Following the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy the Palestinian resistance group through a brutal war of extermination in Gaza.
He made it clear that there would be no red lines, no limits on the savagery and brutality employed against the people of Gaza.
Throughout this genocidal campaign, Netanyahu promised his citizens that only “continued military pressure until complete victory” would result in the release of all Israeli hostages.
Throughout the slaughter, Netanyahu repeatedly declared his intent to “defeat, crush, destroy, annihilate, end, and dismantle” Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and any other resistance groups.
He assured his people that Israel’s enemies would eventually surrender.
Yet, after 467 days of relentless Israeli destruction in Gaza, a tiny enclave of 365 sqkm that had already been suffering under a crippling Israeli siege for more than 16 years, Netanyahu told the families of hostages on 14 January 2025 that he was awaiting a positive response from Hamas regarding a deal to free the Israeli captives.
This stark contrast between his earlier rhetoric and current reality can be seen as an admission of defeat, especially for Netanyahu, who is now an indicted war criminal by the International Criminal Court.
Failed tactics
From the outset, Netanyahu set clear objectives that would allow him to declare “total victory” over Gaza and its fierce resistance.
He vowed to reduce Gaza to rubble, a task that was not difficult, given that the United States supplied Israel with $22bn in military aid over the last 15 months, providing the most advanced weapons to unleash on Gaza, Lebanon, and the broader region.
As a parting gift, the complicitous Biden administration requested an unprecedented additional $8bn in military aid to Israel from Congress.
Throughout the genocidal campaign, Netanyahu insisted that Hamas would not only be dismantled but also removed from any future role in Gaza.
He aimed to redraw the map of the Middle East and impose Israeli hegemony over the entire region. To achieve these objectives, the Israeli government, often in collaboration with the US, devised several plans.
After systematically destroying Gaza’s infrastructure, Israel initially attempted to force the mass evacuation or expulsion of Palestinians to the Sinai through indiscriminate bombings.
However, it failed to convince Egypt or any other country to accept the displaced Palestinians.
Efforts like building a pier to evacuate displaced people by sea or evacuating northern Gaza to consolidate Israel’s occupation – known as the Generals’ Plan – also failed.
The Israeli army stormed Rafah, causing massive destruction and casualties, built the Netzarim Crossing to divide Gaza into military zones, and occupied the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, pledging never to withdraw.
Yet all of these tactics ultimately failed.
The current agreement calls for the dismantling of Netzarim, the safe return of evacuees to northern Gaza, and Israeli withdrawal from the border corridor.
As a result of the determined resilience and ferocious resistance, Netanyahu’s promises to free the Israeli captives through military means failed miserably. They often resulted in the killing or injury of the hostages.
‘Stupid wars’
The current agreement mirrors a framework Hamas had accepted in May and July of the previous year, which Israel rejected, and every failed negotiation since.
The major factor appears to be the intervention of Donald Trump, who recently won his second term.
During his campaign, Trump urged Netanyahu to “finish the job” by destroying Hamas and ending the war.
However, recognizing that such a goal was illusive and unattainable, Trump did not want to inherit a catastrophe in the Middle East that would distract from his domestic and international priorities – such as immigration, taxes, the rivalry with China, relations with Russia in the context of the Ukraine war, and trade deficits.
Trump understood that Netanyahu could not achieve any of his strategic goals.
He also was not interested in being dragged into what he calls “stupid wars”.
Wanting to end the conflict before even taking office, Trump threatened that “hell will break out” if hostages were not released before his inauguration on 20 January 2025.
Many observers assumed this was a warning to Hamas, although it’s unclear what more military pressure could be applied that Israel had not already used.
It appears that Trump’s newly appointed Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, leaned heavily on Netanyahu to seal the deal.
This agreement is essentially the same one that Netanyahu rejected multiple times, as acknowledged by Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, an extremist cabinet member and ally of Netanyahu.
Trump may have also offered Netanyahu a few carrots to abandon his unattainable Gaza war objectives. Whether these included a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, endorsing Israel’s occupation of new Syrian territories following the overthrow of the Assad regime, or even authorizing a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities remains unclear.
Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s other extremist ally and Israel’s finance minister in charge of the West Bank, has vowed to annex large portions of the West Bank – a position echoed by Trump during his presidential campaign.
