Israel - Hamas ceasefire deal: why now? Part II: A bad deal for Israel.
We have previously discussed incentives facing Hamas, and what pushed them to say yes to this ceasefire deal.
We have also looked at what changes could alter Hamas’s calculation and push them towards instigating a new conflict.
We will also look at the second half of the equation: what made Netanyahu say yes to this deal?
What interests was he pursuing and how this affects his calculus and future moves in other arenas?
But before all that, we need to unpack the agreement and analyze the risks to Israel that emanate from this deal.
Risks for Netanyahu and Israel.
Before unpacking factors that persuaded Netanyahu to say yes, it is important to remember that he was in fact agreeing to a suboptimal deal.
From Israel’s perspective, the current ceasefire deal fails at achieving two core strategic outcomes:
1) The current ceasefire deal doesn’t provide for the removal of Hamas as a political force in Gaza;
2) It doesn’t provide for a sustainable security architecture and/or demilitarization of Hamas as a fighting force.
So from Israeli perspective, the new status quo to be achieved from the current ceasefire would essentially be the following: a weaker Hamas that 1) still has access to firepower, 2) is still in power, and 3) can recruit and replenish its ranks from thousands of angry Gazan youth - who have experienced nearly all of their homes destroyed or damaged by the Israeli bombing & airstrike campaign.
Indeed, the outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that Hamas was able to almost completely replenish its ranks with new recruits.
Of course, it is still much weaker than before: its leadership has been decimated, its hard power diminished, and its stockpiles of advances missiles destroyed.
But the raw energy and anger fueling its rise and enabling its capacity to pose a threat for Israel still remains.
And this is precisely what most analysts miss when comparing Hizbullah and Hamas.
It is true that Hizbullah was objectively more powerful and wealthy prior to October 7th - they had north of 150k rockets and missiles and more recent estimates, such as those from the Congressional Research Center (relying on the data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies) in 2024, suggest that Hezbollah's active forces were at around approximately 20,000k active troops with an additional 20,000 in reserves.
(side note: both sides had around equal number of active fighters, but Hizbullah was estimated to have 15-20x in missiles - including ballistic missiles carrying higher payload, and 2-3x in reserves.)
But Hizbullah didn’t have what Hamas has: stronger legitimacy and support from the local population.
Hamas is playing the narrative of a resistance movement fighting an unjust and brutal occupation - and most of the world may not agree with their terrorist tactics but when it comes to the underlying cause, Gazans do get a lot of global sympathy.
Similar conditions simply don’t exist when it comes to Hizbullah - Lebanon - Israel relations.
Israel is not occupying cities in Lebanon, and Hizbullah is not defending occupied people.
On the contrary, Hizbullah is a non-state actor that challenges the Lebanese state’s legitimate monopoly of force.
Hizbullah is essentially an Iran-backed cancer on the Lebanese state, and many Lebanese citizens were happy to see it weaken (even if not happy with the collateral damage caused by the Israeli campaign.)
In fact, it is ironically thanks to the Israeli campaign against Hizbullah that Lebanon was finally able to push aside (now extremely weakened) Hizbullah’s grip on political institutions and finally elect a President (who quickly promised to re-establish total dominance of the official institutions of the State.)
But none of this is happening in Gaza - there is no effective alternative to Hamas as of today.
And the ceasefire that enables a breathing space for Hamas is essentially making it only likelier that Hamas will further consolidate its power in Gaza.
Indeed, more substantive negotiations and potential deals around new issues are on hold for Phase II of the ceasefire deal.
And it is obvious that Hamas is not going to agree to leave power - at least as of today.
(side note: we shall revisit this issue and discuss the potential mix of incentives and disincentives that could finally push Hamas to agree to give up its power and either dissolve or self-exile.)
As such, Israel is indeed taking a significant risk that the ceasefire deal will preclude a complete dismantlement of an organization that committed the October 7th attack.
This is not ideal for Israeli leaders that want a genuine settlement and a sustainable new security architecture.
(side note: it may however fit in with the plans of the far-right extremists who want to use the excuse of a Hamas rule to then justify a continuous encroachment on Gaza and pursuing the policy of establishing new Israeli settlements and causing the ‘‘voluntary self-removal” of Gazans by rendering the entire area unfit for human habitation.)
It is also a far from ideal political context for Netanyahu - he is facing a lot of heat domestically for agreeing to a deal that essentially enables Hamas to continue business as usual (even if the emanating threat is much less now.)
And Netanyahu suffered his first setback where the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir and his faction left his coalition government - leaving him with a meagre majority of only two members of Knesset.
(side note: although in the long-term, that can help free Netanyahu’s hands and empower him with far more flexibility in foreign policy.)
Consequently, the costs were significant and we shall consider why Netanyahu agreed to this ceasefire (regardless of these costs) in the upcoming cable.