A deal has been reached to halt the war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and to return many of the Israelis held captive there. In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts lay out the ceasefire agreement’s contents and gauge its prospects for success.
What’s happening?
On 15 January, news broke of a pending ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, seeding hopes of an end to fifteen months of devastating conflict in the Gaza Strip and the ordeal of the remaining Israeli hostages taken by Hamas and other Palestinian groups on 7 October 2023. The Qatari prime minister – along with both the (then) outgoing and incoming U.S. presidents – announced that a deal had been struck in Doha. The ceasefire began on 19 January, two days after the Israeli cabinet approved the agreement and despite a short delay regarding which hostages were to be freed. Israel continued airstrikes in Gaza in the interim, killing at least thirteen Palestinians on the day the truce came into effect.
Anyone concerned about the vast loss of Palestinian life, the suffering of Israeli captives in Gaza and the receding prospects for a peaceful future must be relieved that a deal has finally been reached. Whether that relief will be anything other than fleeting is a more complicated question. The deal is ambiguous about when – or whether – the war will end. It is silent on consequential humanitarian, security and political questions, either deferring discussion of those issues to later phases or omitting mention of them entirely.
A limited agreement is better than none at all.
A limited agreement is better than none at all. But for the deal to match the hopes it has raised, it needs to establish mechanisms for sustained humanitarian access, stable arrangements for security and public order, clear timelines for Israeli military withdrawal, and a path toward longer-term stability and governance in Gaza. Without these elements, the ceasefire risks becoming merely an interlude before the war’s next devastating round, rather than a step toward ending hostilities.
What’s in the deal?
The full text and its appendices have not yet been released, but Crisis Group sources say the agreement’s terms are practically identical to the framework presented by then-U.S. President Joe Biden on 27 May 2024 – a point made publicly by various Israeli, Hamas and U.S. officials as well, including Biden himself. It includes three phases that, if completed, should lead to a permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the beginning of the strip’s reconstruction.
The first phase, which is to last 42 days, includes the suspension of hostilities by the parties, a hostage-prisoner swap, the Israeli army’s gradual withdrawal from most parts of Gaza, freedom of movement for displaced Palestinians to return to the north – which has been largely depopulated during the war – and the daily entry of about 600 truckloads of aid into the territory. Thirty-three Israeli hostages (women, children, and elderly or sick men) and 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are expected to be exchanged during this phase. The Rafah crossing with Egypt, which Israel seized in May 2024, is to resume operations, to be managed by Palestinians with international oversight.
To complete the first phase, Israeli forces must withdraw entirely from the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border, within a week of the last hostage release (Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has since claimed the terms do not require this step). The Israeli army will be able to station troops in a buffer zone – created by Israel years ago and expanded during the post-7 October 2023 war – that runs along the parts of Gaza’s perimeter abutting Israel; the buffer is now up to 700m wide in most places and up to 1,100m wide in five locations. Whether its enlargement is to be temporary or permanent is unclear at this stage.
Negotiations about the second phase – which should see the remaining male hostages and more prisoners released, all Israeli troops withdrawn and “sustainable calm” prevailing – are to start on the first phase’s sixteenth day.
The third and final phase, should the parties manage to complete phase two, is to see Hamas return the bodies of hostages who have been killed and reconstruction begin in Gaza under the supervision of Egypt, Qatar and the UN.
Why has Israel agreed to the deal?
The parameters of the original 27 May 2024 agreement were presented by the U.S., authorised by the Israeli cabinet and agreed to by Hamas in July 2024, but then undercut by Netanyahu. For the Israeli premier, who is on trial for corruption (charges he denies), and whose popularity was sinking at the time, an end to the war would likely have brought a reckoning with the intelligence and security failures surrounding Hamas’s assault on 7 October 2023, perhaps in the form of a state commission of inquiry or calls for elections, which he feared might threaten his political survival. Netanyahu added new conditions for a ceasefire, notably insisting that Israeli forces remain in the Philadelphi corridor indefinitely. The Biden administration was frustrated with Netanyahu, according to numerous reports, but it did little to force his hand. Had the sides signed the deal at the time, it would almost surely have saved thousands of lives in Gaza and prevented months of additional suffering for the Palestinian population, as well as for Israeli hostages, soldiers and civilians under fire.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump instructed his team to push for a ceasefire deal by his inauguration day. This step, along with conclusion of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon on 26 November 2024, seems to have pressed the belligerents, as well as Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators, to intensify negotiations in the interim. Trump spoke several times after his November 2024 election of wanting to see the Gaza war and hostage crisis end; he threatened there would be “hell to pay” should there be no hostage deal by the time he entered the Oval Office. His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who travelled to the region and engaged in diplomacy alongside Biden administration officials, reportedly informed Netanyahu in an 11 January meeting in Jerusalem that he had to close the deal immediately. The prime minister seems to have bowed to such pressure, likely out of a mix of motives that include deference to Trump’s political weight, concern with his unpredictability and desire to make a good-will gesture to the new president. It was no secret that Netanyahu and his allies in Likud and other parties had hoped for a Trump victory in the U.S. election, yet as an Israeli official told Crisis Group: Netanyahu can say no to Biden, but he cannot say no to Trump.
