EXPERT COMMENT
A path out of the conflict is only possible if international actors prioritize Palestinian agency over Israeli control.
The United States, Egypt, and Qatar are making a ‘last gasp' diplomatic push to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Mediators say that the latest truce offer, which they hope to finalize in Cairo this week, ‘bridges' several contentious details that had thwarted previous talks.
At the time of writing, the prospects for the negotiations look bleak. The terms of the ceasefire have yet to be fully disclosed, but they appear to have veered from earlier frameworks offered in May and endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2735.
Those previous plans were largely accepted by Hamas, but Israel - or more specifically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - responded elusively and put forward numerous addendums, particularly around the question of Israeli military presence inside Gaza.
Hamas has now accused the Biden administration of incorporating Netanyahu's demands, some of which even members of Israel's security cabinet have criticized as being intended to sabotage a deal. Netanyahu, who for months dismissed any talk of a ceasefire as an obstruction to Israel's goal of ‘total victory', told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that he supported the amended deal, likely on the calculation that Hamas wouldn't accept it.
Notwithstanding disputes over the ‘phasing' of troop withdrawals and a hostage-prisoner exchange, the core divergence in the negotiations revolves around a vital political question: what will happen to Gaza following a ceasefire - or what has crudely been described as the ‘day after'. And it is here that international actors, chiefly the US, are harming prospects both for a deal and a path out of the conflict.
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