On Jan. 19, the first phase of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement began. After 15 months, Israel’s war in Gaza is, presumably, on pause. It’s all thanks to a deal that was reportedly on the table since December 2023, but was finally signed last week after Donald Trump intervened, just before his inauguration. The question is: Is this really a cease-fire, or is it simply a truce that will fall apart in the next few weeks?
A cease-fire is usually envisaged to be permanent, with the clear and stated intention of not returning to hostilities. A truce is quite the opposite.
On Jan. 19, the first phase of the Israel-Hamas cease-fire agreement began. After 15 months, Israel’s war in Gaza is, presumably, on pause. It’s all thanks to a deal that was reportedly on the table since December 2023, but was finally signed last week after Donald Trump intervened, just before his inauguration. The question is: Is this really a cease-fire, or is it simply a truce that will fall apart in the next few weeks?
A cease-fire is usually envisaged to be permanent, with the clear and stated intention of not returning to hostilities. A truce is quite the opposite.
For Hamas, the situation is rather simple; the organization needs a cease-fire, and it has declared its intention to abide by all three phases of the deal. The prospects for Hamas as an organization with a cease-fire are still quite precarious, but the options without a cease-fire are even worse. Hamas is completely cut off from the outside world, and reports suggest that the people of Gaza resent it, considering the tremendous crisis the Gaza Strip was plunged into as a direct response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
For Israel, the situation is quite different. There is no withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) specified for the agreement’s first phase; and even if every IDF soldier were to leave Gaza, Israel would continue to be the occupying power there, as the International Court of Justice has specified. But the question here is about the intention to stop fighting; and here, there are clear signs to the contrary.
Trump expressed a severe lack of confidence that the truce will hold just hours into his presidency, and key Trump officials, such as his national security advisor and defense secretary, have voiced support for Israeli objectives that, by definition, would negate the cease-fire altogether.
The public declarations from various Israeli ministers have been quite clear over the last few days. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for example, has declared he and his party will remain in Israel’s government because of the guarantees they claim to have received from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the war in Gaza will continue. Indeed, Smotrich has asserted that Israel intends to “take over Gaza, making it uninhabitable [for Palestinians],” that the “constraints imposed by the Biden administration will be removed,” and that “Gaza is destroyed and uninhabitable and will remain so.”
Smotrich clearly believes that the deal’s second phase, let alone its third phase (when rebuilding of Gaza is meant to take place) will never happen. It was this supposed commitment from Netanyahu that, according to Smotrich, kept him from leaving the government. As far as Smotrich is concerned, the complete destruction of Hamas in Gaza is a necessary war goal, and that has not been achieved.
As for the prime minister himself, Netanyahu has spoken directly to both the Israeli and Western press, making it clear that the cease-fire is “temporary” and that Israel has “full backing” to resume the war in Gaza with “tremendous force.”
Moreover, Netanyahu has already started to violate the deal. Several Palestinians were killed on Jan. 20, after the cease-fire began. One element of the deal noted in various leaks was the redeployment of Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt during the first phase, relocating them to elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.
However, Netanyahu confirmed the night before the deal began that Israel would not reduce its forces in the Philadelphi Corridor and it would instead increase the IDF presence there—a violation not only of this proposed framework, but of the Camp David Accords with Egypt.
Netanyahu is clearly trying to navigate between satisfying the Trump administration’s desire to show that a deal has been struck and his own calculations about why the war has to continue.
As Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it, the comments of former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who resigned after the Israeli cabinet approved the cease-fire, confirmed “the suspicion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been delaying the return of the hostages—even at the cost of their lives—and is drawing out the war based on personal interest: his political survival.”
Indeed, Netanyahu’s own chief of staff wrote on Wednesday that the deal “includes the option to resume the fighting at the end of phase 1 if the negotiations over phase 2 don’t develop in a manner that promises the fulfillment of the war’s goals: military and civil annihilation of Hamas and a release of all hostages.”
The Israeli media has also reported Netanyahu told his cabinet ministers that he has a letter from former U.S. President Joe Biden and a transcript from Trump guaranteeing Israel’s right to return to war after the agreement’s first phase, or if Hamas violates the agreement. Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu outlet, noted much the same about Trump and Biden, reporting that Netanyahu would not have signed the agreement if he had not received such guarantees.
The Trump administration has not given much reason to be enthusiastic either. Netanyahu claims Trump “emphasized” that the cease-fire was temporary and that Trump has decided to “lift all the remaining restrictions” on U.S. munitions. When asked if the war was over, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said, “Hamas has to be destroyed to the point that it cannot reconstitute.” Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has said he supports Israel killing “every last member of Hamas.”
This does not send the message that Israel will receive pressure from the United States to ensure a full completion of the cease-fire agreement. Indeed, another Trump official argued that as part of the agreement, Palestinians could be relocated to Indonesia while rebuilding takes place—something that would probably be a nonstarter altogether.
Trump himself, in a comment given shortly after his inauguration on Jan. 20, said he was “not confident” that the cease-fire would hold and that it was “not our war, it’s their war.”
The war on Gaza is part and parcel of a much wider conflict, of which the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank is an integral part. There, prospects continue to be bleak. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Jan. 17 that he was canceling administrative detentions of Jewish settlers currently in Israeli custody—for allegedly committing and planning terror attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli official said Katz’s decision was for domestic political considerations.
The likelihood for increased turmoil in the West Bank, likewise, is all but certain, and it’s rather clear that the Trump administration backs Israel’s moves that will precipitate that. Most recently, Trump’s nominee for United Nations ambassador, Elise Stefanik, declared that she agreed with the view that “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.”
As it stands, this isn’t a deal or an agreement—it is an “outline” or a “framework”, as Netanyahu’s office reportedly instructed his own cabinet members to refer to it. It only becomes a genuine agreement, and cease-fire, if the United States utilizes its tremendous pressure and leverage on Israel to make it actually uphold the terms. Unfortunately, there are few signs that the Trump administration will do so.
Instead, there is potential for increased instability, especially if the possibility of a Palestinian state is permanently excluded, Israeli annexation of territories in the West Bank is implemented, and renewed Israeli settlements are erected in Gaza. Any of these developments would have serious consequences for the region at large.
Trump said he expects the Abraham Accords to be expanded with Saudi Arabia as the next Arab state to normalize relations with Israel. But Saudi Arabia’s government has made it clear that Riyadh has different prerequisites for normalization. Its leaders have insisted on the establishment of a Palestinian state before normalization of ties—a stance that is rooted in the decades-old Arab Peace Initiative.
If Trump really wants to see full normalization of Israel in the region, the lasting success of this cease-fire is an essential first step.
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