Despite resistance from both sides […], Netanyahu was consistently regarded (including by former members of his war cabinet) as the main roadblock to clinching an agreement over the past year.
Despite resistance from both sides during the negotiations, Netanyahu was consistently regarded (including by former members of his war cabinet) as the main roadblock to clinching an agreement over the past year. One reason for his intransigence was threats from far-right members of his coalition to quit and bring down the government – thus deepening the premier’s political and legal jeopardy – if he stopped the war. The resulting tensions between Netanyahu and his negotiating team, as well as the Israeli defence establishment, which backed the original deal in May, were on display for months.
Another reason was the absence of outside pressure: the Biden administration kept up a virtually unhindered flow of military aid to Israel as its Gaza campaign ground on, despite its army crossing various stated U.S. “red lines” such as invading the southern city of Rafah. The White House almost invariably echoed the Israeli government in putting the blame for negotiation breakdowns on Hamas, even as Israeli officials themselves held Netanyahu responsible. Former President Biden’s aversion to using any meaningful leverage on Israel, even as families of hostages and growing numbers within his Democratic party base pleaded with him to do so, gave Netanyahu little reason to change course.
Netanyahu has now signed off on the deal with more political room for manoeuvre than he had months ago. His popularity, according to various polls, rebounded following Israel’s startling successes in its campaign to diminish Hizbollah in Lebanon, hit Iran’s military capabilities and weaken the “axis of resistance”, Tehran’s network of allies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Netanyahu has stabilised his coalition numbers: in September 2024, the prime minister brought Likud defector Gideon Sa’ar and his party, which holds four Knesset seats, into the government. This move neutralised the veto power of firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had repeatedly said he would bring down the government if Netanyahu signed a Gaza ceasefire deal; Ben-Gvir resigned the day the ceasefire went into effect, taking his party with him, but said they would rejoin the coalition should Israel resume the war. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right leader, consented to the deal’s first phase, albeit on the condition that Israel continue the war afterward. Smotrich is wary of losing government positions that have enabled him to accelerate Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, which he wants Israel to annex.
Netanyahu may also be playing the long game. While pressure from Trump undoubtedly counted heavily in his calculations, the prime minister may have decided that he could afford to go along with the U.S. regarding the ceasefire with an eye toward plans in other arenas, including the option to restart the fighting in Gaza later on, which he insists he has U.S. backing for, but also normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia and Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Given the blowback in recent days from far-right politicians and media who criticise the prime minister for seemingly caving in to U.S. pressure on Gaza, it appears that he has yet to fully convince this base of this logic. But Trump may have bolstered Netanyahu’s case: one of his first acts as U.S. president on 20 January was to rescind a Biden administration measure imposing sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, which would seem to indicate that the new administration will allow Israel a freer hand in the West Bank.
Why has Hamas agreed to the deal?
On the other side of the table, Hamas had long insisted on a permanent ceasefire with guarantees of a full Israeli troop withdrawal, repopulation of the entire enclave and reconstruction. Its positions (and points of inflexibility) have remained largely consistent, despite Israel’s heavy blows to the organisation, including the killing of two consecutive politburo chiefs, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, the latter of whom was regarded as the architect of the 7 October 2023 attack and a hardliner within the movement. Israel argues that it was precisely an aggressive military campaign and the depletion of Hamas’s assets in Gaza that forced the group to compromise.
