On November 22, 2023, Qatari-Egyptian mediation produced a 4-day ceasefire between HAMAS and Israel whereby all Israeli military actions would cease, and a greater volume of humanitarian aid would be allowed into the Gaza Strip. During that ceasefire, it was stipulated that a number of Israeli prisoners would be released in return for the freeing of Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. The ceasefire agreement also included several other points having to do with restricting Israeli overflights of the southern Strip, civilian freedom of movement, stopping arrests, and details regarding the entry points, volume, and routes to be followed by the aid convoys.
The ceasefire agreement, by its mere occurrence and the manner used to arrive at it, carried a number of significant implications, the most salient of which was Israel retreating from its declared intention to bring back its prisoners in Gaza by force and without negotiations, following the domestic pressure exerted by the families of Israeli prisoners upon the centers of government, the increasingly loud demands to speedily release them once the military operation to do so had failed, and estimates that began to speak in terms of long months needed to achieve the military objectives of the war.
The other implication was this: the degree to which HAMAS was capable of implementing the agreement, gathering together the prisoners dispersed over many locations and held by more than one side, given the presence of the Israeli army and its control of certain areas in the northern Strip and given what HAMAS had been subjected to in a month and a half of intense fighting. This in turn revealed its ability to maintain well its political, organizational, and military capabilities whereby it succeeded in retaining contact with the HAMAS movement outside Gaza, conducting these negotiations while under fire, and succeeding in fulfilling its part of the agreement without any faltering.
The well-organized and well-staged exit of Israel’s prisoners, especially the third wave which was carried out in the northern sector and within range of Israeli tanks, shook the media and political circles in Israel, raised the morale of HAMAS, and cast deep doubts on the claim that war would exterminate it.
The Interests and Objectives of the Two Sides of the Ceasefire
At one rare moment in the fighting the interests of the two sides coincided to arrive at a ceasefire which included a prisoner swap, a moment that mediators grasped and turned into a plan of action which came to constitute a turning point in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Israel’s interests consisted in:
Recovering prisoners, especially women and children (civilians) and ridding itself of part of the mounting pressure which had come to occupy a large sphere in media and mass activities, thus allowing it to resume the battle under more cohesive domestic circumstances.
Netanyahu hopes that the returning prisoners would repair his negative image in public opinion and improve his chances of remaining in power following the war’s end, especially since his popularity ratings had plummeted to their lowest levels and more voices were raised demanding his removal, even voices inside the Likud, his own party.
Netanyahu was keen to maintain international and American support for the war and its objectives by allowing humanitarian aid and fuel to enter Gaza (during the ceasefire), especially in light of mounting criticism of Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians, infrastructures and hospitals, forbidding the entry of humanitarian aid and instituting a suffocating siege upon more than two million Gazans.
Netanyahu realizes that his ability to prosecute the war and resume it after the end of the ceasefire depends upon public support for it and upon maintaining US and European support, which, in turn, depends upon partially responding to demands made by these powers. This was done through the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, HAMAS found in that ceasefire the opportunity to break the siege inflicted on the civilian population, to reorganize its internal affairs in light of the massive human and material losses in Gaza, and Israel’s military occupation of parts of the Gaza Strip.
HAMAS considers that the price it has paid on the human level is marginal and has no effect on the balance of power or on the strong card it holds (men and military prisoners), and that by paying such a price it is able to create another window of opportunity allowing for a more comprehensive ceasefire, after having demonstrated that the war had not affected its ability to continue the fight and keep control on the ground. This was made very clear during the release of Israeli prisoners and by the negotiations which preceded that swap.
HAMAS assumes that a truce lasting a week to ten days would make resumption of the fighting very difficult, especially when the world discovers the extent of the destruction and of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In turn, this would intensify international and media pressure on Israel to stop its war and would encourage families of remaining prisoners to press for a conclusion of the prisoner swap for those still held by HAMAS and other movements in Gaza.
Where Interests Diverge
That rare and narrow window of opportunity where the interests of both HAMAS and Israel converged has not led to a favorable conjuncture that would end the war. This is so because the very last hour of this brief truce will be like a very sharply defined crossroads leading to two opposite directions which neither side can pursue.
For while the interests of HAMAS lie in transforming the temporary humanitarian ceasefire into a permanent or at least long term truce allowing it to preserve its strength and presence and to hold onto the prisoners it captured, Israel, with the support of its security apparatus, extremist ministers, and the army and their agreement to a temporary and brief ceasefire, intends that the fighting will resume once the ceasefire ends to allow it to achieve its objectives of destroying the HAMAS regime and recovering the prisoners.
The brief ceasefire allowed HAMAS the chance to restock its fuel supplies, as alleged by Israel, needed to run the air conditioning and other units in the tunnels, which have become a strategic weapon hiding its leaders and fighters, and a base from which attacks are launched against occupation forces stationed on the ground, as also for the launching of rockets.
The dilemma faced by HAMAS is that its stock of weaponry is being depleted without the ability to restock, unlike the occupation forces. Its ability to remain underground is also limited, and these are problems that the occupation is well aware of, and so calculates that a long lasting bout of fighting will ensure that HAMAS will be depleted of its weapons or at least forcing it to negotiate from a position of weakness.
