Gaza’s war is far from over

Even for Donald Trump, a president who enjoys his place at the center of world events, it was a dramatic moment.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio interrupted a television meeting, which Trump was chaired by Washington on Wednesday. He told a message that the president should tell the world that there was a deal. Trump told the audience in the room – and millions more who have now seen the video – that he will have to leave.

“They will need me …” he said, interrupting the business of the day. “Now I have to go to try to solve some problems in the Middle East.”

Israel and Hamas signed the first phase of what Donald Trump intends to be a broader agreement after Three days of indirect conversations in Egypt.

Mediators from Qatar and Egypt went between the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, which were on separate floors of a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

To add Heft to the conversations and keep the pressure on the Israelis, Donald Trump sent his son -in -law Jared Kushner and his envoy Steve Vikof.

The Prime Minister of Qatar and the heads of intelligence of Egypt and Turkey were there to do the same job for the Hamas delegation.

The agreement is a major breakthrough. This does not mean that the war is over. But for the first time after Hamas’s attacks against Israel, there is a real chance to end the horrors of the last two years.

The plan is that the termination of the fire will be followed by the release of other Israeli hostages, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The Israeli military, IDF, will withdraw from their current positions, leaving it in 53% of the gas according to a spokesman for the government.

Israel will raise enough restrictions on humanitarian aid, entering Gaza to allow 400 truck loads per day, which will be distributed by the UN and other agencies.

The controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the discredited system that Israel wanted to replace the UN, was not mentioned in the plan of Donald Trump’s 20 points.

The deal is a big step, but more must be taken to reach the end of the war. Trump’s plan is a frame, with details being agreed. Serious obstacles are forthcoming.

Hamas wants Israel from the Gaza Strip. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says this will not happen. Hamas is ready to give up heavy weapons, but wants to keep some weapons. Netanyahu wants the complete demilitarization of gas.

He described the victory for Israel as more than simply the return of the hostages. He has said many times that Hamas must be destroyed without a chance to regenerate into gas as a danger to the Israelis.

In May 2024, President Joe Biden made a deal on a table that resembles Trump’s plan. Then Hamas agreed that he would release the Israeli hostages if the IDF is drawn from the Gaza Strip and has guarantees that Israel will not restart the war. Netanyahu was not ready to agree.

In the last two years, he has repeatedly said that the continuation of the war is the only way to return the hostages and destroy Hamas.

Maybe Biden’s plan was too early for both sides. The difference between what happened now and what didn’t happen last May last year is that Trump used America’s lever over Israel to bring Netanyahu to the table.

Although he expresses concern about Israel’s behavior in the war, Biden never threatens to end the diplomatic, financial and military support of the United States, with the exception of a 2000 pound bombs. Israel could not wage the war without the help of us. Biden was not ready to use this addiction. Netanyahu was sure he could oppose him.

Trump maintains military and political support, but he wants much more in return.

A decisive event that led to the breakthrough was Israel’s unsuccessful attempt to kill Hamas’s leadership in Doha on September 9th.

His main goal, senior leader Khalil Al-Haya and his best lieutenants, discussed the latest version of Trump’s peace plan when the attack happened.

They survived, but his son was among the dead. Al Haya leads the Hamas delegation to Egypt.

The Israelis did not tell the Americans in advance that they would hit Doha. Trump was furious.

When Netanyahu wants to meet him in the White House office, he forced him to call the Qatari Prime Minister to make a full apology.

As Netanyahu read the apology he had prepared, the cable from the handset was full stretching to the frowning Donald Trump, who kept the phone in his lap.

The White House posted pictures that looked like a principal, making a delusional student who regretted it.

Trump has also issued an enforcement order that gives unprecedented security guarantees to Qatar if they are attacked again. He needed this excuse because Qatar is an American ally, hosting the largest American military base in the Middle East and is a key part of the wider plan that has peace in the region.

At its core is a big deal based on Saudi Arabia’s normalizing relations with Israel.

Instead, the Israeli raid made the Americans look like an ally who can’t protect his friends.

Other things have changed: IDF has killed many more Palestinians and destroyed much more than gas. Israel has been as isolated as at any time since becoming independent in 1948. The appearance of Netanyahu on the podium of the speaker of the UN General Assembly in New York in September has caused a mass walk of diplomats.

America remains a powerful ally, but US surveys show that Israelis can no longer rely on the support of the majority of Americans. This reduces the political danger of canceling the objections of Israel’s Prime Minister.

The European allies of Israel, led by the United Kingdom and France, have admitted an independent state of Palestine. Their public statements were horrified by the murder and destruction of Gaza, as well as the hunger and the places caused by the blockades of Israel’s help.

The September 9 attack against Doha also created a new sense of urgency among the countries of the Arab and Muslim majority. The rare united front pressed Donald Trump to bring Israel to the table.

If Trump’s 20 -point Trump plan has to end the US war, the pressure on Israel will have to continue.

One of the main questions is whether Benjamin Netanyahu will find a way to resume war after the hostages go home. His ultra -nationalist allies in the cabinet want this to happen.

The rich countries in the Persian Gulf – which Trump admires and wants to play a big role in the renewal and reconstruction of Gaza – will maintain pressure on the US President to try to make sure that this is not happening.

The breakthrough at Sharm El-Sheikh was greeted from celebrations in Israel and inside the Gaza Strip, bitterly on both sides after so many losses.

In Israel, hostage’s families and their supporters are running a constant campaign for pressure and demonstrations to get their people out of the gas.

Public opinion polls show consistently that the majority of Israelis are ready to end the war in Gaza, if the hostages, live and dead, go home.

20 hostages are thought to be alive. Hamas also agreed to return the bodies to about 28 others, although it was not certain that all their graves could be positioned.

Palestinians Celebrated in the ruins of Gaza. In exchange for the hostages, Israel has agreed to release 250 prisoners serving life sentences and 1700 detainees, which have been taken by IDF by Gaza in the last two years.

The Palestinians will welcome them as heroes.

Israel ruled out the release of Marvan Bargutti, who was arrested in 2002 and later received five life sentences plus 40 years for orchestrating attacks against Israeli. Many Palestinians regard it as their Nelson Mandela, who has served 27 years in prison for planning attacks on Apartheid regime in South Africa, before being released to win democratic elections.

Hamas wants freedom for some of his most famous commanders that the Israelis consider to be dangerous terrorists. Putting them will be controversial.

Yahya Sinwar, which led the attacks on October 7, before being killed by Israel, was released in prisoners in 2011. Hamas’s list is considered to be, among other things, Abbas Al Saed, who is serving 35 life sentences plus 100 years for attacks, including one in 2002, which killed 35 Israeli, which killed 35 Israeli.

Another name is the Hasam Salama, to whom they received 46 life sentences for sending suicide bombers to blow buses in Jerusalem in 1996, killing and injuring dozens of Israelis.

Donald Trump says the deal can be the biggest thing in the Middle East in 3000 years. This is Trump’s hyperbole on a large scale.

But if the exchange of Israeli hostages for closed Palestinians is followed by progress on other points they need Agreement in Trump’s Plan, There is a real chance of some of the agony on both sides to end.

Despite the risks ahead of extremely challenging negotiations, optimists already hope that the end of the Gaza war can begin a new era in the Middle East. This would take a level of application and consistency that Trump has not yet shown.

Short sharp negotiations in Egypt are suitable for his cheeky harassment style. Finding a way to end the conflict, which is the second of its second century between the Israelis and the Palestinians to control Earth between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, will require a completely different set of skills.

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