The Clock Is Ticking: Israel Begins Pullback for Hostage Release

The talking is over. Or is it? 

Israel has now completed its withdrawal from direct engagement with Hamas forces in Gaza. The Israeli Cabinet gave its formal blessing to Donald Trump’s ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement. Hamas now has 72 hours to hand over all of the living hostages and as many of the remains of deceased hostages they can find. 

Will they comply? That’s the question:

The Israel Defense Forces completed a withdrawal to agreed-upon deployment lines in the Gaza Strip on Friday at noon, officially beginning a ceasefire and a 72-hour countdown during which Hamas is to release the hostages it is holding under the first phase of the US-brokered deal.

The withdrawal was conducted under the cover of artillery shelling and airstrikes in some areas and an IDF reservist was killed by a Hamas sniper hours before the agreement went into place.

The completion of the withdrawal started a 72-hour countdown, during which Hamas is obligated to release all the living hostages and as many of the dead hostages that it can secure, according to the terms of the deal. That puts the deadline at noon on Monday.

From a strictly practical point of view, Hamas has little choice but to comply. They have no allies left who will lift a finger if they renege at this stage, and they have no leverage left at all anyway. The Israelis could reduce Gaza City to rubble and likely would have done so months ago except for the hostages. If they can’t get them back this time, Netanyahu has already warned that negotiations would be over permanently:

Netanyahu adds that he knew that if massive diplomatic pressure is added “from our big friend President Trump, this powerful combination will cause Hamas to give back all of our hostages, while the IDF remains deep inside the Strip and holds all the key positions.”

He promises that in the subsequent stages, “Hamas will be disarmed, and Gaza will be demilitarized.”

Netanyahu threatens Hamas with an implied return to war: “If this is achieved the easy way, great. And if not, it will be achieved the hard way.”

Still, one can play a lot of Hamas Hokey Pokey in 72 hours. That is the expiration time for what little leverage Hamas has left, and we should expect to see them attempt to bargain with it as much as possible. 

One possible point might be the prisoner lists. Israel has released the names of the 250 Palestinians they plan to release from prison to exchange for the 20 live hostages, as part of the deal Trump made. One omission is almost certain to make Hamas attempt to change the terms:

Of the 250 prisoners, 15 will be freed to East Jerusalem, 100 to the West Bank and 135 are slated for deportation.

Some last-minute changes to the list were approved this morning, after negotiators agreed to swap 11 Fatah-affiliated prisoners with Hamas-affiliated ones.

Although Hamas demanded the release of the prominent Fatah figure Marwan Barghouti, in jail for planning deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada, he is not included on the published list.

Popular Front leader Ahmad Sa’adat, as well as senior Hamas figures Ibrahim Hamed and Hassan Salameh, are also not slated for release, despite reported pressure from Hamas negotiators.

Hmmmm. Hamas had wanted all of these prisoners released, with specific demands in earlier negotiations on pauses and exchanges. It’s a measure of Hamas’ weak position now that Israel feels comfortable telling them to pound sand. That humiliation will be difficult to cover with radical-revolutionary boilerplate about the Glorious Struggle; even Gazans will see it as gutlessness, especially in the cases of Hamas leaders Hamed and Salameh, who can now expect to die in prison along with Barghouti. The latter, though, may be part of the deal that allowed other Hamas prisoners to get parole instead of Fatah figures; Barghouti reportedly planned to challenge Mahmoud Abbas for leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which is almost certainly a deal-breaker for both Abbas and the US. 

Speaking of Abbas, he’s already scrambling to remain relevant. One under-appreciated aspect of Trump’s plan is its sidelining of the Palestinian Authority, but it certainly hasn’t escaped Abbas’ notice. He’s suddenly very interested in reform as a way to get Trump to bring the PA into post-war Gaza plans:

While the PA has welcomed Trump’s efforts, its officials have privately expressed disappointment. An alternative plan drawn up by Saudi Arabia and France had emphasized its leading role in Gaza.

Abbas has already declared his commitment to tackling corruption, holding elections, and implementing other reforms requested by Western nations, which has helped convince several of them to recognize Palestine in recent weeks. …

Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar, backed the Saudi-French plan, which called for a transitional administrative committee to be formed “under the umbrella of the PA, and foresaw the deployment of an international stabilization mission at the PA’s invitation.

But Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think-tank who once served in the PA, doubted the PA would now have a significant role in the initial phase of Trump’s deal.

Arab states may well coordinate with it over appointments in the committee of Palestinian technocrats expected to rule Gaza under Trump’s plan, but without giving it a veto, he said.

Trump’s sidelining of the PA is for both practical and political reasons. The PA has done little to advance coexistence with Israel; they barely recognize Israel’s right to exist, even more than 30 years after Oslo. Their intifadas have all but destroyed any tolerance the other Sunni nations have with Fatah, which is one reason nations like Saudi Arabia didn’t worry much about Trump’s exclusion of the PA from the agreement. The political motive was to pay back France and the UK for recognizing a Palestinian state while its terrorists used the turf to conduct a war of atrocities against Israel. Abbas leapt to embrace that recognition, and this is the price he’s paying for it.

Even so, the only hope the PA has of getting control of Gaza is having Hamas cough up the hostages in the next 72 hours. If they renege, there may not be much to govern after Hamas gets utterly stamped out. The clock is indeed ticking for everyone.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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