Deal?

Trump's ultimatum may finally secure the release of (some of) the hostages

It is as of this writing hard to confirm, but a deal that will enable a staged released of hostages, a cessation of hostilities and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza is apparently days away from being signed. This framework is pretty much the same that Israel had quietly put forward in May and which the Biden administration then made public, tried to negotiate and failed to conclude. It is, by all accounts, a terrible deal for Israel which has already paid a hefty price with an inordinate amount of blood in a war it did not start. The most excruciating part is the way the hostages are set free: in increments, slowly and without anyone knowing who is still alive as Hamas continues to refuse to produce an updated hostage list. Again, a painful arrangement.

But ... the hostage situation and the war have become truly intractable. It is clear by now that military force to free the remaining hostage is impossible, and a final and deadly rout of Hamas troops in Gaza can also not be accomplished because of how the hostages are being held. Apparently the Mossad knows exactly where they are located, it is just not feasible to free them, they’re all booby-trapped deep in the underground tunnel network. Even the world’s smartest army cannot end it.

And in all of this, Israel’s soul is slowly being crushed, the nation cannot go on under this dark cloud that is expected to pollute relations and politics in Israel long after this war is over. It has gone on for too long and it has divided a nation that should have been united. It needs to end. The release of the video of hostage Shiri Albag by Hamas a few weeks ago only aggravated that pain while once more raising that unanswerable question, when are they coming home? What is taking so long? Only this Monday five more young IDF soldiers lost their lives in one day in Northern Gaza. An area where Israel has now been active for fifteen months. Where is the progress, what is the plan?

Yet few could have foreseen that the yet to be inaugurated 47th president of the United States got things moving. ‘All hell will break out in the Middle East’ as he so eloquently put it, and the question quickly became what Trump would have in store for Hamas or Iran if he were to act on that explicit, but also very imprecise threat. What we may have missed is that those ominous words would equally apply to Bibi Nethanyahu. The failures and delays in this hostage negotiation can for a large part be laid at Hamas’ door, but should also be attributed to Nethanyahu and his coalition partners. The latter have willfully frustrated all hostage deals, they admitted this yesterday, and in this way boxed in Nethanyahu who would stand to lose his job if he did not cave in to their cold-blooded wishes.

But at the same time we also know now that the Israeli leader was not in the least bit intimidated by Joe Biden and his administration. But Trump, by way of his new Middle East enforcer Steven Witkoff, has managed to scare the living daylights out of Bibi and forced him to make a move that he did not contemplate to make at any time during this long and gruesome war. Trump’s ambitions for the Middle East extend well beyond fixing this war. Dialling the clock back to October 6th and have Saudi Arabia at the table in one fell swoop is what we have to think about here. It has been argued here on the newsletter before: Trump supports Israel, a lot, but only up to the point that it serves him. And Bibi, no fool himself, must have known this all too well.

Yet to consider the past eight months without any hostage movement it has to be acknowledged that in that same period Hezbollah was decapitated and decimated, Assad in Syria fell and Iran was put back in its box. That too has made it much easier for Israel to accept the new deal, no doubt.

But you have to wonder what the price is that the hostages and their families have paid in all of this. They were thrown under the bus on October 7th and have been given no reprieve, no hope and little help. Every single day for them has been a living hell. Let’s hope this deal, with all its flaws will see the light of day so that some of the worst nightmares at least can be put to an end for all involved. After that Israel and the world can deal with the next steps in this unfinished war.

Photo: Liri Albag’s mother Shira Albag addresses a crowd at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv a few days ago. Kfir Bibas will turn two years old this coming Saturday, January 18.

Note: I visited Hostages Square in Tel Aviv in May last year, here is what I wrote then. During the same trip I toured the Gaza Envelope and the site of the Nova Music Festival with one of its survivors, report here. We witnessed a lot IDF activity in northern Gaza in the same area on that day where they are still active and incurring casualties, eight months on.