Hamas has long believed that a wider war in the Middle East would help deliver the organization a victory in its war with Israel.
But the cease-fire deal to stop the fighting between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has left that strategy in tatters, potentially removing Hamas’s most important ally from the fight, according to U.S. officials.
The agreement is a step forward for the Biden administration, which has tried to contain that wider war and increase pressure on Hamas to make a deal with Israel and release the hostages it holds in Gaza.
But even before the Lebanese cease-fire was announced on Tuesday, Palestinian and U.S. officials said they believed that Hamas’s political leadership was ready to make a deal and abandon the strategy formulated by its leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli forces last month.
After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Mr. Sinwar had focused on trying to defeat the country by bringing it into a full-scale war with Hezbollah and Iran. U.S. officials said that as long as that strategy appeared to have a chance, Mr. Sinwar would block any cease-fire deal.
But the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, which devastated its leadership and stocks of long-range weaponry, and now the cease-fire agreement have left Hamas increasingly isolated.
“Hamas is all alone now,” said Tamer Qarmout, a professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. “Its position has been seriously weakened.”
And Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, seems keen to avoid a direct fight with Israel, at least for now. Iran’s air defense systems were devastated in an Israeli attack in October, and after the victory of President-elect Donald J. Trump, the Iranians appear to have called off a reprisal attack.
Hamas has reached a painful crossroads more than a year after the Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people and led to more than 250 being taken hostage. Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and left much of the enclave in ruins.
Dozens of Hamas commanders and thousands of its fighters have been killed. Some Palestinians blame the group’s attack on Israel for provoking the devastating campaign in Gaza. And while Hamas may never be fully eradicated, it no longer fully controls the territory it has administered since 2007.
Yet a cease-fire for Gaza may still be far-off.
Before the Lebanon deal, U.S. and Palestinian officials said Hamas’s political council appeared willing to move toward its own cease-fire if Israel was willing to make compromises, particularly on removing occupying forces from Gaza.
Some American officials say Hamas might drop its demands and move forward on a cease-fire agreement acceptable to Israel’s government.
But Western officials said Israel did not appear to be interested in concessions. Most of the officials interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid compromising their work.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel seems to be waiting for Mr. Trump to take office before shifting his position on talks with Hamas, according to U.S. officials. While Mr. Trump has urged Israel to “finish up” the war in Gaza, he is unlikely to substantially pressure Mr. Netanyahu or the Israeli military by threatening to withhold military aid.
Western officials say Israel remains skeptical of American and Arab ideas for administering Gaza after the war. Mr. Netanyahu, the officials said, believes that plans to bring in the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza are doomed to failure and that Hamas would quickly reassert control.
American officials also believe that Hamas is angling to remain in power after a cease-fire deal.
The Biden administration’s frustration with Hamas has been growing since late August when its fighters executed a group of hostages, including an American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. More recently, U.S. officials have pressured Qatar to expel Hamas’s political council from Doha.
Several members of the Hamas political leadership have now left Qatar, relocating to Turkey for the time being.
Before he was killed in late October, Mr. Sinwar had tasked the five-member council of officials in Qatar with running the group’s affairs, a senior Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, said in interview with Russian television. Mr. Sinwar had steered Hamas since the conception of the Oct. 7 attack and overseen its strategic decision-making throughout the war.
But Mr. Abu Marzouk said that Mr. Sinwar delegated powers to the council because “he was on the front fighting” and having difficulty communicating with Hamas leaders outside Gaza.
Two weeks before his death, Mr. Sinwar sent a message to Hamas’s leaders telling them to prepare for a long fight, according to Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official.
“The longer it lasts, the closer we get to liberation,” Mr. Hamdan recalled Mr. Sinwar saying. “Prepare yourselves for a long war of attrition against this occupation.”
But after Mr. Sinwar’s death, reality started to sink in, given Iran’s reluctance to begin a more intense war with Israel and the devastation Hezbollah was suffering in Israel’s offensive.
Hamas has long thought Mr. Netanyahu was demanding its complete surrender, something the group still will not give in to. But some leaders have discussed potential concessions they could make if Israel showed a genuine interest in ending the war and withdrawing from Gaza.
One proposal discussed by some Hamas leaders would permit Israel to maintain a presence — at least temporarily — in the border region between Egypt and Gaza, according to two people familiar with the group’s internal thinking. Hamas officials have publicly rebuffed any long-term Israeli control of the area, which is known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas praised Hezbollah and said it was committed to efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza based on parameters it had agreed to previously. Hamas said those parameters included a cease-fire, Israel’s withdrawal, the return of displaced people to northern Gaza and an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for hostages.
But beyond that broad position, Hamas remains divided over other key issues, including what role it should have in Gaza after the war and which compromises it should make with Israel.
The movement has yet to nominate a leader to replace Mr. Sinwar, a towering figure who dominated the group’s decision-making.
How the divisions will shake out is difficult to predict.
“The solution to Hamas’s military losses is simpler — there’s a pyramid of command and each commander or soldier can be replaced,” said Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, an analyst close to the Hamas leadership and a member of the group. “But on the political level, things are far more complicated. There will ultimately need to be elections. There are different factions and balances of power. All this makes it hard to predict.”
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