Israel and Hamas Implement Ceasefire Amid Hostage Releases and Ongoing Tensions

"...The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is still new and fragile, but the arguments over who should get credit for it — or who should be blamed for it taking so long to achieve — are already heated...."

"...All these dueling interpretations are floating around, pushed by people with different partisan, national, and ideological sympathies...."

"...But if you look closely, there are some areas of overlap in these narratives — and some revealing discrepancies...."

"...Netanyahu’s critics claim that he was the one who repeatedly rejected or sabotaged efforts to end the war...."

"...Netanyahu’s defenders, meanwhile, have argued that the war was meant to ensure nothing like the horrors of October 7 could happen again, and therefore ultimately served Israel’s best interests...."

"...Though these narratives differ in emphasis, moral valence, and blame-casting, they essentially agree on the core point: that the war continued for so long primarily because Netanyahu hoped further Israeli military force in Gaza and elsewhere could push Hamas to make greater concessions or defeat them entirely...."

"...And leading up to the ceasefire deal, both did shift...."

"...Netanyahu, meanwhile, agreed to the ceasefire even though Hamas has not been fully defeated — and despite his deep skepticism that Hamas will actually disarm and hand over power, as the deal stipulates...."

"...Indeed, Hamas’s acceptance of the deal contained several caveats, and this week’s scenes of Hamas fighters publicly executing purported collaborators in Gaza City have deepened doubts about the group’s commitment to disarmament...."

"...Multiple reports suggest that a crucial turning point in negotiations was Israel’s unsuccessful attack on Hamas negotiators in Qatar last month, which seems to have shaken up the dynamic of the war...."

"...Before then, Netanyahu had kept expanding the war with bold operations across the region, seemingly with success after success: the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran, the pager attacks and strikes against Hezbollah, and the “12-day war” against Iran this June...."

"...But the Qatar strike signaled an end to this run of success...."

"...It failed to kill its targets, and only succeeded in absolutely infuriating Qatar, other Gulf nations — and, most importantly, Trump...."

"...Eight months earlier, during the transition from the Biden administration, Trump played a role in crafting what turned out to be a short-lived ceasefire deal...."

"...Then, when Netanyahu abandoned the ceasefire in March, Trump backed him, giving him free rein, and even joining in on Israel’s attack on Iran...."

"...It turned out, though, that the Qatar strike went too far for Trump, given his good relations with the Gulf nations and interests (both diplomatic and financial) in the region...."

"...Rather than weaken Hamas, the attack seems to have spurred Trump to intensify his efforts to bring the war to a close...."

"...To do so, Trump turned up the heat on Netanyahu, squeezing him both publicly and privately...."

"...A source told Axios that Trump called Netanyahu and told him the Trump peace plan was “take it or leave it” — but that “leave it means we walk away from you.”..."

"...This story makes Trump look bold and decisive...."

"...But was Trump truly prepared to walk away from support for Israel or its war, and was Netanyahu truly cowed by his threats?..."

"...An alternative interpretation is that, after two years of grueling war, Netanyahu, and his country, were ready to wrap things up...."

"...By all of those attacks — leading up to last month’s Qatar strike and the renewed offensive in Gaza City — Netanyahu assured Israelis, and particularly his far-right coalition partners, that he’d waged the war as aggressively as anyone could want...."

"...He can also argue that the war was in fact a security success — in that it killed many Hamas leaders and badly weakened the group while scoring devastating blows against Hezbollah and Iran — despite the grave damage to Israel’s international reputation...."

"...Furthermore, Netanyahu’s defenders argue that the new ceasefire agreement is in fact better than anything Hamas previously offered — because it gets the hostages back, while preserving Netanyahu’s flexibility to restart the war if Hamas doesn’t follow through on its commitments — perhaps with help from the US...."

"...(Trump threatened Tuesday that if Hamas doesn’t disarm, “we will disarm them.”)..."

"...So did this happen solely because Trump twisted Netanyahu’s arm, or because Netanyahu was, now, ready to have his arm twisted?..."

"...We don’t know for sure, but assessing that would be crucial in trying to assess whether previous tougher pressure from President Biden would have worked to end the war much earlier...."

"...But Netanyahu wasn’t the only one who shifted, of course...."

"...Hamas did too...."

"...Hamas’s negotiating strategy had long been to insist on a complete and final end to the war before returning the remaining Israeli hostages, Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News reports...."

"...The group believed the hostages gave them important leverage over Israel and didn’t want to give that leverage up...."

"...In handing over all the hostages right away, Hamas abandoned this leverage...."

"...Indeed, the Wall Street Journal’s Jared Malsin and Summer Said report that Hamas was essentially coerced by Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey into accepting a deal the group didn’t want...."

"...Citing “officials familiar with the discussions,” the Journal reported that the three nations threatened that if Hamas didn’t sign on to the peace deal, “Qatar and Turkey would no longer host the group’s political leadership, and Egypt would stop pressing for Hamas to have a say in Gaza’s postwar governance.”..."

"...If this report is correct, Hamas was squeezed...."

"...But they were in a position to be squeezed because the group and its allies have indeed been badly weakened by the war...."

"...The killings of top Hamas officials and many rank-and-file soldiers (as well as a great many Gazan civilians), the decimation of Hezbollah, the collapse of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and the Israeli strikes on Iran all sent the message that no cavalry was coming to save them — and that, if they continued to hold out, things would only get worse...."

"...Hamas, then, agreed to relinquish the hostages, and signed onto a deal that called for its own disarmament, despite misgivings...."

"...And the world will soon find out whether that deal sticks...."