Israel’s military and security leaders, as also its political leaders, view the war in Gaza as existential, as stated by Prime Minister Netanyahu. A defeat in that war or the failure to achieve a clear “victory” would have catastrophic consequences for Israel and its retaliatory image, not just in the eyes of HAMAS, but in the eyes of its international allies and the entire axis of resistance. To accept a ceasefire which does not guarantee the ending of HAMAS rule in Gaza and of its military threat would be tantamount to collective suicide and a clear admission that Israel has been defeated.
From the practical point of view, the occupying government faces another dilemma, namely, the unwillingness of settlers in the settlements surrounding Gaza to return to these settlements unless a radical change has occurred in the existing security arrangements, which had allowed HAMAS to destroy their sense of security by firing rockets and by repeated bouts of fighting, leading finally to the Tufan al-Aqsa operation.
This state of affairs, where the two sides hold totally opposite views, complicates the job of mediators, making the resumption of the fighting the most likely outcome once each side had exhausted the benefits each derived from the temporary humanitarian truce.
The Balance of Profit and Loss
Although Israel retained the option of war and recovered a large number of its prisoners, especially humanitarian cases which had been a major point of pressure, and did not pay a high price for the many Palestinians released who were serving long-term sentences, it nevertheless was negatively affected by the break in the siege it had imposed on civilians, a major point of pressure on HAMAS, in addition to the military pressure. The temporary ceasefire encouraged the rest of the world to demand a permanent ceasefire. More to the point, the momentum it had at the beginning of the war and the international support it had received receded a great deal, speeding up the clock, and threatening a stoppage in international support which could change into pressure upon it to end its war on Gaza.
The Qatari, Egyptian and American mediation channel proved its efficacy and its ability to bring both sides to a halt, since each of these powers possessed instruments of pressure each could apply on both HAMAS and Israel. In the coming stage of the fighting this mediation channel will attain its maximum relevance and importance and will not commence from naught, as in the first round of the fighting.
HAMAS, which had nothing to lose from a temporary truce, was able to use that ceasefire to serve its own ends on the level of both media and morale, and dispelled the negative image Israel had tried to create for it on the world stage. It further relieved its popular base through the flow of aid, in addition to demonstrating its seriousness and its ability to hold its end of the bargain with the mediators. Above all, it exhibited a considerable degree of internal cohesion and its ability to control matters on the military front. The days of truce gave HAMAS the chance to rearrange its military stance and fill the gaps left by the martyrdom of some of its leaders as a result of the Israeli army occupying important positions which HAMAS had formerly controlled.
On the West Bank front, HAMAS, by freeing women and children from prison, was able to gain media prominence and attract even further support for its plans and policies, and to restore popular confidence in it, to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority and its policies.
What Next?
As the number of prisoners held by HAMAS begins to decrease, so will its ability to maneuver and to conclude deals at a reasonable price acceptable to Israel. This leaves both sides to face the following possibilities:
1. HAMAS (no one knows its current fighting potential, its losses or its ability to hold out) would release a further number of civilians in categories not included in earlier swaps, e.g. men and the elderly, excluding soldiers. This, it hopes, will grant it more time to conclude a more sweeping deal which would end the war and bring it a good deal in return for the soldiers, or else that international pressure will mount, and mediation efforts will convince the US to apply pressure to end the war.
2. Israel will resume its assault to apply even greater pressure on HAMAS and to improve its bargaining position.
3. Israel will show greater flexibility and expand the number of prisoners released to include more “dangerous” categories such as those with long-term sentences and the elderly, in return for HAMAS expanding the categories of its captives and extending the ceasefire for another week.
4. A US-Egyptian-Qatari intervention that pushes both sides to show greater flexibility, extend the ceasefire and offer mutual concessions.
Given these scenarios, it is clear that a resumption of the fighting and a renewed assault are distinct possibilities, being levers of pressure still in Israel’s hands. This means that a new round of fighting awaits both sides, and that this round, which effectively began on the morning of Friday, December 1, has not invalidated the possibility of success of mediation efforts in renewing brief interludes of truce, though these efforts will take place under conditions more favorable to Israel, being conducted in the presence of intense fighting and widespread Israeli support for the war. Because of the truce, Israeli public opinion is now convinced that military pressure will succeed in stopping HAMAS’s “blackmail” and force it to show flexibility as regards categorizing the prisoners it is holding.
The renewed round of fighting will reveal how each side benefited from seven days of ceasefire on the levels of intelligence gathering, morale and operations. It will also reveal any surprises this round will engender and how long it will last.
In Conclusion, one cannot ignore the fact that the war has not ended yet; that all these gains are threatened; that these conclusions may be radically revised depending on what happens on the field of battle; and that the end of the fighting would proceed in tandem with an international and regional activity centering on what arrangements are to follow war on the Palestinian front and the type of regime in Gaza. All this implies diverse and dissimilar American and regional aspirations which are bound to affect the policies adopted towards the continuation or cessation of the fighting.
From all the above, it is clear that this renewed round of fighting will be more savage and destructive and will lack any margin of maneuver or compromise that the two sides can accept or bear.