Sean Collins, your Today, Explained (the newsletter) host, here. In a piece of long-awaited news, a ceasefire agreement in Israel’s war in Gaza was announced Wednesday. You can check out the details here, but essentially the deal appears to be a phased plan to end the fighting and rebuild Gaza that begins with a prisoner transfer and a temporary cessation of hostilities.
One big question the deal raises is whether the agreement will actually end the war.
It’s a hard question, but Vox’s very own Zack Beauchamp has a very helpful answer. Here's what he had to say:
When you look at the specific contours of the agreement, what we have so far looks less like an agreement to stop fighting and more like an agreement to pause the fighting while a more permanent solution might be found. Negotiators looking to nail down an agreement for phase two — a permanent ceasefire — will be working on a six-week clock. If they do not get a deal by then or extend the temporary pause, the fighting is all but certain to begin again.
The odds of these various outcomes — ceasefire, protracted negotiations, or a return to war — are hard to know now. But there are a few factors that are worth considering.
First is the nature of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. The prime minister’s government depends on continued support from the extreme-right Religious Zionism slate, which strongly opposes any permanent end to the war.
At present, there is no indication that faction’s leaders — cabinet members Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — are going to be able to stop the deal’s first phase. But they will likely pose major problems in transitioning to a permanent ceasefire. In fact, one report in the Israeli press suggests Netanyahu has already promised Smotrich he has no intention of entering phase two of the deal. Whether that’s true or not is hard to tell; Netanyahu has a habit of telling people exactly what they want to hear — and a dubious record of following through on it.
Second is Hamas’s internal politics.
While the militant group’s army remains operational, with US estimates suggesting it has recruited roughly as many fighters during the current war as it has lost, almost all of its top-level leadership has been killed. The result is Hamas’s current crop of decisionmakers are new and relatively untested in negotiations; it’s unclear exactly how they are thinking about their interests or even the extent to which they agree with each other on what those interests are.
Third is the Donald Trump factor.
Multiple reports suggest that the president-elect’s personal desire for a deal played a positive role in the talks, putting pressure on Netanyahu — who looked like the primary roadblock to a deal — into agreeing to the phase one deal. However, we do not know the exact nature of Trump’s interest: whether he wants the war to be done permanently, or just wanted a temporary ceasefire he could brag about upon taking office. The incoming US president’s position going forward will likely play a pivotal role, given Israel’s reliance on the United States.
Fourth, and finally, is the war-weariness among both populations.
Gazans have been so brutalized — around 90 percent of the entire population displaced — that they just want the conflict to end. And polls have shown for months that Israelis support a negotiated end to the war. These dynamics will create political costs for leaders on both sides to restarting the fighting, something that might weigh on Netanyahu. That’s especially true given that Israeli elections are scheduled for next year (and likely coming sooner than that).
It is good, then, that both Israelis and Gazans appear to be getting at least a temporary respite from the past year-plus of horrors. While there is no certainty of a lasting peace, there’s more hope for it than there was before.
Many thanks to Zack for those insights; for more, check out his piece on the agreement at Vox.com.
