egypt has rejected any transfer of Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said that his country’s opposition to what Trump suggested was “firm and unwavering”.
It is not surprising why Trump’s astonishing proposal is unacceptable to Egypt―a country with almost 120 million people, and in a dire economic situation―or to Jordan, where more than half the population is of Palestinian origin, besides hosting more than a million Syrian refugees.
On the wider Middle East arena, beyond peace in Gaza, Trump also wants peace in Lebanon, where a pro-Western president was finally elected, and a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would complement his success in achieving the Abraham Accords of September 15, 2020. He will then have to address the threat of Iran becoming a nuclear power, either by negotiating a more effective, strict, nuclear deal, or by supporting an Israeli military intervention against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
On January 23, Trump said that he hoped a deal over Iran’s nuclear programme would make it so that the United States did not have to support an Israeli attack on Iran. Trump said he would be meeting various “very high-level people” in the coming days to discuss the Iran dossier, signalling that a diplomatic solution was his first priority.
If Trump succeeds in the Middle East, it will strengthen his hand in the negotiation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and in the conflict with China.
Karmon is senior researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and lecturer at Reichman University, Herzlyia, Israel.