KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
On January 15, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced that a cease-fire agreement — mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States — had been reached between Hamas and Israel to pause fighting in Gaza and begin a series of steps to end of the war. The agreement — the text of which has yet to be released, and which is expected to begin Sunday — details three phases toward immediate humanitarian relief, hostage and prisoner exchange, redeployment of Israeli forces, and negotiations toward a longer-term end-of-hostilities and reconstruction of Gaza.
This achievement brings to a halt 15 months of brutal war, in which tens of thousands of people were killed and millions displaced, and ushers in significant hope that the war can be ended completely, hostages returned, recovery and reconstruction begun, and path toward resolution of the broader conflict advanced. Still, the obstacles standing in the way of these goals are immense, and innumerable questions remain.
USIP’s Robert Barron outlines the road to the cease-fire, its reported terms and what comes next.
Barron: In May 2024, seven months after the war began, President Biden shared the White House’s proposed road map for ending the war in Gaza. The president outlined three phases:
Before and since, these three phases have been the pillars of the Israel-Hamas negotiations taking place in Doha and Cairo.
The months that followed were a rollercoaster politically and emotionally, as talks dragged on, collapsed and recommenced, parties postured, and conflict and violence continued in Gaza and regionally. In July, Hamas’ lead negotiator — Ismail Haniyeh — was assassinated in Tehran, reportedly by Israeli intelligence. In August, Israeli Defense Forces recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages killed by Hamas as Israeli forces closed in. In October, Hamas’ chief in Gaza and Haniyeh’s replacement, Yahya Sinwar, was killed in southern Gaza. Through the second half of 2024, Hamas’ political and military power waned, while a cease-fire movement in Israel grew, led by the families of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, and the regional “Axis of Resistance” fighting alongside Hamas seemed to crumble.
For weeks, a deal has vacillated between seemingly imminent and impossible. Since U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s visit to Israel in December, in which he expressed optimism that a deal was close, negotiations reportedly bogged down over several issues: the number and status of hostages and prisoners to be released over which periods; Israeli control over Gaza’s borders and entry-points; and longer-term questions of full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, end of combat operations and the future of Hamas.
The known or reported details of the agreement released on January 15 include the following points, which track closely with the broader roadmap laid out by Biden in May:
Barron: The agreement is reported to offer fairly elaborate detail on steps to be taken in the first six-week phase. There is detailed choreography with clear metrics to be met around release of hostages, re-deployment of Israeli forces to defined areas, number of trucks to enter Gaza per day, and movement of people, among others. How these are met in the immediate term will shape whether phase one — and the negotiations for phases two and three — succeeds.
Still, beyond what is in the text, the missing details will play an even larger role in the initiative’s success or failure. Much of the agreement is written to push the more difficult problems to future negotiations. What is known about the agreement’s description of the second phase highlights this most clearly, as it leaves open a number of questions, particularly around governance after an Israeli withdrawal. Hamas has stated that it will hold the remaining hostages until Israel completes its full withdrawal from Gaza, while Netanyahu has committed to continue fighting until Hamas’ capacity to govern or make war are eliminated (i.e., that whatever fills the void in Israel’s wake is not Hamas-controlled).
There will also remain the “governance vacuum” dilemma in the absence of a defined plan for issues such as borders and crossings, movement and access of goods and people, security, local government and services, and law and order, among other things. Finally, if the agreement does not commit the parties to maintenance of the cease-fire while these issues are being negotiated, combat could resume after phase one.
Additionally, there are many variables outside of the negotiating rooms that will play a role. For months, Yemen’s Houthi movement has sought to raise the stakes for Israel and its partners through missile and maritime attacks. In two weeks, the Israel-Lebanon agreement reaches its final stage — failure of which could lead to a recommencement of the Israel-Lebanon war. Iran is reeling from the disintegration of its regional power projection system in Syria and Lebanon, and has some concerned it might rapidly accelerate its weapons program, potentially prompting an international response.
The West Bank continues to teeter on the brink of mass violence. And, in Israeli politics, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition members have threatened to leave the government should he agree to a cease-fire, potentially throwing Israeli government stability in flux (though supporters of the cease-fire in the Knesset may throw Netanyahu a lifeline). Adding to an already delicate negotiation process, a drastic or unexpected change in any of these areas could throw off the agreement’s next phases.
Barron: To start, the suffering that both sides have endured for 15 months has been horrific and deeply traumatizing, to say nothing of the years and decades that came before. Both peoples will hopefully embrace this agreement and its path toward an end to the war and contribute momentum toward realizing it and, going further, to building a durable peace that prevents wars like this from happening again.
To date, there is not a clear picture of what comes next for Gaza in terms of governance, security, recovery and development.
So, beyond what exists as a part of the agreement’s three phases, the parties must embrace that the long-debated “day after” is here. To date, there is not a clear picture of what comes next for Gaza in terms of governance, security, recovery and development (much less what a longer-term negotiated solution for a durable peace may look like given the current context). For more than 15 years before the war began, Hamas held de facto control over Gaza’s day-to-day governance, after the 2007 division of the Palestinian Territories between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. It seems clear that after the war, Hamas will not have the capacity to govern, nor will Israel tolerate Hamas governance in Gaza.
What can or should replace Hamas in Gaza — and what place Hamas may have as spoiler or participant in this — has been the subject of debate since the war began. Yesterday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his final major address before leaving office, outlined his vision for Gaza’s transition. In his remarks, Blinken described an interim governing authority for Gaza — created with the support of the Palestinian Authority and drawing on intensive support from regional and international partners — that would govern Gaza until it could be merged with a revitalized PA, which had, in parallel, carried out “swift, far-reaching reform to build more transparent and accountable governance.” Blinken acknowledged that this kind of plan requires a time-bound, conditions-based pathway to Palestinian statehood. Without this long-sought “political horizon,” key partners — Palestinian, Arab and beyond — will not commit the resources required, leaving a dangerous, bleeding wound.
In a post-election interview with Time magazine, President-elect Trump stated his goal for his second term’s Middle East diplomacy: “I want a long-lasting peace, a peace where we don't have an October 7 in another three years.” This sentiment — that the old cycles of conflict and despair must end and give way to a new era — is widely shared and hoped for. As the Trump administration takes office, a core question it will inherit is whether he can convince the parties to agree to define this new era and follow through in realizing it.