WASHINGTON (AP) — A fragile ceasefire in Gaza on Monday freedom of israeli hostages and the release of Palestinians captured by Israel. It was the culmination of a long and winding process, but it may have been easier in the end.
The coming weeks, months and years will require more than rebuilding from the devastation that has left much of Gaza in ruins. Key details of the peace plan are likely to remain uncertain. Detailed details will need to be negotiated to move the plan forward and prevent a resumption of fighting. The road to long-term peace, stability and eventual reconstruction will be a long and very difficult road.
“The first step toward peace is always the most difficult,” President Donald Trump said Monday as he met foreign leaders in Egypt. Summit on the future of Gaza. He hailed the ceasefire agreement brokered between Israel and Hamas as an end to the war in Gaza and the beginning of rebuilding the devastated territory.
and in between President Trump expresses optimism The hardest part is over, “rebuilding is probably going to be the easiest part. Now that the rest of the pieces are coming together, I think a lot of the hardest part is done.” Others took a more cautious attitude about the complexities that lie ahead.
“Peace has to start somewhere,” said Mona Yakubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She called it a significant and “euphoric moment.”
But Yacoubian cautioned: “Unfortunately, I think there are some potential points of failure going forward.”
There are still many things that need to be resolved
As announced, there are many unanswered questions about this plan.
It is unclear when and how Hamas will disarm and where the weapons will go, as are Israel’s plans to withdraw from Gaza. A new security force will be established in Gaza, made up of troops from other countries, but it is unclear which countries will send troops, how those forces will be used and what will happen if they encounter resistance. It is unclear who will staff Gaza’s interim governing committee, where it will be located, and how residents will react.
Experts say the United States and other countries that pushed for the ceasefire agreement must continue to apply pressure and attention to iron out these details and prevent fighting from resuming.
All of this is layered on top of the legacy of the conflict, deep mistrust between the two sides, and the vague and conditional possibility that a Palestinian state will eventually be established, an issue that has been at the core for decades. “Once you realize how far things have to go to maintain the current pause, I think it’s going to be very difficult,” Jacobian said.
Since then war The ceasefire began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and two other ceasefires ended without any progress beyond a pause in fighting and limited exchanges of hostages and prisoners. Post-war negotiations have stalled, with Hamas demanding a permanent cessation of fighting and Israel demanding the release of all hostages. These positions began to change after Trump’s reelection, as he leveraged his power and relationships with both Israeli and Arab mediators with influence in Hamas to move things forward.
There are multiple reasons for skepticism.
Despite enthusiasm for this latest deal, there are reasons for skepticism. Above all, US attempts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed for decades.
Starting with the 1991 Madrid Conference and going through various iterations, including the landmark Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 that created the Palestinian Authority, all efforts to restart the process collapsed until 2014.
Lucy Kulzer-Ellenbogen, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the current ceasefire was a “welcome and meaningful but fragile pause.” Now, the question is whether it will “break down completely and simply become an opportunity for the two sides to regroup rather than a starting point for moving forward on these issues. That will be up to President Trump and the other parties that President Trump is coordinating to continue this policy,” she said.
It remains unclear to what extent the two biggest issues in the peace plan brokered by the Trump administration have been reached: the extent of Israel’s withdrawal and the extent of Hamas’ withdrawal from power. Israel still controls about half of the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cautiously said on Monday that he was “committed” to Trump’s peace plan, but did not declare an end to the war. Over the past two years, he has repeatedly vowed to achieve “complete victory” against Hamas.
Although Hamas has weakened after two years of war, it has lost the governing capacity Netanyahu had sought and is far from being completely disarmed. Netanyahu relies on hardline coalition partners who oppose ending the war, and declaring an end to the war could cause his government to collapse and force an early election with approval ratings still low and war goals unmet. The next election is scheduled for October next year.
It also remains unclear who will oversee everything in the so-called “Peace Commission,” which President Trump is said to chair. Even though Trump’s plan had announced that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would head the board, the president sounded on Sunday that that too would be temporary. Palestinians have expressed displeasure at Prime Minister Blair’s possible involvement.
“I like Tony. I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to know if he’s an acceptable choice for everyone,” Trump told reporters on his way to Israel.
All that needs to be cleaned up is desolation.
Kurzer-Ellenbogen said that all these details need to be worked out against the backdrop of the Gaza Strip requiring “massive rehabilitation” and the constant physical and psychological trauma of the population.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed. More than 90% of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million people are displaced. The medical system is collapsing. Houses and buildings will be flattened. Farmland is being destroyed. Hunger is widespread.
While these urgent needs are addressed, transitional security and government systems must be established. “We simply don’t have the luxury of sequencing here,” Kulzer-Ellenbogen says. “Everything has to happen at once.”
The World Bank, United Nations and European Union estimated earlier this year that rebuilding Gaza would cost about $53 billion. Wealthy Arab countries are expected to help pay for it, but their buy-in is expected to be met with reassurance that there is a path to Palestinian independence and there will be no renewed fighting. The biggest hurdle is a Palestinian state, which President Trump’s plan presents as a possibility only after a lengthy transition period in Gaza and a reform process for the Palestinian Authority. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his partners oppose this.
Yacoubian said the agreement signed by the Trump administration appears to be “intentionally very vague” on the issue of Palestinian statehood. He did not mention a “two-state solution,” which he said appeared to be aimed at “threading the needle between the minimum acceptable to the Palestinians and their Arab supporters,” which still appears to be not a start for Israel.
Robert Wood, who served as the US deputy ambassador to the United Nations under the Biden administration, vetoed several UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. He said the next steps would be difficult and “will require a huge amount of work.”
“If this is going to have any chance of working, the administration needs to stay engaged, especially at the highest levels,” Wood said. “It’s a good day, but the war is not over yet.”
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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Joseph Federman in Truro, Massachusetts, contributed to this report.
