The contrasting reactions between Palestinians and Israelis to the long-awaited news of the upcoming hostage exchange and cease-fire is telling.
As word of the agreement spread through Gaza, there was jubilation and joy that the destruction wrought by Israeli bombs might finally end and that hundreds of thousands of displaced people could return to their former neighborhoods, even if their homes were reduced to rubble.
The United Nations estimates that more than two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Relentless Israeli bombing over the past 15 months has also killed more than 46,500 people, according to Palestinian officials.
There were also celebrations in the occupied West Bank amid claims of victory. Hundreds of Palestinians serving prison terms in Israeli prisons — some for violent crimes — will be freed to return to their families, along with many others who have been held without trial.
But there was no such euphoria on the streets of Jerusalem on Thursday morning. One group of protesters draped Israeli flags over the casket to symbolize the hostages they say the deal is likely to leave behind in Gaza.
Canadian Maureen Leshem talks to The National about anticipating the release of her cousin, Romi Gonen, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government, which has yet to formally confirm the deal, postponed a morning vote on the deal, accusing Hamas of ignoring it just hours after it was signed.
Under the deal reached on Wednesday, 33 hostages will be released over the next six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians jailed by Israel. Israeli forces will withdraw from many areas in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will be able to return to what remains of their homes, and humanitarian aid will increase.
With approximately 30 prisoners and prisoners released for every Israeli hostage, as many as 1,000 Palestinians could be freed. More than 60 Israelis are believed to be still alive and trapped in Gaza, but only the very young or very sick and young women will be included in the first group to be returned, starting on Sunday.
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The announced deal divided the country.
“The Israelis are very happy about the deal, but at the same time they are tormented and tormented by it,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a Canadian Israeli pollster and political analyst based in Tel Aviv, told the BBC.
Although he admits that 33 hostages will be freed in the first phase, “nobody knows if the second phase will actually happen.”
Divisions among hostage families
The only pause in the war came in November 2023, when Hamas released 105 prisoners. But that ceasefire collapsed.
That pause came nearly two months after militants from Hamas and other groups in Gaza rampaged through southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages, according to Israeli government estimates. In the war that followed, Israel says 405 of its soldiers died, as did some of the hostages, either by execution or accidentally during Israeli attacks.
Even before US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump issued opposing statements this week taking credit for the deal, there was widespread talk of betrayal in Israel. The Israeli media published the stories the alleged secret deals between Netanyahu and his far-right partners to resume the war after an initial six-week pause and the curse of the hostages on their fate.
After 15 months of bloodshed, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire that would mean an end to the war in Gaza, the release of hostages and more aid for the Palestinians. But world leaders stress the need for a long-term solution.
The groups representing the families of the hostages in Gaza were especially divided. The largest, the Forum of Families of Hostages and Missing Persons, which has occupied a Tel Aviv square for the past 15 months and held constant rallies to try to keep the plight of their loved ones in the public eye, said they “welcomed with great joy and facilitated the agreement to bring our loved ones home.”
But the more hard-line Tikva Hostage Family Forum strongly condemned the agreement.
“This deal leaves dozens of hostages behind in Gaza,” the statement said. “Don’t be part of a government that releases dozens of hostages, leaving them behind,” it said, urging members of Netanyahu’s cabinet not to support the deal.
Many Israelis seem to share the fear that the chances of reaching a Phase 2 deal are slim — either because Hamas will violate the agreement or because Netanyahu’s government will.
Under the terms of the three-phase agreement, negotiations to release the hostages in the second phase will begin 16 days after implementation on Sunday.
Hamas perseveres, despite being weakened
The truce will face huge tests if it is to eventually deliver all the hostages back to Israel and return more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees to their families.
Even as the deal was being announced, Israeli warplanes continued the carnage, with strikes on Wednesday night and Thursday morning leaving dozens dead in Gaza City and northern Gaza, according to Palestinian medics.
Many times over the past 15 months, Netanyahu has stressed that he would be satisfied with nothing less than “total victory.” This meant the defeat of Hamas, freedom for the hostages, and the creation of conditions in which militant groups in Gaza could never again carry out attacks on Israel.
For many Israelis waking up on Thursday morning, the agreement signed in Qatar does not appear to be fulfilling that. Although Hamas has been severely weakened and its top leadership killed, US officials said Wednesday that the group also appears to have been able to recruit many new members to replace those it has lost.
In a statement, Hamas said “the ceasefire agreement and the end of the war in Gaza is considered an achievement for our people” and a “milestone” on the “road to freedom”. Iran’s rulers, who support Hamas, called it an “Israeli withdrawal.”
Even assuming the two sides can make progress on implementing Phase 2 of the deal, the Israeli government has refused to discuss what kind of Palestinian government it envisions ruling Gaza in the long term, a key aspect of Phase 3.
Netanyahu has repeatedly and emphatically ruled out the possibility of representatives of Hamas or the reformed Palestinian Authority — which has something akin to municipal status in the occupied West Bank — taking power in Gaza.
Without any mention of a commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state or an end to Israel’s nearly six-decade-long occupation, the truce may end the current fighting – but the wider conflict will continue.
