Gaza ceasefire deal: What Israel and Hamas said vs what they've secured

With the Gaza ceasefire agreement finalized on Wednesday, it's a good time to review the gap between rhetoric and reality over the past 15 months. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly pledged, even to the chagrin of some senior advisors, that the fighting would not end until Hamas was completely defeated.

Netanyahu stated 100 days into the war, “Under my leadership, Israel will never compromise on the goal of complete victory over Hamas, and we will win.” However, despite Hamas losing all of its senior leaders in multiple strikes and its military strength visibly weakened, has it truly been defeated? Hamas militants are still firing rockets and causing Israeli soldier casualties, including the 16 soldiers killed last week in northern Gaza. This prompted the Israeli military to admit that the group's local command networks are still operational and their commanders can still issue orders to attack. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated this week that the group has recruited roughly the same number of new members as it has lost during the war.

Hamas senior leader Khalil al-Hayya stated on Wednesday, “Today, we have proven that the occupation can never defeat our people and their resistance.” Nevertheless, who will govern Gaza after the war remains an open question that will be addressed in the next phase of negotiations and is one of the most contentious issues currently. Furthermore, Israel’s “General Plan” proposed in October has left Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza facing three stark choices: being killed by Israeli bombardment, starving to death, or being forcibly displaced. Despite warnings from legal experts and international aid organizations that the strategy is genocidal, the plan has been implemented without interruption. Wednesday's agreement appears to signal an end to this plan, with Palestinians being allowed to return to their homes in the north, and Israeli troops withdrawing from the Netzarim corridor that cuts through Gaza, control of which was key to implementing the plan.

In addition to the Netzarim corridor, Netanyahu also stated that the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, was non-negotiable. But now, this too has become a thing of the past. Within hours of the agreement, an Egyptian source told Al-Araby TV that although the withdrawal of Israeli troops is not required to begin within weeks, the majority of Israeli troops have already left the 14-kilometer demilitarized zone. On the other hand, Hamas vowed early in the conflict to “empty Israeli prisons” of Palestinians, allowing all Palestinian and Israeli prisoners to return.

The first phase of the agreement stipulates that at least 1,157 detained Palestinians will be released in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages captured on October 7, as well as two Israeli men previously held by Hamas for years. The released Palestinian prisoners include many who were detained after the October 7 attacks but were not involved, 110 who were serving life sentences, and 47 who were part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange. These 47 were released in the 2011 agreement on the condition that they would not be arrested again, but they were later re-arrested and have been held ever since. These numbers are far less than the total number of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, which Israeli organization B’Tselem tallied at 9,440 as of last September, just over 12%. Furthermore, the agreement also does not include all the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, with men under 50 excluded from the first phase of the ceasefire exchange. Hamas also reduced the number of prisoners they were demanding for each hostage compared to previous negotiations. Both sides will be wondering exactly who will be released. Palestinians will be watching to see if Marwan Barghouti is among them, a popular Palestinian leader who has been sentenced to multiple life terms and is seen by some as a long-term successor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.