Children, journalists, and rescue workers who watched their peers and colleagues die before their eyes in Gaza over the past two years now feel a cautious, hope-tinged relief that their living nightmare might finally be nearing its end. The same goes for the families of “Israeli” captives who feared they would never see their loved ones again. We can only share in their sense of respite. Yet the reasons to be wary about the long-term prospects of a ceasefire are too many to count.
We have been here before. A video from last January still haunts me: Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, 28, removing his press vest and helmet live on air, then being hoisted on shoulders amid jubilant crowds as he announced a ceasefire. That agreement enabled several successful exchanges of Palestinian and “Israeli” detainees and brought two months of relative calm to Gaza—until “Israel” shredded the deal with more than 100 airstrikes on the besieged strip in a single night, killing over 400 Palestinians. Five months later, “Israel” bombed a press tent outside a hospital in Gaza City, killing Al-Sharif and five other journalists.
A bad agreement is better than no agreement at all (and with Donald Trump and Tony Blair posturing over Gaza’s future, this is certainly a bad one). But what is particularly troubling is a shift in the official narrative that suggests we may not even reach that imperfect outcome. According to Trump’s Wednesday announcement, what has been agreed is merely a “first phase”—a term absent from the text of the agreement itself and far more reminiscent of last January’s “Israeli”-drafted deal that allowed the war to resume after the release of a limited number of captives.
This semantic sleight of hand is no accident. As journalist Amit Segal—one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most prominent media mouthpieces—said on Thursday morning: “There is no second phase. That’s clear to everyone, isn’t it? The second phase may happen one day, but it isn’t tied to what has just been signed. The agreement signed now is a captives-release deal. It says nothing about the future.”
Should we conclude that Netanyahu already plans to restart the war once the remaining captives are released, as he did last time? That is certainly a plausible reading. But seasoned observers of the “Israeli” prime minister know what has kept him at the top for so long: an ability to juggle multiple tracks at once and bend them to his personal and political agenda at the opportune moment. His calculations now appear to have shifted.
To understand Netanyahu, we must understand the forces shaping his decisions. The first is his ongoing trial in “Israel” after being charged in 2019 with bribery, fraud, and breach of trust—offences that could carry long prison terms. Since then, he has been more determined than ever to cling to the premiership to delay proceedings and evade penalties. This drove him into alliance with religious extremists ahead of the 2022 elections to secure his return to power, and it was a central motive in his government’s campaign against judicial independence.
The second force is the reason he entered politics in the first place: blocking any genuine progress toward a Palestinian state. Since first taking office in the 1990s, he worked to undermine the remnants of Oslo, offered cosmetic support for subsequent US “peace” initiatives, and normalised the gradual annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. Preventing a Palestinian state between the river and the sea has been his life’s mission.
Since 7 October, these motives have fused with devastating consequences. After the deadliest attack in “Israel’s” history, Netanyahu’s popularity plunged to historic lows. His desperate grip on power fed a genocidal war with no clear objectives, hoping to keep his coalition intact long enough to recover some of his former aura. That meant derailing ceasefire talks at almost every turn and violating the January agreement once it no longer served his interests.
Once a pioneer of “conflict management” designed to keep Palestinians under control, Netanyahu began to chart a different path—seduced by the idea of removing two million Palestinians from the demographic equation once and for all, and buoyed by Trump’s sudden obsession with a “Gaza Riviera.” He embraced the far right’s exclusion agenda, pursuing several tracks to ethnically cleanse the Strip. He ultimately ran into Egypt’s red lines and a lack of international appetite to absorb hundreds of thousands of starving refugees.
Netanyahu then changed course again and signed a new ceasefire. His efforts to empty Gaza had failed; “Israel” had become a global pariah with mounting economic and cultural costs. His poll numbers did not improve—despite the “military achievements” he boasted about at last month’s UN General Assembly—and elections loom.
He now appears to see more benefit in declaring a “total victory” in Gaza to launch his election campaign than in waging an open-ended war. If he loses the messianic far-right flank of his coalition—whose leaders threaten to bolt over a ceasefire—so be it; he will reach across the aisle in the name of “national responsibility” and revive old-new partners.
Photos of meetings with returning captives, and the spectacle of a triumphant Trump—scheduled to visit “Israel” in the coming days—will surely serve that campaign; so too might fresh normalisation steps opened by a ceasefire, perhaps with Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, or even Syria. Netanyahu is leaning toward the deal out of self-interest and under slightly more than usual White House pressure. He has begun to sell its benefits and stroke Trump’s ego—the latest example being a generated image he posted showing himself placing a giant “Nobel Peace Prize” medallion around Trump’s neck as a cheering crowd looks on.
Yet the prime minister is again keeping the option to scuttle the deal, carving the ceasefire into phased implementation—and he clearly has no intent to pave any “credible path to Palestinian self-determination and statehood,” as the text promises. The international community, which has either watched or actively enabled two years of devastation as “Israel” crushed Gaza, cannot allow Netanyahu to wreck another agreement. It must move now to ensure any deviation is met with decisive diplomatic consequences.
Nor can the world look away as “Israel” inevitably shifts focus to the West Bank, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in the past two years. Mere recognition of a Palestinian state means nothing so long as “Israel” continues to seize land with impunity. The genocidal fervour that has swept a broad segment of “Israeli” society will not evaporate overnight; that is why B’Tselem has warned that genocide could easily migrate to the West Bank.
Even if the ceasefire holds, there is no going back to the illusion of “normal” that preceded 7 October. Crimes against humanity demand accountability and justice, especially for those who did not live to see their end. Gaza must be rebuilt, and Palestinians must be freed from “Israel’s” suffocating grip.
