The deal with Hamas is imperfect – hostages exchanged for killers, the jihadis diminished but not gone. The task now is not to romanticise the bargain, but to use this brittle pause to build a sturdier quiet
October 10, 2025 14:06
There was always going to be a deal with Hamas. Strip away the rhetoric of “total victory” and you meet the complex logic of an intractable struggle. When neither side can eliminate the other at an acceptable cost, wars end in bargains with enemies. That truth is painful in Israel. A deal with Hamas means concessions, some of them morally abhorrent, but the alternative was an open-ended campaign with compounding strategic and human costs. The task now is to see the bargain clearly: what it gives, what it constrains, and where it still leaves us exposed.
Hostages come home; in exchange, Israel releases nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including people with heinous records. Hamas has already prepared an alibi for partial compliance, claiming it does not know the whereabouts of every captive. That could be true; some hostages may be held by factions that reject the ceasefire, or it could be a twisted tactic to prolong Israeli anguish in instalments.
Hamas must simultaneously show strength to its base and honour promises conveyed to Washington, including commitments made to President Trump’s envoys. That balancing act will determine how quickly hostages emerge and how much propaganda Hamas squeezes from each release.
What follows inside Gaza will reveal how much coercive capacity Hamas still has. Over the last year, Israel quietly encouraged local Palestinian clans and opposition networks to step forward in areas where Hamas’s grip loosened. With an end to military action, those actors must decide whether to bend or resist as Hamas reasserts control. Expect a low-key civil war of arrests, intimidation and sporadic clashes, which will represent an index of whether Hamas still commands fear and obedience after devastation and displacement. If the clans melt away, Hamas’s authority remains intact; if they hold out, Gaza could fracture further, complicating any attempt to build a post-war administration.
Celebratory videos from Gaza featuring the chant ““Khaybar, Khaybar, Ya Yahud! Jaish Mohammad sawf ya’ud!” (“Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews! The Army of Muhammad Will Return!” – a reference to the battle of Khaybar in 628, when Mohamed’s army slaughtered a Jewish community)” are a stark reminder of the distance to any genuine reconciliation. They do not represent every Gazan, but they capture a mood of triumphalism and hatred that will shape politics. These are the people who, in due course, will elect the next Palestinian leadership. Any plan that assumes swift moderation from below is wishful thinking; if change comes, it will be generational and dependent on tangible improvements in daily life, not on moral exhortation from abroad.
Meanwhile, the West Bank sits unresolved. The Palestinian Authority remains venal and hollowed‑out; it inspires little confidence among Palestinians or Israelis. Yet no stable arrangement can ignore the West Bank or Israel’s requirement for strategic depth there. That tension between Israeli security geography and Palestinian political legitimacy has been ducked again. It will return the moment diplomacy moves from stopping the shooting to sketching a political horizon, and it will be harder, not easier, after Gaza, because everyone will argue from maximalist positions etched by trauma.
We did not reach Phase Two in the ceasefire earlier this year; we may not reach it now. What is new is a lattice of external guarantees. Qatari, Egyptian and Turkish security commitments are stitched into this ceasefire’s scaffolding. That makes it harder for Israel to re-enter Gaza at will; doing so would rupture ties not only with the mediators but with Washington. It also binds Hamas to patrons it cannot afford to alienate. Guarantees cannot conjure trust, but they raise the price of cynical breaches on both sides, making a relapse into full-scale fighting less likely, at least in the near term.
This deal was not produced by force alone. Military pressure created leverage but ran into limits against an embedded movement in a dense urban battlespace. Diplomacy and economics, the other levers of statecraft, did the rest. US security promises to Qatar reassured the key mediator; prospective arms deals for Turkey brought Ankara into the tent; and Egypt’s fear of mass Palestinian flight into Sinai concentrated minds in Cairo. Add them up and you get a coalition for “enough peace”: not reconciliation, but a structured pause that swaps hostages for prisoners, halts rockets and begins reconstruction. None of it is pretty. All of it is how real-world conflicts end when decisive victory is unavailable.
Israel emerges strategically quieter on its southern border but more diplomatically isolated than at any time in recent memory; indeed, approaching pariah status in parts of the world. That is not just an image problem; it constrains freedom of action. Every future use of force will be judged against a backdrop of suspicion and fatigue.
At the same time, Hamas remains in Gaza. Even if it yields front-stage administration, it will try to retain influence behind the scenes. For now, though, it is militarily neutered and unlikely to mount serious attacks any time soon.
Above all, the hostages are coming home. That sentence, more than any talking point, explains why an imperfect bargain is nonetheless the best possible outcome at this point.
The task now is not to romanticise the bargain, but to use this brittle pause to build a sturdier quiet: protecting lives while politics labours to catch up with reality.
Andrew Fox is a former company commander in the Parachute Regiment. He completed three operational tours in Afghanistan
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