A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has been reached after 467 times of conflict, and it will take effect on Sunday, pending Jewish federal approval.
This deal won’t provide harmony or end the war. Ceasefires are not a cure for the conflict, trauma, dislocation, poverty and dying Israelis and Palestinians have borne before and since October 7, and will no doubt continue to bear, long before.
While this is not the end of the story, this peace does mark the start of a new book for Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, and Israelis.
The term of this peace, at least for the first step, are detailed, setting the stage for its successful application.
This peace is similar in terms of structure and content to a number of other proposals over the past month, including the 7 2 time truce reached in November 2023. Unlike that truce, however, this agreement is envisaged to last longer, having three distinct phases, each lasting 42 days ( 6 weeks ).
This arrangement, according to US President Joe Biden, “is the precise model of the package I proposed in May.”
Israel and Hamas will temporarily suspend their military activities in the first step, along with the Israeli forces moving their troops eastward, toward Israel’s Gaza border, and away from densely populated areas.
Additionally, air activity in the Gaza Strip will temporarily been suspended ( for defense and surveillance purposes ), especially once captives are freed.
This also happened during the November 2023 peace, which provided Palestinians with much-needed relief from bombing as well as assurances to Hamas that Israel is not using drones to monitor hostages, determine where hostages are being held, and determine how and where they are being held, as well as provide assurances that the country is not using drones to monitor hostages and monitor how and where they are being held, as well as how and where they are moving them.
Additionally, large volumes of humanitarian aid, pleasure supplies, and energy will be permitted to enter Gaza from the moment the contract is in effect.
The energy is required for large machinery to clean and remove dust, as well as for the activity of Gaza’s power plant and sanitation systems. This will begin the long task of rebuilding the strip’s decimated infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics and bakeries ( the main food source for Gazans ).
A particular” strange deal”
Undoubtedly, the power interactions between Israel and Hamas when this contract was negotiated were very irregular. Israel has shown over the past 15 weeks that it has much better war might to Hamas.
Additionally, Israel was arguably generally disposed to dismiss Hamas ‘ only political card, which was the release of the hostages on October 7.
Because of the extreme strength imbalance, one party, ( in this case Israel ), might interpret the terms of the agreement as a kind of hurt contract.
Hamas has vehemently agreed to the terms of a peace over the past 12 months, only to have the words changed by Israel and no compromise has been reached.
Hamas has tried to alter the ceasefire’s term also. However, it has been largely ineffective in gaining Israel’s consent due to the power imbalance.
Hamas has forsaken its two major demands in order to achieve a deal: a lasting peace and the complete removal of Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
This agreement has three phases. In the first phase, Israel might exchange 33 hostages for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners. More than 60 hostages are thought to have been rescued.
However, it is interesting that in the past, Israel has merely detained and re-arrested a large number of Palestinians who had been released under similar agreements. This kind of strangle deals also occurred during the Syrian civil war. There, they were branded as reconciliation agreements.
The Assad regime and Russia effectively imposed ceasefires on rebel-held communities after they besieged, bombarded, and starved them, sometimes for many years, after they had besieged, bombarded, and starved them. Communities had little or no bargaining power regarding the terms and implementation of these agreements because of their asymmetrical power relations with the parties to them.
What we don’t know
Indirect negotiations between the two parties will begin on the 16th day following the agreement’s entrée into force regarding its next stage. Further hostages and prisoners ‘ release as part of this new phase and the continuation of the ceasefire are anticipated.
However, if no agreement is reached for the second phase, there are no written guarantees that the ceasefire will continue after the first phase.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that he would continue to fight Hamas after the initial phase in exchange for similar deals that had already been made.
Additionally, the ceasefire agreement specifies that Israeli troops will leave Gaza and Israel and travel eastward. Israel’s initial demands for a ceasefire with Hamas included a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
The ceasefire terms suggest that Israeli forces will remain in a more permanent buffer zone along the border, even though it has since abandoned that requirement. Along the Netzarim Axis and in the Philadelphi Corridor, they might also be able to stay longer.
Any continuing Israeli military presence on this Palestinian land means it cannot be used for civilian purposes, including for homes or farmland, in a territory only 40 kilometers long and between five and thirteen kilometers wide. This further complicates the already densely populated Gaza Strip, as well as feigning Palestinian landslide rights there.
Additionally, we are unsure of how this ceasefire will impact Lebanon’s fragile ceasefire with Hezbollah or Israel’s calculus in the West Bank. Attacks continue to occur daily in Lebanon, with both sides accusing one another of breaking the deal. The first phase of that ceasefire agreement, lasting 60 days, is scheduled to end on January 26, 2025.
What comes next?
Although ceasefires are technically unenforceable, they are perhaps best understood as a form of contract between the two conflicting parties.
This ceasefire, at least for the first phase, has detailed terms, including maps, that the parties have taken time ( some would say too much time ) to agree on.
This makes the agreement more likely to be implemented as both sides can more easily be held to what they have agreed by external parties, including the ceasefire’s guarantors, Qatar, Egypt and the US.
Vaguer terms give the parties more room to maneuver and the potential to hold the other party accountable for breaking the agreement, like the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the 2016 Cessation of Hostilities in Syria or with the Taliban in Pakistan.
The war between Hamas and Israel is, of course, not over. This ceasefire is all that marks the beginning of a new era. It’s a welcome relief and the least-worst option that humans have so far developed to put an end to the bloodshed of war.
But with more than 1, 000 Israelis and 46, 000 Palestinians dead, many more homeless, the Gaza Strip decimated and potentially millions with some sort of trauma, even if there is a halt in the violence, this is certainly not peace.
Palestinians and Israelis, if not the world, will be living with the implications of the past 467 days for many years to come.
Marika Sosnowski is postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.