The group does appear to have shifted its stance in negotiations, accepting certain ambiguities for the sake of achieving a halt in fighting. Part of the motivation must be that Hamas has been on the back foot militarily and is looking for an opportunity to regroup. But part of it is also diplomatic and political. Hamas had come under heavy pressure from Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to seal a ceasefire deal, as these Arab governments are keen to win favour with the Trump administration and assuage domestic discontent by gaining respite for the Palestinians. It was also wary of the mood among the starving, uprooted Palestinians of Gaza who, whatever their general views of armed struggle, feel they have been bearing the devastating costs of the 7 October 2023 assault with little support for more than a year.
Hamas likely underestimated how much Israel would decimate Gaza in response and how much room its Western supporters would afford it.
Looking back, when planning that attack, Hamas likely underestimated how much Israel would decimate Gaza in response and how much room its Western supporters would afford it. Hamas perhaps also misread what Israel would do about the hostages, as it was making its calculations based on past occasions when Israelis were taken captive, when Israeli governments seemed more cautious about their safety and more willing to pay high costs to get them home. The remaining hostages are the group’s biggest leverage in negotiations, but the Netanyahu government has made their fate a lower priority than wider military and political objectives in Gaza and the Middle East. With many of the captives also presumed dead, their value as a bargaining chip has appeared to drop at various points during the negotiations.
Now, Hamas is hoping that momentum around the ceasefire deal, particularly inside Israel as the hostages are gradually let go, will make it harder for the Netanyahu government to sideline the remaining hostages for the time being, and thus make progress toward the second and third phases more likely. It is looking for more substantial assurances that Israel will proceed to phases two and three, a key negotiating point in earlier rounds, though it is unclear what those guarantees could be.
In the meantime, Hamas used the ceasefire’s first day to project a sense of victory, with members of its armed wing parading on streets in Gaza and its police redeploying to oversee public order, demonstrating the group’s continued influence on the ground. In the West Bank, the release of the first round of Palestinian prisoners has bumped up its already high popularity. Hamas has stated that if Israel violates the agreement at any point, it is prepared to keep fighting; the deaths of fifteen Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza in the week before the deal was announced show the group’s continued combat readiness, even after months of an intensive Israeli offensive in the area. Hamas also argues it is playing a long game – that Israel has suffered economically from the war, reputationally from accusations of international crimes, and diplomatically now that Arab states considering normalisation of relations, especially Saudi Arabia, have renewed emphasis on Palestinian statehood as a condition. After a string of successes against Hizbollah and Iran, however, Israel may feel that the long game is trending in its favour.
Finally, on issues of Palestinian governance, Hamas, which has long expressed its desire to relinquish sole governing responsibilities in Gaza, is in talks with Fatah and other Palestinian factions, under Egyptian mediation. The sides have reached provisional agreement on establishing an independent technocratic committee to administer the strip, as well as a political framework to unify the Palestinian national movement. How and whether Hamas can build on those proclaimed outcomes, and whether Palestinians in Gaza will accept the price they have paid, remains to be seen.
What’s good about the deal?
For Gaza’s two million residents, most of whom are displaced and many starving, the ceasefire offers a desperately needed pause and a jolt of life-saving aid amid harsh winter conditions. Some 600 truckloads of aid are supposed to enter the strip every day. On 20 January, the UN said 915 trucks came in. The truce also promises to restore free movement within Gaza, allowing Palestinians to return to lands and homes (or what is left of them) that many feared Israel would seize permanently. Humanitarian organisations should be able to move throughout the strip with less hindrance, while civilians should be able to go wherever assistance is being distributed. Such measures should help stop the spread of deadly famine, which the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification – the scale the UN uses – warned in November was likely unfolding in parts of the north. The release of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, many detained on dubious charges or none at all, will be of comfort to their families and communities in both Gaza and the West Bank – though the release of those with blood on their hands will have the opposite effect in Israel. Though the full list of prisoners is still to be determined, several high-profile political figures could be freed, which might help thaw a frozen Palestinian political scene.
The deal also means the return of dozens of Israeli hostages to their families, who have been agonising since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 assault. Many do not know if their relatives are still alive. (Israeli sources suggest that 94 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 34 of whom the Israeli army has confirmed dead. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the strip in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014. One of those bodies was retrieved by the army on 19 January.) The first-phase hostage releases began on 19 January, when three civilian women were released, demonstrating that negotiations can bear fruit. That, in turn, could lend impetus to phase two negotiations, which many families of the remaining hostages are insisting be completed. The deal gives a break to Israeli soldiers and reservists who have been doing constant tours of duty for fifteen months. It may also help reduce strains on Israel’s economy.
