Ceasefire in Gaza

Winners and losers from the proposed deal

World media reporting is that a ceasefire deal in Gaza is closer than ever before. Of course, media reporting over this conflict has not been reliable, but let us be generous and assume that, in this instance, it is.

The headline issue is that, all going to plan, a terrible war will be over, innocent civilians on both sides can start to rebuild their lives, and the hostages will be free. These are objectively Good Things. On a human, compassionate level we should all be delighted.

However, it is my lot in life that compassionate humanity and dispassionate military and strategic analysis are not happy bedfellows, and sometimes one must divorce the two. For the remainder of this article, therefore, I will evaluate the ceasefire deal, as reported, in terms of strategic gain and strategic loss for both sides.

First, the details of the deal. It looks broadly similar to July’s failed deal, which, interestingly enough, the Israeli Kahanist right yesterday boasted about having torpedoed. Rough details appear to be:

1. Stage 1 is a 42-day temporary ceasefire. 33 Israeli civilian hostages, some alive, some dead, will be released in stages. IDF divisions will withdraw from populated areas of Gaza. This reportedly includes pauses in IDF reconnaissance flights. In exchange, Israel will release a number of Palestinian criminals from Israeli jails. At the same time, humanitarian aid will enter the Gaza Strip in increasing amounts. Concurrently, negotiations for Stage 2 will continue.

2. Stage 2 will see another 42-day period where all IDF hostages will be exchanged for more Palestinian criminals. At the same time, the IDF will completely withdraw from Gaza, including the Netzarim and Philadelphi Corridors. The total number of prisoners released in exchange for 94 hostages, some dead, is reported to be 1,000. 190 of these are reported to be serving sentences of 15 years or more.

3. Stage 3 will see a dead body exchange, a permanent ceasefire, and the reconstruction of Gaza will commence. This reportedly comes with the reopening of crossings, and allowing the free movement of people and goods.

Let us examine this deal from both sides.

Hamas

Tactically, Hamas have taken a severe beating in Gaza since October 2023. It is assessed that they have lost as much as 90% of military capability and 80% of manpower, although they have recruited well and boosted their numbers from below 10,000 to the 20-30,000 range. However, these are untrained recruits, often under-age, and the IDF has been striking their training camps in Northern Gaza so they have been unable to form any kind of meaningful capability. This is not a fighting force that retains any ability to harm the IDF in real numbers, although, as seen this past week with a fatal IED attack, they are able to score the odd hit.

Sinwar, Deif and most other key leaders are dead. However, this has not affected Hamas’ ability to retain administrative control of Gaza. As the IDF has attacked and then withdrawn from areas within Gaza, Hamas has lost fighting capability but has been able swiftly to resume governance. This has been facilitated by humanitarian aid. The IDF has seen aid cross the border, but has left its distribution to humanitarian organisations. This has allowed Hamas to seize control of large portions of aid, resupplying themselves as well as using distribution as a lever of control over the population.

Strategically, Hamas will consider this deal to be a victory. They will retain control in Gaza, whatever happens in Stage 3, even if they need a superficial rebrand to do so. Their new, untrained fighters are no use against the IDF, but goons with guns is all they need to exert power over the Gazan population. Unrestricted inflow of aid, coupled with reduced Israeli oversight and reconnaissance, will allow Hamas to rebuild in short order.

Whilst Iran seems to be a busted flush for now, their links to Hamas were logistical rather than administrative. The Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt are Hamas’s biggest backers. This deal will allow them to support Hamas’s rebuild to a significant extent. It is excellent news for Turkey, who are in the midst of exploiting Assad’s collapse in Syria to establish a regional dominance of their own. This deal exponentially increases the risk of a Muslim Brotherhood hegemony filling the void left by Iran’s Shia Crescent of proxies in Syria and Lebanon. Hamas’s reconstruction will take time, but Arab planning does not work in electoral cycles: it works in generations.

Internationally, Hamas sits alone in glory on the information battlefield. They have won the most resounding victory imaginable in the world’s media, in Western states, and on the internet. A deeply sophisticated messaging campaign has seen international press parrot Hamas lies wholesale and without scrutiny. Israel will have continued battles to fight in the ICJ and ICC (although the latter will be severely hampered by US sanctions). Israelis travelling abroad will face the risk of war crimes criminal prosecutions in Palestine-sympathetic nations. Israel is more isolated on the world stage than ever before.

Hamas has seen booming popularity in Judea & Samaria/West Bank, as well as thriving branches in Lebanon and Syria. The stock of the Palestinian cause rides high internationally and will only get higher as Hamas proclaims a victory following this ceasefire deal. By means of political pressure on Israel, the international information campaign has kept Hamas in the fight, extended the war, prolonged the suffering of Gazan civilians, and has ultimately handed Hamas a win through the fact of their continued survival and eventual rebuild.

