When will the Gaza war end? The answer remains: As soon as Hamas releases the hostages, lays down its arms and gives up power. Those are the core demands of the deal President Trump put on the table and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to on Monday.
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, in foreground, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Monday. (AP)
Mr. Trump called Monday “potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.” Quests to solve the Middle East typically end in disappointment, but the Trump deal is better understood as a way to move the region past the Gaza war and shift pressure onto Hamas. After a modest Israeli withdrawal, the deal requires Hamas to free all 48 Israeli hostages, dead or alive, “within 72 hours” of acceptance.
In exchange, Israel would release 1,700 Gazans detained since the start of the war as well as 250 terrorists serving life sentences for killing Israelis. This isn’t a fair trade for Israel, and it encourages more hostage-taking, but Israelis will accept it.
Will Hamas? If it does, the war would halt and aid could surge. Israel would gradually withdraw from Gaza in accordance with Hamas’s disarmament. A stabilization force led by Arab states would take over Gaza in phases and a committee of Palestinian technocrats, supervised by a “Board of Peace” chaired by Mr. Trump, would handle civil administration.
Gaza would undergo a program of deradicalization. All Gazans would be allowed to stay, leave or return later. Hamas members who disarm could be granted amnesty or leave Gaza. Hamas would have no role in governance.
“I’m hearing that Hamas wants to get this done too,” Mr. Trump said. But there’s ample reason for skepticism. Hamas needs the hostages to manipulate Israelis. It needs weapons to stay relevant. Even under Qatari pressure, which U.S. officials believe was generated at last by Israel’s Sept. 9 strike in Doha, Hamas is unlikely to surrender all of its leverage up front.
The deal, then, rests on a hopeful fiction. More relevant is what happens if the fiction is dispelled and Hamas clings to some or all of its hostages and arms.
In that event, the plan is for the deal to proceed in the areas of Gaza under Israeli control. This means Arab states would build the government to replace Hamas’s authority in Gaza even as Israel continues fighting. For Hamas, it could be the worst of both worlds.
Israel would have “full backing” from the U.S. to “finish the job,” Mr. Trump said, if Hamas rejects the deal or if the Arab states are unable to disarm Hamas. The key for peace, he recognized, is ending the threat from Iran’s terror proxy.
Mr. Trump has offered Israel a potential end to its war, a plan embraced by regional Arab powers. Mr. Netanyahu, who can boast of victories over Iran and Hezbollah, said he now has his “day after” plan for Gaza, with Israel’s war aims satisfied. This can help him restore Israel’s international position and move to improve it by expanding Mr. Trump’s Abraham Accords.
Some parts of the deal could pose challenges for Israel. One is a spot for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority on the committee to govern Gaza. Arab states insist on it to give their intervention legitimacy.
But the deal says the PA will take up its role only after it deradicalizes and makes stringent reforms laid out by Mr. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner in 2020. “If the Palestinian Authority does not complete the reforms,” Mr. Trump said, “they’ll have only themselves to blame.” If it does reform, all the better for Israel and for peace.
Another is the proposal’s aspiration that, if the PA reforms, this may yield the right “conditions” for a “pathway” to Palestinian statehood. To talk about statehood after Hamas’s massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, sounds suicidal to Israelis. Mr. Trump said he understands this, but at the level of a distant aspiration, it need not hold up progress today.
A third issue is the reconstruction of Gaza, which is supposed to start immediately. It can’t be another United Nations- or Qatar-led restoration that supplied Hamas and spawned war after war. This is an opportunity to end the anomaly of permanent Palestinian refugee camps and antisemitic indoctrination.
That leaves the Israeli phased withdrawal, which is linked to the extent of Hamas’s disarmament, Mr. Netanyahu said. Israel would also keep a security buffer zone for what he called “the foreseeable future.”
These are crucial conditions because whatever fine words are offered, only Israelis will fight Hamas to keep Israel safe. The more Israel is able to carry out security operations against Hamas going forward, the less likely we are to see another Gaza war like this one. Credit to Mr. Trump for winning regional buy-in for a deal that recognizes this.
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