The United States, Egypt, and Qatar are making a ‘last gasp’ diplomatic push to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Mediators say that the latest truce offer, which they hope to finalize in Cairo this week, ‘bridges’ several contentious details that had thwarted previous talks.
At the time of writing, the prospects for the negotiations look bleak. The terms of the ceasefire have yet to be fully disclosed, but they appear to have veered from earlier frameworks offered in May and endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2735.
Those previous plans were largely accepted by Hamas, but Israel – or more specifically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – responded elusively and put forward numerous addendums, particularly around the question of Israeli military presence inside Gaza.
Hamas has now accused the Biden administration of incorporating Netanyahu’s demands, some of which even members of Israel’s security cabinet have criticized as being intended to sabotage a deal. Netanyahu, who for months dismissed any talk of a ceasefire as an obstruction to Israel’s goal of ‘total victory’, told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he supported the amended deal, likely on the calculation that Hamas wouldn’t accept it.
Notwithstanding disputes over the ‘phasing’ of troop withdrawals and a hostage-prisoner exchange, the core divergence in the negotiations revolves around a vital political question: what will happen to Gaza following a ceasefire – or what has crudely been described as the ‘day after’. And it is here that international actors, chiefly the US, are harming prospects both for a deal and a path out of the conflict.
Redesigning the occupation
Many factors can be attributed to the repeated failures to reach a Gaza truce. But the main sticking point has essentially been the same for months: whether the ceasefire will be regarded as ‘permanent’, or if it will be ‘temporary’, leaving the door open for a continuation of the war after a hostage-prisoner swap is completed.
However, this dichotomy is misleading. Whether a ceasefire lasts for weeks or years, Israel will likely maintain the stifling siege it has imposed on Gaza since 2007, and retain the permit bureaucracy that dictates the movement of people and goods in and out of the territory. The decimation and displacement caused by Israel’s bombing campaign will also have structurally violent effects on the population for years to come.
Alarmingly, the Israeli army is deepening its control of Gaza, literally shrinking the territory by seizing the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, bifurcating the Strip between north and south with the Netzarim Corridor, and expanding a buffer zone across the entire perimeter. Netanyahu insists that these territorial conquests – which mirror the fragmentation of the West Bank – should remain under Israeli control.
Israeli officials have simultaneously floated various ‘day after’ plans. They range from a long-term troop deployment that breaks the Strip into separate zones; hiring a network of local clans to cooperate with the Israeli army; reinstating elements of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority; creating an Arab or international peacekeeping force; and even re-establishing Jewish settlements.
These proposals have been deeply contested within Israel’s political and military establishment. But they are united by a common premise: that Israel will maintain overarching authority over Gaza, whether via direct rule or by subcontracting aspects of governance to third-party intermediaries. Put bluntly, Israel is working to redesign, not end, its occupation of Gaza.
‘Israel’s lawyer’
Knowing this, Hamas – which has been heavily hit by the war but is still demonstrating its vitality – has refused to give up the remaining hostages as its biggest bargaining chip. It has also tried to press both Western governments and its allies in the Axis of Resistance to force Israel to end its military offensive and concede to a full withdrawal from Gaza.
Hamas has simultaneously signalled concessions on ‘day after’ plans by indicating that it does not seek to govern Gaza on its own again. Its political bureau has been pursuing reconciliation with its rival, Fatah, based on a national unity program that would establish a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. But the US and other Western governments have ignored these moves.
More importantly, Washington’s stubborn refusal to put Netanyahu in check has only reinforced its reputation as ‘Israel’s lawyer’ in the ceasefire negotiations. The Biden administration has continued to send arms to Israel despite the war killing over 40,000 Palestinians and hurling 2 million people into displacement, famine, and epidemiological disaster.
It has also continued to acquiesce to Netanyahu’s tactics despite the brazen assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran – an act which has brought a regional conflagration much closer – and despite the Israeli government’s open opposition to the White House’s purported goal of a two-state solution.
Entangled by its contradictory positions on Israel, the US has tried to lay the burden of responsibility on Hamas to accept the latest truce offer. But Hamas recognizes that this is a trap – politically and militarily, it cannot endorse a deal that legitimizes Israel’s advancements. For Palestinians, a ceasefire is desperately needed, but the current conditions only offer a choice between hot war and cold occupation – neither of which is just or sustainable.
Asserting Palestinian ownership
To break from this trajectory, the US must abandon the dangerous logic that says Israel’s ‘right to self-defence’ grants it the right to control the Palestinians as it wishes. Washington must call out Netanyahu’s manoeuvres and use its extensive military, economic, and diplomatic leverage to ensure a total Israeli withdrawal.
In Gaza, the immediate priority must be facilitating the swift delivery of humanitarian aid, including by lifting the siege. But governments must also make Palestinian agency and sovereignty a fundamental pillar of Gaza’s present and future.
