Beirut, Lebanon – A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has brought some optimism that Israel's 15-month war in Gaza will finally end and that Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners will be released.
But some analysts remain unsure whether the deal announced on Wednesday and set to begin on Sunday will go ahead as planned.
Israel's security cabinet postponed a meeting scheduled for Thursday and approved the deal on Friday night. Still, analysts say the agreement's three phases could result in its terms being breached, or the parties - especially Israel - could change their terms.
The deal provides for a 42-day first phase that will see the handover of some captives and prisoners, Israel's withdrawal from densely populated areas and increased aid, followed by further phases of prisoner exchanges, a permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a sustainable ceasefire.
Experts who spoke to Al Jazeera fear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted the ceasefire for months and insisted that Hamas must be destroyed, will resume hostilities after the captives are freed, ostensibly to "punish" the Palestinian group , supporting Israel’s security and ensuring its own political survival, while somehow blaming Hamas for the deal’s failure.
"Israel is very good at breaking ceasefires and making it look like it's not its fault," said Mairav Zonszein, Israel-Palestine expert at the International Crisis Group.
The ceasefire in Gaza was announced by outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. US President-elect Donald Trump has also announced his support - pressure from Trump, who is set to take office on Monday, is widely reported to have pushed ceasefire talks to the brink.
The agreement seeks to end a devastating war that has prompted legal scholars, human rights groups and U.N. experts to accuse Israel of committing "genocide" because of Israeli policies that starve Palestinians and destroy services needed to sustain life. South Africa has also filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court accusing Israel of committing genocide, which has received support from many countries.
Israel has killed more than 46,700 people - men, women and children - and forcibly evicted nearly its entire pre-war population of 2.3 million from their homes through raids and so-called "evacuation orders."
The war began with a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which left 1,139 people dead and 250 captured.
Many Israeli captives were released as part of a ceasefire agreed as early as November 2023, and the remainder are expected to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, a swap that could unfold within weeks.
However, Zonszein believes the deal could fall apart after that.
"This (agreement) will provide immediate relief through the delivery of humanitarian aid and the release of hostages and prisoners. This (agreement) is more of an immediate pause than a long-term solution," she told Al Jazeera.
Diana Butou, a Palestinian legal scholar and former negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, also worries that the ambiguity of the agreement could allow Israel to collapse at any time.
For example, one of the terms calls for Israel to withdraw to the "borders" of the Gaza Strip, rather than the 1967 borders that delineate Israel's border with the occupied territories.
Butu said the wording raised concerns about whether Israel would actually fully withdraw from the enclave.
"The agreement is very vague and Israel can and will break away from it in many places," Butu told Al Jazeera.
The ceasefire agreed on Wednesday is largely the same as one proposed earlier in May, which Hamas agreed to but was rejected by Israel, which immediately invaded Rafah in southern Gaza.
At the time, Biden warned Israel that Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have gathered, was a "red line" over concerns that an invasion would exacerbate Gaza's already dire humanitarian crisis. However, the United States did not fulfill its threat to punish Israel after sending troops to Rafah.
Israel's move is part of a broader pattern of Netanyahu undermining ceasefire proposals and appears to be an effort to keep his fragile far-right coalition together until he regains enough support to run in new elections.
Experts say far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir are exploiting Netanyahu's political fears to advance their own agendas, such as keeping the Gaza war open indefinitely continue.
Smotrich and Bengvir are members of Israel's religious nationalist settler movement and have threatened to withdraw from the coalition if Netanyahu signs a ceasefire, a move that could bring about the collapse of the government and trigger an election.
Smotrich and Ben Gwell have again threatened to quit the alliance if the current ceasefire continues. It's unclear whether the threats are just a gesture or whether the pair are willing to try to oust Netanyahu.
“Everyone agrees that Netanyahu is the dominant force in Israeli politics, but it’s worth noting that Smotrich and Ben Gwire are able to exploit his political fears to pursue their own agendas,” said Hugh, an expert on Israel-Palestine issues. Lovat said. European Council on Foreign Relations.
Netanyahu appears to have regained much of his support since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which caused a sharp decline in his approval ratings.
However, he still appears wary of moving forward with a ceasefire, fearing for his political survival.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said he would "postpone" a cabinet meeting needed to approve a ceasefire and accused Hamas of backtracking on the terms of the deal. The security cabinet finally approved the deal on Friday.
The mediator said Hamas had accepted the offer, as it had done several times since May.
"The Netanyahu of today is not the Netanyahu of the past. He is more fearful and unable to make decisions, which leads to strategic paralysis," Lovatt said.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the United States has advocated that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has some control over the occupied West Bank, return to Gaza to govern.
The Palestinian Authority was born out of the 1993 Oslo Accords, signed by the leaders of Israel and Palestine, launching a peace process with the ostensible goal of establishing a Palestinian state.
A report by a human rights group says the peace process has faltered for more than two decades, largely due to Israel's expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the imposition of restrictions that cut Gaza off from the West Bank politically, economically and territorially. connect. watch.
The Palestinian Authority is also largely led by Fatah, a Palestinian party that engaged in a brief civil war with Hamas in 2007 that permanently divided the Palestinian national movement.
The war effectively drove the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza and confined it to the West Bank, where it enjoys limited powers under Israel's entrenched occupation.
Israel has also classified Gaza as "hostile" territory and placed it under a land, sea and air blockade.
Omar Rahman, an Israel-Palestine expert at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said any plan to bring the Palestinian Authority back to Gaza would worry Israel because it would reconnect the occupied region politically and territorially and rekindle the Call for Palestinian statehood.
"If there is a united Palestinian territory under unified Palestinian leadership, then Israel will be under pressure to participate in the political end game, and Netanyahu does not want that to happen," he told Al Jazeera.
Additionally, experts told Al Jazeera they do not expect Israel to completely withdraw from Gaza in a vacuum, largely because of Israeli concerns that Hamas could regain control of the enclave and rebuild its capabilities.
Netanyahu has previously said Israel should maintain "comprehensive security control" of Gaza "indefinitely."
"Gaza's tragic history shows us that there is a cycle of escalation and de-escalation because there is no political framework to address the root causes," Lovatt said.
"Those who want to resume fighting in Gaza may at some point have the opportunity."