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The hours-long delay in implementing the Gaza ceasefire agreement is not a good omen for a deal that many fear could be doomed to failure as it moves through its challenging three phases.
While it is a truism that all negotiations to end conflicts rely on cautious trust building and are highly vulnerable to spoilers, the deal to end 15 months of fighting in Gaza that followed Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023 is more obviously fraught than most.
Analysts and observers have pointed out that the design of the agreement, constructed over three phases that require new negotiations to take place as the ceasefire goes forward, appears structured to invite multiple crises as it edges towards ever more difficult terrain.
Trust on both sides has been negligible at best.
Hamas, unsurprisingly given the public statements of senior Israeli figures (most recently by the foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar), is concerned Israel will seek to secure the return of the most vulnerable hostages, women, children and the ill and elderly, and then commence fighting again, perhaps at the time of the second phase.
That was reinforced on Sunday after Israel’s far right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, claimed Benjamin Netanyahu had assured him the war would continue. Against that, critics would point out, the Israeli prime minister has made and broken many promises over his career in pursuit of what is politically expedient.
Israel appears no more convinced of Hamas’s willingness to keep to the agreement, already claiming it has reneged on its commitments several times since the deal was signed last week, including on the morning the deal came into force.
While the agreement should survive any threatened collapse of Netanyahu’s government, having been voted on by the full cabinet, anyone following the far-right Jewish Power in quitting his government could trigger a potential Israeli crisis that would be consequential.
For Netanyahu, the problem, above all, has always been one of optics and how they impact on his political survival.
Having promised an unrealistic “total victory” over Hamas, what has come to pass is what many predicted at the very beginning of the war: Hamas in Gaza, while decimated, has thus far survived. By its own brutally cynical metrics it was all it ever had to do, not least because it seems that Hamas’s surviving leadership appears more invested in the ceasefire deal than Netanyahu.
That destabilising asymmetry underlines a fact many have noticed: this is not a deal that Netanyahu wanted, but was forced into by the incoming US president, Donald Trump, who insisted there would be “hell to pay” if the fighting did not stop.
And with Trump’s inauguration on Monday, by claiming the deal as his own diplomatic victory he now becomes the agreement’s primary guarantor – despite it being far from clear what he thinks the endgame is or what leverage he might be willing to apply.
Against the more pessimistic outlook, the question of what Trump wants may be a factor that mitigates some of the risks.
“While Netanyahu is reluctant to advance to the second phase,” wrote Haaretz’s military correspondent Amos Harel on Sunday, “there are two main factors that will press for implementing the deal in full: the Trump administration and Israeli public opinion.
“When the first hostages return, and at some point gather enough strength to speak out about the horrors they endured in captivity, it seems likely that most Israelis will be even more convinced of the urgent need to rescue those still in the tunnels.”
Marc Lynch, the director of the Middle East Studies programme at George Washington University, interviewed in Foreign Affairs last week, is among those who do not believe the prospects for going beyond phase one of the deal are good.
“It’s going to be very difficult. My sense, unfortunately, is that it is very unlikely we move past phase one and toward a permanent peace. There are endless openings for spoilers on both sides, and serious disagreements remain about the details of the agreement’s next steps. In Israel, there are many people who would like to see this war prosecuted indefinitely.
“On the Palestinian side, there are plenty of opportunities for spoiler violence by hardliners, by militant factions who don’t like the way things are going, and by people who just want revenge for all the horrible things that have been done to them.”
“It is important to stress that the deal is a fragile truce not a cessation of the conflict,” writes Sanam Vakil of Chatham House. “It will require continued monitoring and accountability from the negotiating parties.”
What is unclear, as Trump takes office for a second time, is whether that accountability exists. Or whether the ceasefire will ultimately collapse under the weight of its contradictions.