More broadly, and at least in principle, the deal’s cautious first phase sets the stage for a more complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which could then start a process of rehabilitation and reconstruction for the devastated strip. It offers the belligerents time to show good faith and compels outside powers, primarily the U.S. and Arab states, to push the parties to work toward further progress.
What are the problems with the deal?
First, on the most fundamental issue – bringing an end to the war – the deal is vaguely worded, allowing both parties to promote their own clashing narratives. The Israeli government can claim that the ceasefire is just a temporary halt in the fighting, leaving open the possibility of restarting hostilities – for example, on the pretext (whether borne out or not) that Hamas has violated the deal’s terms or based on the argument that it cannot allow Hamas to regain a firm foothold in Gaza and thus undermine a central war aim. (A return to fighting would likely mean losing any chance of freeing the remaining Israeli men still held hostage in Gaza – something the government would have to factor into its thinking.) From its side, Hamas can say the ceasefire is the beginning of the end to the war and testament to its ability to thwart Israel’s goals in Gaza.
Secondly, other crucial elements of the deal – beyond the hostage-prisoner exchange and geographical markers for incremental Israeli troop withdrawal – are up in the air. The agreement names the U.S., Qatar and Egypt as “guarantors” but lacks a concrete enforcement mechanism. A big question is whether Trump – who has invested a good deal of diplomatic capital in closing the deal – will push Israel to stick to its commitments, much less to make the further ones that will be required in phases two and three. Trump himself has added to the uncertainty. Asked on 20 January whether the ceasefire can hold, he said, “I’m not confident. That’s not our war. It’s their war”. Egypt and Qatar have weight with Hamas, but both they and it may struggle to ensure full compliance from all the militants in Gaza, particularly Hamas splinter cells or groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which also hold several hostages.
Thirdly, the deal is particularly vague on humanitarian questions of enormous consequence to Gaza’s population, which absent a massive relief effort will continue suffering even if the guns stay silent. It does not specify which crossings or humanitarian corridors will remain operational, and whether new ones will be opened, to let in an average of 600 aid trucks per day or allow the entry and exit of aid workers, doctors and ambulances, patients needing medical attention outside Gaza and others; until now, Israel’s arrangements for the movement of people and goods, both inside and outside the strip, have been grossly insufficient for meeting the population’s needs. It makes no mention of Israel lifting restrictions on “dual-use” items (such as communications and surgical equipment), which need to get into Gaza if the humanitarian response is to be effective. Nor does it remove the months-long ban on commercial food imports. Moreover, it says nothing about onerous Israeli and Egyptian inspection procedures that have often left entire aid convoys queueing for days at the crossings. Without streamlining these procedures to let in enough trucks to meet the daily targets, the logjams of the past could recur.
The agreement also fails to address how aid will be distributed inside the strip. At the end of January, two Israeli laws that essentially ban the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees throughout the occupied territories and the Middle East, are set to go into effect, robbing Gaza’s residents of their most capable aid provider, with no clear alternative. Sequencing of deliveries will be vital. With aid trucks crowding the few remaining roads, along with masses of relocating civilians, and the Israeli army withdrawing from the strip at the same time, chaos may reign, especially at first. The deal does not mention deconfliction or any other means of ensuring adequate communication between aid agencies and the Israeli military to prevent misunderstandings or worse. Other questions abound: who will hand out aid packages? Could Palestinian civil service staff or community-led bodies be involved? Could Hamas help distribute aid, or would that trigger military responses or arrests? Will Gaza’s police be permitted to stand guard at delivery sites? If not the police, who will stop looting by armed gangs during and after the Israeli withdrawal?
Fourthly, issues that go to the heart of how Israel has dealt with Gaza – the relation between the military occupier and the occupied – are in effect delayed to later talks. The deal fails to provide a political horizon for Palestinians in Gaza, who yearn to be rid of long-term occupation. Nor does it purport to end Israel’s siege of the strip, which has lasted for seventeen years. It also fails to deliver closure for Israelis, who, in accordance with Netanyahu’s “total victory” slogan, were told that the war’s objective was to destroy Hamas or at least remove it as a military force and governing entity in Gaza. Even if Hamas cannot stage an attack similar to that on 7 October 2023 anytime soon, the ceasefire deal does not necessarily prevent it from remaining the strip’s de facto leader, or from rearming and rebuilding itself – issues that would presumably be discussed as part of the second or third phases.
