The agreement that people on all sides of the fighting in Gaza and the international community have been waiting for and yearning for has finally been reached.
In many ways it remained vague, starting with the moment it was agreed to by all parties – on Wednesday night and across eight hours of time zones between Qatar, the main intermediary, and Washington, the main force pushing the Israeli cabinet. with his reluctant and eager ministers, to accept it.
The designation of the agreement is vague, perhaps deliberately: Qatar’s official statement calls it a “humanitarian pause,” but media in the Arab world and Israel seem to prefer “truce” or “ceasefire.” , just like the media around the world. Apart from the difference in meaning between these terms, this reflects how sensitive the indirect negotiations which lasted for weeks must have been.
In keeping with the uncomfortable and nervous relationship between Israeli and Hamas negotiators, even the duration is vague: leaks in the final days of the indirect talks ranged from three to five days. In the end, the deadline is average, four days but, to add to the vagueness, the agreement provides for an extension of one day for each additional batch of 50 captives released by Hamas.
The last ambiguity concerns the date of entry into force of this difficult agreement – which will be announced at the end of the day on Wednesday.
Yesterday I analyzed what Israel stands to gain and lose from this deal. The slight change now is that Netanyahu gained some points with the Israeli public by presenting the Israeli cabinet with the deal, which he was most likely forced into by Joe Biden. However, its political survival after the definitive end of the fighting in Gaza is far from assured.
His initial public opposition to the first mentions of a deal indicated the views of the Israeli far right, politically led primarily by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and their bosses in the Knesset and cabinet. For them, Hamas is a terrorist who must be killed, eradicated and expelled from the Gaza Strip, with the captives released voluntarily or by force, and they considered any suggestion of negotiation with Hamas an insult and an offense.
Having become the party that negotiates with the State of Israel, even through intermediaries, Hamas has gained the political acceptance of the international community. In just six weeks since October 7, its status has gone from “terrorists with whom any negotiation is unacceptable” to “an organization that exercises control on the ground.”
Even though Israel and the United States continue to call him a “terrorist”, a term that generally connotes “people with whom we do not negotiate”, they have recognized the reality and accepted the Palestinian organization as their face-to-face. face in negotiations.
Certainly, Hamas and Israel have negotiated truces in the past, always through third-party mediation, usually that of Egypt. But these were battlefield tactical issues rather than full-fledged international agreements involving multiple states.
Hamas won an important psychological, political and strategic victory: the Israeli cabinet and the US president negotiated with Hamas, reached an agreement and publicly declared that they intended to honor it. Two months ago, today’s reality would have been unimaginable.
But, from a military perspective, Hamas has little to gain from the pause, ceasefire or truce. As I explained yesterday, this is militarily very convenient for Israel but makes no real difference to Hamas, despite fears expressed by the Israeli public that it would use the opportunity to regroup.
Unlike Israel, which has a conventional army that fights on the ground and whose progress can be easily tracked by plotting the positions of its armored formations on commercially available satellite photos, the Qassam Brigades are almost untraceable from the air. .
They move lightly, on foot, on the surface or underground, through the network of tunnels that crisscross the Gaza Strip. Their weapons, aside from the multiple rocket launchers, are small and portable, so they can be moved via tunnels.
By keeping uniformed fighters and their easily transportable weapons underground, Hamas remains largely beyond the reach of most conventional means of detection. Hamas command centers are underground, Hamas arsenals are below the surface, and Hamas tunnels connect them to almost every point in the Gaza Strip – so why would Hamas need a break from the fighting to regroup if he can do it anyway?
Certainly, it will exploit the four calm days, if they actually occur, to its military advantage, but this is an opportunistic tactical opportunity rather than a strategic necessity.
If the ceasefire is respected, Hamas will be able to reduce the number of fighters lying in wait, in ambushes and in operational readiness, giving its fighters well-deserved rest and the opportunity to rush for a brief reunion with their families wherever they are in Gaza. be.
Both militaries will need to be on alert during the pause, as realities on the ground are often very different from the beliefs and expectations of those who imagine the battlefield from afar and negotiate from secure offices and comfortable international hotels.
In most of the wars I have witnessed, ceasefires have broken down, often due to unpredictable and uncontrollable events on the ground. The shortest internationally negotiated ceasefire I can remember, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, lasted a good minute and 17 seconds if memory serves.
Any hothead armed with a gun, and there are more than 50,000 potential decision-makers, can decide that he has a reason to take his grudges out on his enemies. If a single soldier fires a few bullets, he risks jeopardizing all hopes of four days without anyone being killed, some civilians moving to safety, much-needed aid arriving, the restoration of some civilian infrastructure and the release of captives and prisoners. prisoners.
Having overcome all the difficulties encountered in concluding the agreement, the world can only pray that the commanders of both sides can, for 96 hours, exercise full and effective control of their forces. Until the last fool!