Hamas will firmly exploit this following the ceasefire, as the world’s media sees the wreckage in Gaza. Expect to see much footage of bodies being pulled from ruins. Israel is going to be condemned internationally worse than ever before, and the Palestinian campaign will continue to make huge international gains from the aftermath of the war. The kidnapping of Israelis abroad will become a feature in years to come. Already, Palestinians are celebrating a victory. If this ceasefire deal passes, the conflict concludes with a win for Hamas and the Palestinian cause beyond even Sinwar’s wildest dreams.

Israel

One Israeli on X wrote, “The hardest part of the deal to swallow? Receiving CORPSES in exchange for living, breathing murderers.” It is a fair point. The first thing to note about this deal is that it completely validates Hamas’s strategy of taking hostages. Without the hostages, this war would have been over months ago, with a convincing IDF victory. Strategically, hostage-taking was the masterstroke that facilitated Hamas’s entire victory.

It would be entirely understandable if the IDF rank-and-file felt a sense of political betrayal. They have won every fight. Their operational design was masterful, avoiding all the ground-holding mistakes that led to Western quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet, Israel appears to have seized defeat in Gaza from the jaws of victory.

Mistakes have been made but they are political, not military. The IDF has done everything asked of it. One may point to the failure to take charge of distributing aid, or not seizing and holding chunks of territory, but without a full counterinsurgency campaign lasting decades these things would not have solved the problem of Hamas control of Gaza. International political pressure, generated by Hamas’s information operations, is the reason the IDF has been operating with the handbrake on throughout this campaign.

A key problem was Israeli selection of military-strategic aims. Their goals of dismantling Hamas and restoring Israeli security were arguably mutually exclusive to the aim of returning the hostages: only a handful have been freed by military force. The whole IDF campaign plan was designed around the first two, but the Israeli government has ultimately prioritised the third. This strategic disconnect leaves Gaza in ruins, over 400 IDF soldiers dead and over 2,500 wounded. Hamas is degraded but still in control and able to rebuild. Palestinian hatred of Israel unabated and exacerbated. Israel’s international reputation is destroyed, and they have very little to show for any of it.

One positive is that Iran’s proxy capabilities, less the Houthis and Iraqi militias, lie in ruins. This has been a huge Israeli success, but Hamas was never an Iranian proxy and so comprises part of a different problem set that remains unsolved. The reported unrestricted provision of aid and uncontrolled reconstruction clauses in this peace deal are the most disastrous parts: they are a free pass to allow Hamas to reconstitute. Ultimately, the campaign in Gaza has failed to provide an enduring solution to the problem of Hamas: it has achieved short-term security whilst Hamas rebuilds, but in the long term it is unlikely that Hamas will remain dismantled, or that Israel’s borders will be any safer from future attacks in decades to come.

Future considerations

The reason behind this ceasefire is possibly more worrying than the ceasefire itself. It is not dictated by the achievement of any strategic or tactical goals; it is dictated by Trump. Last year, I was barracked on X when I urged caution in Israeli jublation over Trump’s election. Sadly my pessimism has been validated, although I did not expect Trump to throw Israel to the wolves so soon. Israeli media reports that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, is the one who forced Netanyahu to agree to the deal.

(As an aside, Witkoff has had financial dealings with global malign actor Qatar numbering in the hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars.)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) meets US President-elect Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff at his office in Jerusalem, 11 January 2025. (Prime Minister's Office Spokesperson)

One can only hope that there is a trade-off for this coercion of Netanyahu. It is reported that he has sold the deal to the Kahanist right as short-term pain for long-term gain, in terms of Trump endorsing further settlements in the West Bank. This will not help Israel’s cause internationally. A better trade-off might be cooperation over further military strikes against Iran. Either way, I am not convinced that these are a fair exchange for the strategic defeat in Gaza.

Far more seriously from an international perspective, as with his Doha deal with the Taliban that needlessly betrayed NATO’s Afghan allies, Trump has shown himself to be a feckless and untrustworthy ally. We know he is going to force a similar surrender on Ukraine. This should send a rocket through Western militaries reliant on American support—which is no bad thing. A truly bad thing, however, is the message China will receive. As the Afghan shambles encouraged Putin in Ukraine, so this betrayal of Israel will encourage China to invade Taiwan. Globally, this deal places the world a significant step closer to World War Three.

Israel is faced with a strategic dilemma: the requirement to keep Donald Trump happy, balanced with the hypothetical lives of future Israelis (through the enduring security of the State of Israel); or the lives of hostages, now. This deal prioritises the latter over the former. My role is to articulate the pros and cons. Whilst, strategically, I think it is a terrible deal for Israel (and there is every chance it may fail to be ratified), on a human level I would be delighted to see the hostages return home.