After a Gaza ceasefire, what next for Palestinians, Netanyahu and the region?

Trump seems to have pushed Biden’s deal over the line. But the international community must maintain pressure on the parties to engage on a political settlement.

Expert comment Published 17 January 2025 4 minute READ

Dr Sanam Vakil, Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme

After sixteen months of conflict, death and destruction, the long awaited six-week, three-phased truce agreement brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US will be implemented on Sunday. The release of Israeli hostages and the delivery of immediate aid and humanitarian assistance for Palestinians could not come soon enough.   

It is important to stress that the deal is a fragile truce not a cessation of the conflict. It will require continued monitoring and accountability from the negotiating parties. And there will need to be an almost immediate return to the negotiating table to keep the remaining phases alive. Assurances have been granted that further negotiation will continue but this will require sustained pressure on all parties especially from the US and President-elect Donald Trump.  

Arab states will need to continue to press and incentivize the broader goals of Israeli regional integration and Palestinian statehood.

The deal refers to a third phase of reconstruction and governance of Gaza. But troublingly there remains no substance on the issue of a political future for Palestinians. That will be difficult enough to achieve when there is no significant Israeli constituency or leadership for a peace process.  

To take advantage of this moment and build its credibility, the Palestinian Authority must be reformed to a model that can deliver transparent governance. Expansionist Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank (and potential aspirations for extensions into Gaza) cannot be ignored. Arab states will need to continue to press and incentivize the broader goals of Israeli regional integration and Palestinian statehood, convincing all parties to reengage on a political settlement.

Beyond Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hope the ceasefire creates room for more manoeuvre across the region. Israel emerges from the war dominant over Hamas and Hezbollah, with Bashar al Assad and Iranian forces departed from Syria. 

The prime minister certainly intends to lobby the incoming US team to take advantage of the historic opportunity of Iranian weakness to set back Iran’s nuclear programme – if not the Islamic Republic itself – through more direct strikes. This campaign however might run up against Trump’s own impulse of dealmaking.    

Amidst these interconnected conflicts and lingering uncertainty, consistent international mediation and diplomacy must continue to bring lasting stability and security to Israel, Palestinians and the wider region.

Professor Yossi Mekelberg, Senior Consulting Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

This long-awaited truce, announced by the Qatari prime minister on Tuesday, was the news many Israelis and Palestinians were eagerly waiting for. Months of immense suffering will come to an end, which will also see the phased release of 33 Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Yet, this is only the first step, and there is no guarantee that by the end of this phase, or even before that, hostilities in Gaza won’t resume. The West Bank also remains a potential flashpoint.

However, there is a realistic prospect that this deal will create a constructive momentum that will successfully lead to the second phase of ending the war in Gaza, the return of the remaining hostages and the release of further Palestinian prisoners. It could also create a new horizon for rebuilding Gaza’s society and politics as part of the broader Palestinian polity – at least as important as the territory’s physical reconstruction.

The agreed deal is similar to the one tabled back in May, which raises the question: why now? Recent developments suggest that the Trump factor has been crucial in pushing this agreement across the finish line. Accepting a comparable deal months ago could have spared many lives and suffering.

Trump’s active involvement, including sending his special Middle East envoy to the region even before he was sworn in, indicates the new administration’s commitment to preventing the resumption of violence between the two sworn enemies. Trump’s agenda is to see other countries join the Abraham Accords, first and foremost Saudi Arabia. This will require Israel to make meaningful concessions on Palestinians’ demands.

Clearly Netanyahu’s fear of the new US president outweighed his fear of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and their ultra-nationalist religious party’s threat to leave Israel’s governing coalition. On this occasion that led to a positive outcome.

These developments could potentially hasten the removal of Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office and politics altogether.

Netanyahu’s supporters believed his fallacy that there could not be an end to war until total victory and that only military pressure would bring the hostages home. The prime minister must now convince them, and his coalition partners, to continue to support him.

His U-turn, which is welcomed by most of the Israel public, might still destabilize his government and is bound to accelerate the demand for an independent inquiry into the 7 October catastrophe and the way the war has been conducted since then. These developments could potentially hasten the removal of Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office and politics altogether, but this is not going to happen overnight.

Netanyahu and Hamas might claim credit for ending the war and the release of hostages and prisoners. But they are also likely to be held accountable for the disaster of the previous 15 months.

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Amjad Iraqi, Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

The Gaza ceasefire agreement is a relief, a tragedy, and a warning all at once. After 15 months of an unfathomable war, Palestinians in Gaza are in desperate need of a pause to Israel’s relentless assaults. 

Starving and wounded families are awaiting the promised surge of humanitarian aid, while many of the displaced hope to return to their homes and rebuild. The families of some Israeli hostages, too, will finally be able to reclaim their loved ones and end their anguish.

It is tragic that an agreement that has been virtually unchanged for months has taken so long to be approved, in great part due to President Joe Biden’s refusal to exert sufficient pressure on the Israeli prime minister. Thousands more Palestinians were killed and vast swathes of Gaza destroyed in that time. The deal was endorsed last summer by the US and Hamas, but repeatedly derailed by Netanyahu’s insertion of new demands – though Israel’s government claims Hamas also played its part in frustrating the process.

The terms of the agreement, meanwhile, give Palestinians much cause for concern. While the first phase is detailed on the hostage-prisoner exchange, the deal’s larger matters – such as distribution of aid, interim security and governance, and a permanent end to hostilities – are unspecific or deferred to later talks. 

Many fear Israel will resume bombardment or directly reoccupy parts of Gaza as soon as some hostages are released. Various Israeli officials are calling for exactly that, arguing their goals in Gaza – whether destroying Hamas, freeing all hostages, extinguishing militant threats, or rebuilding settlements – are incomplete.

It is that sense of unfinished business and asymmetric power that has Palestinians, including Hamas, bracing for more to come. Despite severe hits to its leadership and armed capacities, the organization remains politically and militarily active and has been largely consistent in backing the ceasefire parameters. 

But with regional geopolitics shifting in the wake of an eroded ‘Axis of Resistance’ and Trump’s return, Hamas recognizes that few actors are willing or able to enforce the permanent ceasefire it has demanded. Hamas is preparing for the likelihood that its guerrilla war will continue, even as it hopes the cessation is sustained.

It is… an urgent priority to support parallel talks between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo over forming a technocratic governing committee for Gaza.

Given this fragility, international engagement is vital to compel the warring parties to keep the ceasefire, and in particular to deter the far-right Israeli government from seeing gains in breaking it. 

It is also an urgent priority to support parallel talks between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo over forming a technocratic governing committee for Gaza and reorganizing the Palestinian political leadership. Both negotiation tracks will be central to pulling Gaza – and all Palestinians and Israelis – out of the ruins of this war.