Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

[SvennoJ]

Ceasefire deal going to be ‘very, very fragile’

This is a phased process and all of this is going to be very, very fragile. US President-elect Donald Trump is making it seem like it’s going to be very, very simple — but it’s not.

We understand that there are three phases to this process; it’s a very, very drawn-out process. This is not something that’s going to be completed, as the president-elect said, just like that.

US will be key to ceasefire agreement’s success

That’s because of the staunch military and diplomatic support Washington has provided to Israel, its top Middle East ally, said Sultan Barakat, a public policy professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar.

“The US is the supply line of this war. So if they are serious about guaranteeing this agreement, they can see it through,” Barakat told Al Jazeera. “They can start by turning off the tap to Israel in terms of supplies, cash, et cetera … There is a lot in their hands.”

Barakat added that the ceasefire deal comes after US President-elect Donald Trump — who will take office on Monday of next week — gave Israel and Hamas an ultimatum to end the conflict before he enters the White House.

“Israel will take [Trump] very, very seriously because he has a very heavy domestic agenda within the United States. He’s got a lot of international issues [on his plate ] … so his priorities are very different from Biden,” Barakat said.

Optimism around Gaza ceasefire must be cautious

Talk of an upcoming ceasefire deal in Gaza must be treated with caution, especially as the implementation of the terms will be fraught with difficulties, Al Jazeera Senior Analyst Marwan Bishara has said.

According to the details of the putative deal that have so far emerged, “there are multiple things that need to happen simultaneously – the humanitarian aid, the exchange of prisoners and captives, the movement of people back to their homes and all the rest”, Bishara said.

This adds to other issues including, for example, clearing out tonnes of debris containing the remains of an estimated 10,000-12,000 missing people. “These are the kind of challenges we will face moving forward in Gaza,” the analyst said.

Netanyahu agreed to ceasefire because Israel ‘imploding internally’

Ori Goldberg, a political commentator in Tel Aviv, says the Israeli prime minister accepted the deal now — 15 months after the Gaza war began — because “Israel is imploding internally”.

“Prices are rising every day. There’s an unbelievable brain drain. Public institutions are crumbling. The infrastructure is collapsing. Israel is in probably the worst condition it has been since it was founded,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.

“Netanyahu knew that this had an expiration date, and the expiration date is now.”