2025-01-25
34 分钟Last Sunday, relative calm descended over the Gaza Strip after 15 months of war prompted by Hamas's attack on Israel of October 7, 2023.
The Qatar brokered ceasefire agreement calls for Israeli hostages to be swapped for Palestinian prisoners in stages, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops and a surge of much needed humanitarian aid to to Gaza.
What it doesn't specify is what happens next.
It remains unclear exactly what Hamas expected the consequences of October 7th would be.
It is hard to imagine that they hoped to bring about the elimination of their own leadership, the decapitation of their allies Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the overthrow of President Bashar Al Assad of Syria, who may not have been much of a friend of Hamas, but was a friend of Iran, which is a patron of Hamas.
It is equally difficult to believe that Hamas did not anticipate that Israel would respond with such ferocity towards Gaza and its 2 million densely packed people, even at the cost of landing its Prime Minister and Defence Minister indictments from the International Criminal Court.
But Israel did.
According to Gaza's Hamas run Ministry of Health, nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel's onslaught.
Some combatants, many not.
Gaza's Civil Defense Agency believes thousands more may be buried beneath fields of rubble.
At some point, somehow, Gaza will surely be rebuilt, but that will necessitate someone or something volunteering to govern and administrate the territory.
What kind of a future might Gaza have?
What kind of a Palestine would Israel ever agree to?
And why has wrangling a two state peace been so difficult?
This is the foreign desk.
Not to dilute in any way the fact that Hamas has been extraordinarily intransigent, but if this really was such a priority for Netanyahu, he could have closed a deal to try and get them back some time ago.
The time is now for clear measures, for practical measures to be taken.
Because if not now, then when?
No other administration, and I worked in every administration from Jimmy Carter to Bush 43, no administration, Republican or Democrat, ever demonstrated the kind of significant or serious pressure on Israel.
You're listening to the Foreign Desk.