Beirut, Lebanon – the cease-fire The agreement reached by Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has raised some optimism that the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza for 15 months will finally end and Israeli and Palestinian prisoners will be released.

But some analysts remain uncertain that the deal, announced on Wednesday and scheduled to begin on Sunday, will go ahead as planned.

The Israeli Security Cabinet gave the green light to the agreement on Friday evening after postponing a meeting scheduled for Thursday. However, analysts say that dividing the deal into three stages opens the possibility of violating its terms or of the parties – especially Israel – reneging on its terms.

The agreement stipulates that the initial 42-day phase – which will see the handover of some prisoners and prisoners, Israel’s withdrawal from populated areas and increased aid – will be followed by additional phases in which more prisoner exchanges will also take place. With a permanent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.

Experts who spoke to Al Jazeera fear that it was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who did this They resisted the ceasefire for several months He insisted that Hamas must be destroyed, and would resume hostilities after retrieving the prisoners to ostensibly “punish” the Palestinian group, shore up Israel’s security and ensure its political survival while somehow blaming Hamas for the deal’s failure.

“Israel is very skilled at breaking ceasefire agreements and showing that it was not its fault,” said Merav Zonszyn, an expert on Israel and Palestine at the International Crisis Group.

Temporary relief

Ceasefire in Gaza It has been announced By outgoing US President Joe Biden and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman bin Jassim Al Thani. US President-elect Donald Trump has also declared his support – and it has been widely reported that it was pressure from Trump, who is due to take office on Monday, that pushed the ceasefire negotiations to reach an agreement.

The agreement aims to end a devastating war that has led legal scholars, human rights groups and UN experts to accuse Israel of committing “genocide” because of its policy of starving Palestinians and destroying services essential to their continued survival. South Africa also filed a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide, which was supported by many countries.

Israel has killed more than 46,700 people – men, women and children – and uprooted nearly the entire pre-war population of 2.3 million from their homes through attacks and orders to flee or face bombing and ground attacks.

The war began after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,139 people were killed and 250 captured.

Many of the prisoners were released in a previous ceasefire in November 2023, and the rest are expected to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, an exchange that could unfold over several weeks.

However, Zonszen believes the deal may fall apart after that point.

“this [deal] It will provide immediate relief through the introduction of humanitarian aid and the release of hostages and prisoners. the [deal] “It is more of an immediate stop than a long-term solution,” she told Al Jazeera.

Diana Butu, a Palestinian legal researcher and former negotiator with the Palestine Liberation Organization, also fears that the ambiguity of the deal could allow Israel to end it at any time.

One term, for example, requires Israel to retreat to the “borders” of the Gaza Strip rather than the 1967 borders, which demarcate Israel’s borders from the occupied territories.

Bhutto said that this wording raises concerns about whether Israel will actually completely withdraw from the Strip.

“The agreement is very vague, and there are a lot of places where Israel can — and will — maneuver out of it,” Bhutto told Al Jazeera.

Political concerns

The ceasefire agreed to on Wednesday is almost the same as the one proposed in May, which was accepted by Hamas but rejected by Israel, which quickly invaded the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

At the time, Biden warned Israel that the Rafah crossing, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians live, was a “red line” for fear that the invasion would exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. However, the United States did not follow through on its threat to punish Israel after its ally sent troops to Rafah.

The Israeli move was part of a broader pattern by Netanyahu of torpedoing ceasefire proposals, apparently to keep his fragile far-right coalition together until it regains enough popularity to contest new elections.

The far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir Experts said that Israel exploited Netanyahu’s political fears to advance its own agenda, such as keeping the war in Gaza going indefinitely.

Smotrich and Ben Gvir are part of Israel’s religious-nationalist settler movement, and have threatened to withdraw from the coalition if Netanyahu signs a ceasefire, a move that would lead to the collapse of the government and lead to elections.

Smotrich and Ben Gvir once again threaten to leave the coalition if the current ceasefire continues. It is uncertain whether these threats are merely posturing or whether the two are willing to try to bring down Netanyahu.

“Everyone sees Netanyahu as a dominant force in Israeli politics, but it is striking the extent to which Smotrich and Ben Gvir are able to exploit his political fears to advance their own agendas,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel and Palestine affairs at the Washington Institute. European Council on Foreign Relations.

Netanyahu appears to have regained most of his popularity since the October 7, 2023 attacks, which saw his approval ratings decline.

However, he appears still wary of going ahead with the ceasefire for fear of his political survival.

Thursday, Netanyahu said he was “postponing” a government meeting Israel demanded approval of a ceasefire and blamed Hamas for reneging on the terms of the agreement. The security cabinet finally approved the deal on Friday.

Mediators said Hamas had already accepted the proposal, as it had done on several occasions since May.

“Today’s Netanyahu is not the past. “He is more fearful and unable to make decisions, which has led to strategic paralysis,” Lovatt said.

the next day?

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the United States has called on the Palestinian Authority, which has some control over the occupied West Bank, to return to Gaza to govern.

The Palestinian Authority was born out of the 1993 Oslo I Accord, which was signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders and launched the peace process with the ostensible goal of establishing a Palestinian state.

For more than two decades, the peace process has remained stalled, due in large part to Israel’s expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, and the imposition of restrictions that have isolated Gaza from the West Bank politically, economically, and territorially. , According to a report by Human Rights Watch.

The Palestinian Authority is mainly run by Fatah, the Palestinian party that fought a short civil war with Hamas in 2007, leading to a split in the Palestinian national movement.

The war saw the Palestinian Authority effectively expelled from Gaza and its activities restricted to the West Bank, where it enjoys limited authority under the entrenched Israeli occupation.

Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, which Israel later described as “hostile” territory and placed it under a land, sea and air siege.

Any plan to return the Palestinian Authority to Gaza worries Israel because it would reconnect the occupied territories politically and territorially and revive calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state, according to Omar Rahman, an expert on Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.

“If you have a unified Palestinian land under a unified Palestinian leadership, Israel will be under pressure to participate in a political endgame, and Netanyahu does not want that to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.

Additionally, experts told Al Jazeera that they do not expect Israel to completely withdraw from Gaza out of the blue, mainly because of Israel’s fear that Hamas could reassert its control over the Strip and rebuild its capabilities.

Netanyahu had previously said that Israel should have “comprehensive security control” over Gaza for an “indefinite” period of time.

“The sad history of Gaza shows us that there is a cycle of escalation and de-escalation because there is no political framework to address the root causes,” Lovatt said.

“Those who want to resume fighting in Gaza will likely have the opportunity at some point.”