Gaza needs fewer agreements and more action

In a region short of good news, the sudden announcement of an agreement that could eventually result in the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza, Israel’s withdrawal from this tiny but densely populated territory, and the transfer of governance to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is a step in the right direction. At the same time, there are valid questions and doubts about whether this will finally lead to a breakthrough. After all, this is a place that has witnessed many false dawns.

For now, we are told that Hamas has accepted the deal, while Israel has not, and in any case neither side has yet signed it. Avoiding yet another false dawn with this new roadmap for completing the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s comprehensive peace plan requires those mediating the agreement to demonstrate that they have a robust strategy, complete with specific targets, a watertight timetable, and effective mechanisms for monitoring compliance by both sides. Otherwise, events may once again take their own course, leading to another deadly status quo. Indeed, over the past few days Israeli airstrikes have intensified, killing scores of people.

There is a host of unresolved issues that provide fertile ground for those on both sides who have no interest in translating the principles of the agreement into a new reality and instead seek to derail the entire process. We have already seen this over the nine months since the ceasefire was agreed last October. During that period, Israel has unilaterally expanded the territory it occupies in Gaza from just over 53 percent to around 65 percent, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating his intention to go even further.

During what was supposed to be a ceasefire, more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, including children, while insufficient humanitarian aid has entered the territory, all in violation of the agreement. Meanwhile, Hamas has continued to rearm, govern through coercion and intimidation, and control the lives of the local population, including much of the humanitarian aid entering the enclave.

This bleak picture underscores the significance of the announcement by the Board of Peace that Hamas has accepted the deal and “has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons.” Israel, although it has yet to agree, is expected in return to withdraw its forces from Gaza. However, senior Israeli ministers have repeatedly insisted in recent months that a full withdrawal is not on the table. This will be a real test for the mediators and for the influential countries with a stake in resolving this conflict. With just two and a half months until Israel’s general election, any decision by Netanyahu and his government to accept these terms would require an uncomfortable, albeit necessary, U-turn, exposing them to widespread criticism not only from the political right.

After three years of bloodshed and decades of hostility, it would be naive to expect any trust between Hamas and Israel. To some extent, mutual distrust is the fuel on which both Hamas and Israel’s current hard-line government thrive. In the absence of trust, particularly in an agreement that requires careful sequencing of obligations, both sides will instead have to have confidence that the mediators will hold each party accountable if they fail to honor their commitments.

The mechanisms that ensure compliance at every stage are just as important as the details of the agreement itself. It is, therefore, a serious concern that both the provisions covering some of the most sensitive issues, along with the enforcement mechanisms, remain either vague, leave far too much open to interpretation, or are  simply unfinished. To begin with, the timetable for each phase of Israeli withdrawal and Hamas’ disarmament remains unclear. The agreement refers to a phased process, but the Board of Peace later clarified that Israel would withdraw only after Hamas had surrendered its weapons. Can Hamas realistically agree, or be persuaded, to such sequencing?

Moreover, there is still disagreement over what “disarmament” actually means. The draft agreement refers to the “decommissioning and storage of heavy weapons, military production sites, weapons depots, and tunnels,” which would then be handed over to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. There is strong opposition to this within the Israeli government, with ministers insisting on the complete dismantling of all weapons, not just heavy arms but light weapons as well, which they currently regard as posing the greater threat.

The mandate of the International Stabilization Force also remains unclear. Beyond being deployed in Gaza to separate Israeli forces from National Committee for the Administration of Gaza-controlled areas, its role appears limited to monitoring compliance along the Yellow Line, training Palestinian police, and protecting humanitarian aid. But what powers would it have in the event of violations by either or both sides? What would its role be if, and when, Israel completed a full withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Line? The need for an impartial force separating the two sides would remain as strong as ever. Israel also insists on screening and vetting Palestinian police officers and certain public officials operating in Gaza, something the Palestinians are unlikely to accept without significant objections.

For Palestinians, and not only Hamas, the question of whether Israel would retain the right to conduct military operations inside the enclave is also another major issue, given the scale of death and destruction caused by previous operations, including those carried out after the ceasefire took effect last October. Who will arbitrate disputes over whether such military action is justified?

Reaching this agreement also has a profound psychological dimension that should not be forgotten, as it inevitably feeds into politics, and both sides must recognize this if they genuinely want it to succeed. After three long and extraordinarily painful years, neither the Israeli government nor Hamas has achieved its stated objectives, and acknowledging that reality could go a long way toward making this agreement possible. Hamas sought to break the stalemate along the Gaza-Israel border.

Still, it did so through a murderous attack that rightly generated international condemnation and ultimately brought catastrophe on much of its own leadership, many of its fighters, and, most significantly, the innocent Palestinian population. The Israeli government promised its people “total victory.” It pursued this through a military campaign that has killed tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, displaced millions, and created unprecedented devastation. In doing so, it has lost much of the international support it enjoyed after the Oct. 7 attack, more importantly the high moral ground, while still failing to eliminate Hamas, despite significantly weakening the organization.

Both sides are now being forced to accept a deeply uncomfortable compromise. Agreeing to this deal requires eating a large measure of humble pie, and many of those responsible may ultimately face political accountability, disappear from public life, or emerge significantly weakened. That would be no more than they deserve. But they should first agree at least to the principles of the agreement.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House.

X: @YMekelberg