Fifthly, there is precious little on reconstruction, beyond a general commitment to pursue it, and the deal says nothing about who will administer Gaza. On this question, a vast gulf separates the conflict parties. Israel has sketched various visions of private companies or local clans managing security while humanitarian organisations distribute aid, with the Israeli military continuing to have free rein in the strip. Netanyahu has said Israel cannot tolerate any Palestinian administration while Hamas remains intact, while Israeli security officials argue that without building that alternative, Hamas will retain its power. The U.S. and the United Arab Emirates, in coordination with Israel, as well as a Saudi-led Arab coalition, have floated various “day after” visions. The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah wants to see Gaza and the West Bank reunited under its single administration; while Biden supported this path, it is unlikely that Trump will follow suit. The PA and Hamas have, as noted, reached a provisional agreement on establishing a technocratic committee to govern Gaza and oversee reconstruction, but President Mahmoud Abbas – loath to dilute his own power – refuses to give a final signoff on such proposals.
The deal’s biggest problem is arguably that the two sides do not have equal motivation to preserve it.
Finally, the deal’s biggest problem is arguably that the two sides do not have equal motivation to preserve it. Put bluntly, Palestinians in Gaza have an existential need for a long-term cessation of hostilities. A heavily battered Hamas seeks time to recover. But from Israel’s perspective – save for the hostages and their families – the stakes are different. The Netanyahu government is still committed to removing Hamas from power while also rejecting the PA’s reinstatement in Gaza. Army manoeuvres over the course of the war, particularly the depopulation and destruction of the north and the paving of the Netzarim corridor bisecting the enclave, suggest that Israel is far from abandoning the possibility of physically occupying at least portions of Gaza. Far-right coalition members are also pressing to continue the war in order to rebuild Israeli settlements in Gaza and empty parts of the strip of Palestinians permanently.
For all these reasons, it is not surprising that neither Israelis nor Palestinians seem to believe the agreement will hold.
What will happen next?
The scenarios for what happens next with this fragile agreement range across the spectrum.
The darkest scenario is that it collapses before the first phase is complete, with alleged violations on either side. Israel may resume its military campaign in an even more aggressive manner, which could include direct military rule of the strip, persuading the Trump administration that Hamas did not hold up its end of the bargain. Possible triggers include a stall or shift in the hostage-prisoner exchange, Israeli airstrikes on Hamas militants, or Israeli impediments to aid delivery or troop withdrawal. Alternatively, it is possible that the parties see through phase one partly or mostly to completion, but that an open-ended process ensues in which the parties are engaged in intermittent negotiations, unable to agree to future terms but not necessarily eager to resume fighting.
A brighter scenario – one that would require the two sides to shift their objectives and develop levels of trust not yet in evidence – would see phase two negotiated and completed, but find the parties unable to agree on what phase three should look like. In this scenario, the sticking points could be who should guarantee security in the strip, whether Hamas will recuse itself from aspects of governance and aid distribution, what “reconstruction” means and whether it should include a full lifting of Israel’s blockade of the strip. This last question is likely to be a major stumbling block if the process gets that far, as the two sides’ ambitions for a final settlement remain far apart. Here again, the parties might decide to muddle along in an open-ended second phase pending a diplomatic breakthrough. Or they could begin sliding back to conflict.
Finally, the brightest scenario is one in which the ceasefire deal goes smoothly from phase one through phase two, with all hostages released, the Israeli army fully withdrawn from Gaza and aid significantly increased as pledged. In that scenario, parallel talks might proceed to determine the details of local governance, such as by a Fatah-Hamas technocratic committee and/or a UN administration.
This outcome would be the most desirable from a conflict mitigation perspective, but its prospects will remain slim unless outside powers are willing to exert significant leverage on the warring parties to abide by the ceasefire parameters – a daunting task in and of itself, but one well worth taking on. For all the question marks surrounding this deal, the opportunity it presents is too important to let go. The parties that threw their weight behind getting it done now need to turn their attention to making it stick, for the sake of Israelis and Palestinians alike.
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