The perplexing state of Gaza ceasefire negotiations, explained

After weeks of often confusing discussions, quantum mechanics might be a better guide to the ongoing Israel-Hamas ceasefire negotiations than international relations. That’s because it’s a state of affairs that becomes more uncertain the more closely you look at it.

The simplest version of the state of play is that Hamas leaders have, in general terms, publicly endorsed a deal for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages, but they have not actually agreed to it. The Israeli government, meanwhile, has agreed to it — or at least the White House insists they have — but notably has not endorsed it publicly.

And while all this is being sorted out, the political space to make this theoretical deal a reality and bring a halt to a nearly 250-day war that has killed tens of thousands of people is only narrowing.

The current phase of the ceasefire talks began on May 31, when President Joe Biden gave a televised address from the Oval Office. He announced that after months of negotiations, “Israel has offered a comprehensive new proposal. It’s a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages.”

The proposal is divided into three phases. In the first, lasting six weeks, fighting would cease, Israel would withdraw its troops from populated areas of Gaza, and a number of the roughly 120 remaining Israeli hostages — primarily women, the elderly, and the wounded — would be released by Hamas in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons. Humanitarian aid to Gaza would be greatly increased.

In phase two, there would be a permanent cessation of hostilities in exchange for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, including male soldiers. In phase three, the reconstruction of Gaza would begin.

The proposal was very similar in structure to one that Hamas had agreed to a few weeks earlier on May 6, only for the deal to fall apart when it turned out the text Hamas had agreed to was not the same one that Israel had approved. This time around, the text shown to Hamas was the same one Biden outlined, an administration official told Vox.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been shuttling throughout the Middle East in recent days to lobby for the deal. The US also amped up the international pressure by putting the deal up for a vote by the UN Security Council on Monday, where it passed overwhelmingly, with only Russia abstaining. And on Tuesday, a senior Hamas official said that the group accepted the UN resolution.

So, done deal? Not quite. Later that day, Hamas gave its formal response, which included some “amendments.” Hamas reportedly told mediators it wants Israeli troops removed from Gaza’s border with Egypt the first week after the deal is signed and to completely withdraw from the strip before the second phase begins.

A senior Hamas official told the Lebanese TV network Al Mayadeen that any agreement it signed must ensure that “the Resistance is capable of continuing [its operations].” In other words, it wants to keep its ability to fight Israel intact.

Blinken described some of Hamas’s amendments as “workable” and some as not.

There are reasonable grounds for suspicion about whether either Israel or Hamas is sincere about even wanting a ceasefire right now.

Some Israeli officials have accused the White House of trying to purposefully box Israel in by describing the deal as an Israeli proposal, even though Israelis aren’t exactly rushing to take credit. They have complained that Biden made his speech on Saturday afternoon Israel time, when Shabbat had already begun there, giving themselves a day to rally global support before the Israelis could respond. (White House officials have denied that this was the motivation for the timing.)

Some Israeli officials have described Biden’s description of the fine points of the deal as not fully accurate, in particular whether Israel had agreed to eventually withdraw all its troops from Gaza. Netanyahu has said that the notion of Israel agreeing to a permanent ceasefire without “the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities” is a “non-starter.”

On Monday, Israel’s Channel 12, a widely watched and influential outlet, published details of what it said was the Israeli May 27 proposal, the one Biden had referred to, which matched the president’s description: it did not require the full destruction of Hamas and did agree to a full ceasefire even before all the hostages had been returned. In other words, according to the channel’s reporting, the Israeli government had agreed to the proposal.

But Netanyahu’s office quickly described the report as a “total lie.” In his speech announcing his resignation from Netanyahu’s war cabinet on Sunday, Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz backed Biden’s proposal and called on the prime minister to show “the necessary courage to stand behind it,” which would seem to imply that Netanyahu — who has a well-established reputation for avoiding difficult decisions as long as possible — does not currently stand behind it.

Gantz’s departure will not bring down Netanyahu’s government, but the loss of a comparatively moderate member may make him more reliant on the support of far-right members of his coalition like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both, notably, have threatened to resign if Netanyahu agrees to Biden’s proposal. As Biden told Time magazine last week, “[T]here is every reason for people to draw [the] conclusion” that Netanyahu is extending the war for political reasons.

As for Hamas, most of the statements about the deal have come from the group’s political leadership, located outside the country, but some experts believe the key decision-maker is Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader inside Gaza. The war and the political calculations surrounding it may look very different to him, sitting somewhere in a bunker below the ruins of Gaza, possibly surrounded by hostages, than it does in a hotel suite in Doha.

In messages purportedly from Sinwar published by the Wall Street Journal this week, Sinwar tells Hamas compatriots, “We have the Israelis right where we want them” and described Palestinian civilian casualties — which account for most of the estimated 37,000 Gazans killed in the war — as “necessary sacrifices” that would help Palestine “rise to its glory and honor.”

