Israel and Hamas will resume negotiations on Monday, as the military continues to bombard Gaza.

Special Envoy to Tel-AvivAs the second anniversary of the Gaza war approaches, moves toward a ceasefire are accelerating. After Hamas announced Friday night that it is willing to implement Donald Trump's plan and hand over all hostages, the Israeli army announced this morning that it is pausing operations to conquer Gaza City, as the US president had demanded the day before. However, the pause is not being realized on the ground: there has been bombing throughout the day in Gaza City, and even in the area designated by the Israeli army to concentrate Palestinians, south of the Strip. Civil Protection teams report an attack on a building in the Jafa neighborhood of Gaza City, which left seventeen dead (including seven children between two and eight years old), forty injured, and at least fifteen people buried in the rubble. Fifty-four deaths were reported in the Strip's hospitals this Saturday from midnight to 6 p.m. local time.

Despite the continued bombing, US President Donald Trump came out this Saturday afternoon to thank his Israeli ally for heeding his call to halt the attacks, and he added pressure on Hamas. "Hamas must act quickly, or all will be lost," the president warned on his Truth Social network. He added: "I will not tolerate delays, which many believe there will be, or any outcome where Gaza once again poses a threat. Let's do this, quickly." In the same message, he wanted to "thank Israel for temporarily halting the bombing to allow an opportunity to complete the release of the hostages and the peace agreement." The negotiations (which had literally blown up last month when Israel bombed the Doha building where the Hamas delegation was studying Trump's plan) will resume on Monday in Egypt. Trump's plan states that the Palestinian organization has 72 hours to release all the hostages (forty-eight are still alive and twenty are believed to be dead).

Netanyahu had announced this morning that "Israel is preparing for the immediate implementation of the first phase of Trump's plan for the release of all the hostages." And this evening he made a televised statement in which he said he hopes to be able to announce the return of all the hostages in a single phase, coinciding with the celebration of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, without his troops having withdrawn from Gaza. "As Trump has said, we will not tolerate delays," he repeated. And he said that in the second phase, "Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza demilitarized, either easily or by force." And he has already presented Hamas's acceptance as a victory: "Instead of us being isolated, Hamas is now isolated, under greater military and diplomatic pressure, and they have been forced to accept."

But this very evening, the two far-right ministers in Netanyahu's government spoke out for the first time. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called the order to halt the bombing a "grave mistake." And National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir went further, even threatening to leave the government "if Hamas still exists after the hostages are released." "We will not be part of a national defeat that will be a disgrace for centuries and will become a time bomb for the next massacre," said Ben-Gvir. The question remains, then, whether Netanyahu will be forced to call new elections before the end of his term at the end of next year. Meanwhile, in Tel Aviv, some 200,000 people demonstrated to demand the release of the hostages under the slogan "Now or never."

Hamas has expressed its willingness to release the hostages, as outlined in Trump's plan, though a senior Hamas official said Friday that the 72-hour deadline was not feasible. The plan stipulates that, once both sides agree, "Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed-upon line in preparation for the release of the hostages. During this time, all military operations, including air and artillery bombardments, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until the deadline is met."

Four Flashpoints

There are three critical points that have derailed all ceasefire agreements so far. The first is what guarantees Hamas can obtain that the day it releases the last hostage, Netanyahu will not resume indiscriminate bombing. The hostages are the Palestinians' only bargaining chip, and it is unlikely they will give up in exchange for words. After all, the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, supported by the United States, European powers, and Arab countries, never resulted in the promised Palestinian state.

The second point is the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Strip. According to Trump's plan, the Israeli army would not be required to withdraw completely from Gaza during the first and second phases, but only at an unspecified point in the future, when Gaza "is adequately protected from any revival of the terrorist threat." Furthermore, the plan also provides for Israel to maintain troops on the border perimeter, which it also does not specify. It's worth remembering the geography here: the Gaza Strip is no more than 8 kilometers wide.

The third point is who will govern Gaza after Hamas. The Islamists have been saying for months that they agree to hand over the administration to an independent Palestinian body "in national coordination and with Arab and Islamic support." According to Trump's plan, the administration of Gaza during the transition period will be entrusted to a "Palestinian committee" supervised by an international body, called a peace board, chaired by Trump himself and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. That is, by Israel's main international ally today and a representative of its original ally, in 1948. This would then be followed by a reform of the Palestinian Authority, a deeply corrupt and undemocratic body that would assume its control.

The final sticking point is who will assume military control of Gaza. Trump's plan calls for the Israeli military to gradually transfer the territory it occupies in Gaza (not the areas still under Hamas control) to an International Stabilization Force, the composition of which is currently unclear.