For the first time since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza more than 300 days ago, there is a glimmer of hope, with almost unanimous global agreement that the conflict must finally end. The US, Egypt, and Qatar, a troika that is directly involved in mediation talks between Israel and Hamas, earlier this month agreed that the time has come to embrace a framework agreement to halt the fighting based on US President Joe Biden’s ceasefire plan.
Two days ago, the UK, France, and Germany also issued a joint statement calling for a permanent ceasefire and the unfettered passage of aid to the hapless people of Gaza.
The deadline is Aug. 15 when the mediators will meet in Doha or Cairo to urge both parties to commit to a new framework agreement that ends the war or establishes a temporary ceasefire. Under the proposed deal, Israeli hostages will be released, while Gaza will get much-needed humanitarian relief, as well as the release of Palestinian prisoners of war. A temporary pause is expected to become a more permanent one.
This is a last-ditch effort by the US to prevent a regional escalation. Washington is sending its senior interlocutors to the region, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA chief William Burns, to push both parties to sign a much-delayed deal.
But the situation is more complex than it appears. Hamas has yet to announce if it will join the talks. The militant group has said it already agreed to a July 2 framework agreement, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored. It is refusing to renegotiate a deal that has already been agreed. Netanyahu, for his part, has been typically cryptic. For weeks, he has altered his negotiating position, introducing new conditions that have derailed a possible deal.
The most controversial of these demands are Israeli control of the Egypt-Gaza border, conditions on the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, and permission to resume the war at any time. All of these conditions have been rejected by Hamas, and also by Egypt as far as Israeli control of the border is concerned.
Aug. 15 appears to have become a cataclysmic deadline. If mediation fails, the region will be on the cusp of a regional conflagration.
There are multiple reasons the Biden administration, backed by the EU, Egypt, and Qatar, is sending top officials to the region in a final effort to get Hamas and Israel to sign a framework agreement based on the US leader’s three-phase ceasefire deal to end the 10-month conflict.
The most pressing is to avert a regional war following Israel’s assassinations of Hezbollah military leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut and, hours later, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Iran and Hezbollah have vowed a painful reprisal for the killings, prompting Washington to send a nuclear-powered flotilla and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters to the region in order to defend Israel, as well as US military bases. Despite the heightened tensions, the US move does not seem to have averted the threat from Iran or its proxies.
It now appears that the US has delivered a message to Tehran that it is putting unprecedented pressure on Netanyahu to embrace a ceasefire deal in Gaza, even temporarily. A pause in the Israeli assault is believed to give all sides an excuse to back down.
While the US is talking tough to Iran, it is also working to conclude a ceasefire agreement in Gaza that will allow all parties to hold back. That is a calculated risk by Washington. Netanyahu has been unwilling to strike a deal that would bring the hostages home and allow investigations to begin into the events of Oct. 7. His political adversaries accuse him of prolonging the war to protect his political interests.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told a parliamentary committee that “the reason a hostage deal is stalling is in part because of Israel,” pointing the finger at Netanyahu. He also mocked the prime minister’s claim of seeking a “total victory” in Gaza, while admitting it was too late to launch a war on Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s office responded, saying that Gallant was adopting an “anti-Israel narrative” and hurting a possible hostage deal.
What could make a difference this time is the Biden White House, which has had to move amid heightened global tensions and popular pressure to end the Israeli onslaught — people everywhere are sick of seeing images of the almost daily attacks in Gaza, the heated US presidential election exchanges, the plight of the families of Israeli captives, and the imminent collapse of the rules-based order which Israel has turned into a travesty.
While Hamas has yet to disclose its final position on resuming the ceasefire talks following the appointment of Yahya Sinwar as its political chief, the pressure will be on Netanyahu, who is running out of excuses to reject a deal.
Netanyahu’s latest tenure as premier has been catastrophic for Israel on many fronts. He has become hostage to his extremist coalition partners, who now hold the fate of his government in their hands, while pushing him to sink deeper into Gaza without delivering any of the stated political and military objectives.
The damage the conflict has inflicted on Israel is irreversible. It is now drifting into becoming a pariah state after killing almost 40,000 Palestinians. The political and judicial results of its genocidal war can never be erased. Netanyahu, once dubbed the king of Israel, is today its curse and historical stigma.
Netanyahu can no longer repulse and deflect the mounting accusations at home. His legacy is radioactive. For Israel to begin to recover from the current nightmare, it must rid itself of its leader and his toxic partners. For the world to avert a regional conflagration, it must end the war in Gaza.
What happens next in Gaza is a mystery. The US and its Western partners are used to kicking the proverbial can down the road, and this is probably what will happen. The Gaza ordeal will become another festering wound in the Palestinian saga. If a ceasefire deal is reached to avert a regional war, then Gaza will likely become an ongoing humanitarian crisis. No political solution is likely to be reached anytime soon.
For Israel, the end of the war will trigger a moment of reckoning — one that Netanyahu has tried to avoid, but now has to face, with the likely prospect that his political career will finally end. Moreover, Israeli politicians will have to decide the fate of the Zionist state as it veers closer to becoming an authoritarian one.
Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
