The Middle East’s Yalta Moment

The deal in Gaza could permanently change the region for the better—but there are dangers too.

Three months before the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta and outlined plans for a postwar Germany and a new global order. Today the Middle East stands at a similar crossroads. The agreement to return Israeli hostages, brokered by President Trump, is more than a diplomatic breakthrough. It marks the beginning of a strategic realignment that could change the region for decades.

Trump left for the Middle East on Sunday for the release of hostages from Gaza.(AP)

This agreement wasn’t born of Hamas’s goodwill. Instead, it came about because Hamas’s patrons, Turkey and Qatar, recognized that the terror group has been defeated—even though fighting will likely continue a bit longer—and because the Israel Defense Forces had three decisive battlefield victories that shattered the operational backbone of Israel’s most dangerous adversaries.

First, the IDF’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon was transformative. In a matter of weeks last fall, Israel dismantled Hezbollah’s command centers, destroyed a substantial portion of its missile stockpiles, and neutralized its capacity to wage war. The myth of Hezbollah’s invincibility, carefully cultivated over years, was shattered. Lebanon had long been held hostage by Iranian-backed militants, but the tables have turned. The Lebanese army has been empowered to disarm Hezbollah, and when it needs backup, the Israeli air force hasn’t been shy about flexing its firepower.

Second, Israel’s and America’s precision strikes deep into Iranian territory sent a clear message: The era of unchecked Iranian expansionism is over. The attack crippled key parts of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile infrastructure and demonstrated to the region that Iran’s regional dominance is declining if not defunct.

Third, and most viscerally felt by Hamas, was the ground war in Gaza, and specifically the IDF’s most recent encirclement of Gaza City. Hamas took Mr. Trump’s threat that the IDF would “unleash hell” on Gaza seriously for one reason: Hamas had seen the IDF’s capabilities firsthand. Significant portions of Hamas’s tunnel networks have been destroyed, its leadership has been decimated, and its ability to launch attacks has been severely degraded. Combine this with Israel’s strike in Doha, Qatar, which showed Hamas’s leaders that they were no longer safe abroad, and it was clear to the terror group that it had lost the war. Only by releasing all the remaining hostages would Hamas be able to help shape the terms of its surrender.

Seeing that Hamas’s defeat was inevitable, its patrons agreed to the deal to have at least some control over its demise. This has provided them an avenue to influence the post-Hamas world order. Their efforts to preserve Hamas’s leadership abroad aren’t acts of defiance; they’re acts of desperation. By forcing Hamas into this agreement, they seek to insert themselves into the emerging agreements, hoping to retain regional influence.

Their influence could prove detrimental. Yalta is the perfect cautionary tale: Stalin’s influence condemned Eastern Europe to 45 years of communist tyranny. It isn’t hard to imagine things going terribly wrong in a similar way in the Middle East. So what should this agreement that redraws Gaza’s future and the broader regional security framework look like?

The complete disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza are nonnegotiable pillars of this new order. Equally critical is the establishment of a governance model in Gaza that excludes both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, entities that have repeatedly failed to deliver peace, stability or accountability. Both organizations have radicalized and incited their populations and have promoted confrontation and violence, not peace and coexistence. Israel must now assume a heightened level of security responsibility in Gaza, as a guarantor of peace, both for the Israelis and Gazans. This includes preventing the re-establishment of terrorist infrastructure, ensuring that humanitarian aid isn’t weaponized, and supporting local governance that puts civilian welfare ahead of ideological warfare.

The implications of this deal extend far beyond Israel’s borders. The collapse of Hamas has exposed the fragility of the Muslim Brotherhood’s regional network. Across the region—from Cairo to Doha and from Ankara to Ramallah—the ideological scaffolding that has long propped up extremist movements is crumbling. This creates an opportunity but also a challenge. Regional actors must decide whether to embrace a future of pragmatic cooperation or cling to the remnants of a failed past.

There’s much work to be done. The road to lasting peace is long and fraught with complexity. But today we allow ourselves to celebrate the pending return of our loved ones, the strength and discipline of our defense forces, and the possibility that the Middle East’s Yalta moment could forever reshape the region.

Mr. Avivi, a reservist brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces, is founder and chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum.