Over the weekend, Netanyahu maintained that Israel’s “campaign is not over” as he emphasized that “some of our enemies are trying to recover in order to attack us again.”
His comments on Sunday, a day after Israel launched strikes in neighboring Lebanon, signaled that the halt to the fighting in Gaza did not mean an end to the wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, the issue of a lasting ceasefire has yet to be resolved, as well as when, even if, Israel will ever withdraw fully from Gaza.
Hostages’ remains
For two dozen families in Israel, it is unclear when the remains of 24 hostages still in Gaza will be handed over as agreed.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz made clear the return of deceased hostages was a priority for the government.
“We must now act with full force to ensure the return of all the fallen hostages to Israel and to make certain that Hamas is disarmed and Gaza demilitarized,” he said Monday.
Palestinian prisoners
While 250 Palestinian prisoners convicted of serious crimes and some 1,700 detainees, including children, were expected to be released on Monday as part of the agreement, more than 9,000 remain in Israeli prisons, according to data published by HaMoked, an Israeli human rights organization.
Thousands of them are being held under “administrative detention,” according to the organization — a practice in which Israeli authorities hold people without trial or other usual legal proceedings, often based on alleged secret evidence they often don’t not share with detainees, their families or legal representatives. Their fates are among the questions not addressed in Trump’s plan.
Uncertain future
Trump said Monday that “phase two” of negotiations for his ceasefire plan had already started, but it was not clear exactly what that meant in practice.
Nimrod Goren, the president of the Mitvim Institute, an Israeli think tank, said that while the realization of the first stage of Trump’s plan “is a huge achievement,” the big questions about the future of Palestinians and Israelis are still unanswered.
The “question of Palestine” remains just that, with Trump’s plan providing no assurances of internationally recognized Palestinian statehood. While support for the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel has once again grown recently in popularity internationally, among Israelis the idea is deeply unpopular.
Only 21% of Israelis believe their country and a Palestinian state could peacefully coexist, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll – the lowest percentage since the survey began asking the question in 2013.
“Peace means a two-state solution with the Palestinians, and that is not something that current people we have in power want to see. They’re actually actively trying to block that,” Goren said.
Speaking on board Air Force One on Monday, Trump declined to comment on the matter, saying: “A lot of people like the one-state solution, some people like the two-state solution. We’ll have to see.”
Future leadership
It is also unclear who will lead a future Gaza under Trump’s plan, which calls for the enclave to be temporarily governed by a “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” overseen by a “Board of Peace” led by Trump and possibly including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The possibility of the Palestinian Authority, which controls part of the occupied West Bank, running the territory in the future hinges upon whether it can institute certain unspecified reforms, according to the plan.
It is difficult to envision the beleaguered Palestinian Authority, at odds with Hamas in addition to having strained relations with the Israeli government, swiftly taking over the devastated enclave.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and former adviser to Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization, said she had little faith that Trump’s plan so far marked a true end to the conflict that has consumed the Middle East.
A lasting peace requires “accountability and reparations that I just don’t see happening right now,” she said.
Israel faces allegations of genocide before the International Court of Justice, while Netanyahu has a warrant out for his arrest issued by the International Criminal Court. (Israel’s former Israeli defense chief, Yoav Gallant, and one of the Hamas masterminds of the Oct. 7 attacks, Mohammed Deif, whom Israel previously said it has killed, also have arrest warrants on them.)
Netanyahu and Israeli officials in general have forcefully rejected the allegations.
So while Trump declared in the Israeli parliament that Monday marked the “start of a grand concord and lasting harmony,” with the immediate next steps of his plan yet to be be agreed, what truly lies ahead remains deeply uncertain.
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