This does not sound like a man in a hurry to make a deal. Much like Netanyahu, Sinwar appears to see the political benefits of continuing the fight, whatever the human cost.

Events on the ground are also making the deal prospects look dimmer. Last week’s successful rescue of four Israeli hostages in a military operation — the first in months — may bolster the case of those in the Israeli argument who argue that the hostages can be returned through military force rather than diplomacy. And the 270 Palestinians killed in the operation — according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — may only stiffen Hamas’s resolve to keep fighting.

The basic sticking point in the negotiations is the same as it has been for months: Hamas won’t agree to release its hostages unless Israel commits to a permanent ceasefire and the removal of troops from Gaza. Israel is still committed — in public, anyway — to the complete destruction of Hamas and won’t agree to a ceasefire until that’s accomplished.

On paper, these positions seem irreconcilable, and the cynical read on what’s happening is that the two sides are willing to commit only to ceasefire proposals that they know the other side won’t accept.

Cynicism has been pretty reliable throughout this conflict, but there’s also a slightly more optimistic view: The fact that the two sides sound like they’re describing a completely different deal is a feature, not a bug.

The three-part structure of the deal is designed to give both sides “strategic ambiguity.” If the two sides can be cajoled into phase one of the deal — a six-week ceasefire and limited prisoner exchange — phase two, which involves a more permanent pause in hostility, will be negotiated later.

The hope is that that outcome looks enough like a permanent ceasefire for Hamas and enough like a temporary one for Israel for both sides to come to an agreement.

Speaking to the families of hostages last month, Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said that while Israel would not agree to a full ceasefire in exchange for a full hostage release, he thought they might be willing to accept the more limited phase one.

The hope for the US and the other mediators is that after six weeks of relative peace and hostage returns, there would be increasing political pressure on both sides to make it permanent.

This is more or less the vision Blinken laid out to reporters on Tuesday, saying, “[Y]ou’re not going to get to phase two, to an enduring ceasefire, unless you start with phase one.”

Should a ceasefire be achieved, it will still leave unresolved the even thornier question of just who will govern post-war Gaza. The Biden administration would surely prefer to cross that bridge when they get to it.

If nothing else, the ceasefire would put at least a temporary end to the unprecedented bloodshed of this conflict and allow aid groups to begin to address an unfathomable humanitarian crisis. It would likely also at least shift attention away from what has become a major diplomatic liability for the United States and a political disaster for a president seeking reelection in five months.

In March, at the start of an assault on the southern city of Rafah that Biden had at one point described as a “red line” that would lead him to reevaluate his support for Israel’s war, I wrote an article describing four ways that he could exert leverage on the Israeli government if he really wanted to.

The administration has now used two of those methods: It has sponsored a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire after months of vetoing other countries’ proposals; Biden has also used his bully pulpit with his televised address publicly backing the ceasefire deal. This was a fairly risky political move given the high probability that the deal could fail. In that speech, Biden broke some new ground by saying that he believes Israel has achieved its military objectives and that Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7-style attack. “The people of Israel should know they can make this offer without any further risk to their own security,” he said. It appears that as far as the US is concerned, the war should be over.

As for the so-called “regime change” option, Biden has very publicly made clear his frustration with the prime minister he used to describe as a close friend, including in the Time interview. CNN also reported last week that a CIA assessment circulating among US officials concluded that Netanyahu believes he can defy US pressure to set out a post-war plan for Gaza.

On the other hand, Netanyahu will be addressing the US Congress next month. His coalition may still fracture from within, but he likely feels little threat from Washington, where he still has friends on both sides of the aisle.

Other than limits on a few specific weapons systems, the US has not made significant moves to curtail military assistance to Israel: by far the most significant source of US leverage. On the contrary, Israel inked a new $3 billion to buy American F-35 fighter jets last week, and the hostage rescue mission last week was carried out using intelligence collected by American drones. Netanyahu could reasonably conclude that the US will continue providing assistance to his war, even as US officials continue to raise complaints and concerns.

So, rather than ending or scaling back America’s military participation in the war, the Biden team is dialing up the diplomatic pressure on Israel to end it. This includes a significant carrot: a potential diplomatic normalization deal with Saudi Arabia that would require Israel to end the war in Gaza and make some moves toward restarting talks on a two-state solution.

The US has been pressuring Hamas as well, reportedly enlisting mediators Qatar and Egypt to threaten the group with asset freezes and expulsion from their haven in Doha if they don’t sign, but Washington has less leverage on a terror group it won’t formally communicate with.

All this pressure combined with a healthy dose of “strategic ambiguity” has been enough to get Israel and Hamas tantalizingly close to a deal that would pause this gruesome conflict, if not end it completely. But it hasn’t yet been enough to get two leaders — one whose political survival may depend on keeping this war going and another whose literal survival may depend on it — to make it happen.