If all goes well, the war in Gaza may soon be coming to an end. On Sunday, the first phase of a three-phase ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas went into effect, beginning with a halt in the fighting and a hostage-for-prisoner exchange between the two sides. The next two sequenced phases involve troop withdrawals by Israel in exchange for more hostages released by Hamas, and ultimately the reconstruction of Gaza, a project that could take years, perhaps decades.
That the two sides reached this agreement raises a host of questions. Most notably, “Why now?” Or perhaps more appropriately, “Why did it take so long?” As then-U.S. President Joe Biden himself noted in his remarks following the announcement of the deal, this is essentially the same framework he had put forward in May. That the war dragged on for eight more months, resulting in thousands of more deaths, simply underscores the ultimate puzzle of war: Why do belligerents continue fighting and incurring the costs of war, only to accept a deal that could have been reached much sooner?
To explain the timing of the Gaza ceasefire, some are pointing to the imminent return to the White House of then-President-elect Donald Trump and the impact it had on the negotiations. It does seem that it played a least a partial role. Trump officials, namely his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, were involved in the negotiations alongside Biden’s chief Middle East negotiator, Brett McGurk. It appears that the two were able to coordinate on a “good cop, bad cop” routine, with McGurk in Doha hammering out the details of the final agreement, and Witkoff in Jerusalem hammering home to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how much the incoming Trump administration wanted the war to be over before it entered office. Netanyahu has a lot of reasons to try to curry Trump’s favor, so the timing of the deal, coming less than a week before Trump’s inauguration, is likely not coincidental.