This policy is also openly advocated by Miriam Adelson, a major donor to Trump, who has given over $100 million to his campaign, on top of $40 million donated by her and her late husband Sheldon Adelson in 2016, partly to secure Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Terms of the deal
While Netanyahu failed to achieve any of his strategic goals, Hamas and other resistance groups were resolute in theirs.
Throughout the war, Hamas maintained that it would not sign any agreement regardless of any military or political pressure unless five conditions were met: a permanent ceasefire and the end of the war; complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza; the delivery of substantial aid to Gaza’s suffering population and the evacuation of the wounded; the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Gaza; and an honourable prisoners’ exchange for the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centres turned torture chambers who are suffering terribly.
Since Israel has a history of exploiting vague language and loopholes, Hamas has insisted on concrete dates and maps, with the US and other mediators serving as guarantors
The current agreement fulfils all of these conditions. However, Hamas had always been concerned that the deal’s framework, to be implemented over three phases with 42 days each, might only see the first phase with the release of about one-third of the captives (primarily women, children under 19, and the elderly over 50), only for Israel to resume the genocide afterwards.
This is why Hamas has always insisted on guarantees from the mediators – mainly the US – to ensure that the war would not resume after the captives were freed. In the current deal, the US, along with Egypt and Qatar, has pledged to secure a permanent ceasefire after the release of all hostages, whether dead or alive.
The agreement also specifies firm dates for Israel’s full withdrawal.
Since Israel has a history of exploiting vague language and loopholes, Hamas has insisted on concrete dates and maps, with the US and other mediators serving as guarantors.
Furthermore, during the first phase, all residents of northern Gaza will be allowed to return to their neighborhoods unhindered and without Israeli inspections. In addition, the Israeli army will be required to redeploy to within 400-700 meters of the border, dismantle the Netzarim Crossing, and withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor – all conditions Netanyahu had previously rejected.
The agreement, which will take effect on 19 January, also calls for massive aid to start flowing to Gaza and for the Rafah crossing to be opened for the passage of people and goods. While tents, temporary shelters, electricity, and water will be delivered, full reconstruction will take place only after the third phase, when all dead bodies are exchanged.
In the first 12 weeks, as Israeli captives are released, thousands of Palestinian prisoners will also be freed.
Despite the immense Palestinian suffering over the past 15 months, the release of these prisoners will be a symbolic and substantive victory over the brutality of the Israeli genocidal campaign.
In exchange for the release of 33 Israeli civilians – mainly the young, sick, elderly, and female soldiers – thousands of Palestinians will also be freed.
It not only includes those whom Israel has arrested since 7 October 2023, but thousands more that have been detained by Israel, including all Palestinian women and children, about 250 Palestinians serving life sentences, and several hundred others with long sentences – many exceeding 15 years.
In total, more than 3,000 Palestinian prisoners are expected to be released in the first phase.
The second phase will involve further negotiations for the release of the remaining Israeli male soldiers, where the prisoner exchange ratio is expected to exceed 30:1 for civilians or 50:1 for Israeli female prisoners released in phase one. This ratio will likely increase with the release of most of the remaining 300 Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons serving life sentences.
‘Cry for freedom’
There are certainly risks to such an agreement, especially when the military balance of power is so heavily skewed in Israel’s favor. But this is a risk that not only Palestinians but the entire world must bear.
If Israel resumes its genocidal war after its captives are freed, it will merely be another battle for freedom. The Gaza prison break on 7 October 2023 turned into an Israeli genocidal war, but this deal should now allow returning Gaza to another massive concentration camp or war zone.
In their struggle for freedom and self-determination, nations often pay great sacrifices, especially when the adversary is a settler-colonial power with a supremacist ideology determined to exterminate its opponents by all available means at its disposal.
But if one thing has been clear from over a century of Palestinian resistance, it’s this: despite the sacrifices, pain, and suffering, Palestinian resilience, steadfastness, and determination will ultimately overcome the arrogance and brutality of the enemy.
There is a famous saying, which Americans proudly repeat, by American patriot Patrick Henry, who, during the American Revolution in 1775, declared: “Give me liberty or give me death”.
The cry for freedom by the people of Gaza and all Palestinians is no less valuable, precious, or timely.
-Sami Al-Arian is the Director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University. Originally from Palestine, he lived in the US for four decades (1975-2015) where he was a tenured academic, prominent speaker and human rights activist before relocating to Turkey. He is the author of several studies and books. His article appeared in the Middle East Eye.