An end to the fighting under these conditions is a major achievement for Netanyahu and Israel and is the result of strong US diplomacy. How to achieve Hamas’s disarmament and self-rule will remain a challenge
October 9, 2025 11:52
Two years after the trauma of the Oct 7 slaughter, Israelis woke up to the agreement on the return of all the hostages in 72 hours – the first step towards an end to this longest of Israel’s wars. Until this actually happens, we remain cautiously optimistic, although this time, the most important details appear to be anchored in political realism, in contrast to the usual slogans and myths, such as immediate Palestinian statehood.
The agreement is first and foremost the result of President Trump's determination to impose an end to the conflict – beginning with the release of the hostages. Trump both embraced Netanyahu and twisted his arm to accept the problematic terms, and did the same to the leaders of Qatar and Turkey, as the allies and protectors of Hamas. The media image presenting Doha and Ankara as substantive “mediators” and “negotiators” is totally fictitious, as it is for Egypt, whose only contribution was to provide a convenient location.
The agreement also reflected the impact of recent IDF operations in Gaza City, finally creating the conditions on the ground that forced Hamas to agree to release the hostages – their only remaining source of leverage and shields against Israeli retribution. Expanding the pressure, Israel systematically knocked out or crippled the external forces that provided Hamas with what appeared, two years ago, to be invincible support from the Iranian regime, its proxy forces in Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Iraq, Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, and affiliated terror cells operating in the West Bank. The Israeli strike against Hamas leaders in Qatar, despite the fact that they survived, sent an additional message of strength and warning.
Even among Israeli security experts, such an outcome was largely unimaginable in the first weeks and months of this terrible war. An end to the fighting under these conditions is a major achievement for Netanyahu and Israel, and highlights the resilience of the society as a whole.
At the same time, the IDF and Israelis in general are exhausted after two years of intense trauma and war, and this reality strengthened Trump’s hand in brokering the deal, including terms which are very painful. The release of more Palestinian mass murderers will trigger renewed agony, particularly among the families and friends of the Israeli victims. As in the past, many of the terrorists are likely to return to violence, posing more threats that the security forces will have to contain and defeat.
Once the hostages are freed, the focus will turn to the post-war arrangements in Gaza, as outlined in Trump’s 20-point plan, announced on September 30, 2025. Most of the terms remain ambiguous, such as the mechanism that will insure that Hamas is disarmed, and a temporary governance board (symbolically chaired by Trump) to oversee a theoretical transition to Gaza self-rule, presumably without the terror or incitement that has dominated Palestinian Arab society since 1948.
On the envisioned disarmament of Hamas, the immediate requirements include destroying remaining terror tunnels (the IDF found another last week under Gaza City) and the hidden stockpiles of lethal rockets inside the tunnels. As demonstrated again in the abject failure of UNIFIL in Lebanon to block Hezbollah under the 2006 ceasefire agreement, no international force can be counted on to complete this assignment.
Similarly, the mechanisms that will provide aid and oversee the reconstruction of Gaza on a massive scale are also vague. Here as well, working out the details is likely to engender intense conflict. Israel, with US support, is determined to avoid the previous pattern of Hamas attacks from Gaza, IDF counterterror operations, temporary ceasefires, massive and unsupervised aid and reconstruction, more tunnels and rearmament, and repeat.
On the other hand, Hamas and its allies can be expected to push for the same facade of international aid through friendly UN agencies and NGOs. Israel will adamantly oppose involvement of UNRWA (created in 1949 to uniquely perpetuate the Palestinian Arab “refugee” status) whose staff, among them teachers, includes numerous Hamas supporters. Similarly, many members of the distrusted NGO industry, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, World Vision, Christian Aid and many more in this network are red flags. The survival and success of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation provides an alternative model, which is the reason that Hamas and its supporters sought to undermine it.
For these reasons and more, these short and medium term objectives pose major challenges, to understate the case. How these might be overcome, and whether this peace effort will end like its predecessors remains to be seen.
Gerald M. Steinberg is Professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University and President of NGO Monitor
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