Israel and Hamas adopt hard line as they enter second-phase ceasefire talks

 

By James M. Dorsey

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An Israeli refusal to allow mobile homes and heavy construction equipment into Gaza bodes ill for this week’s second-phase indirect Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas hardening their negotiating positions.

The mobile homes and heavy equipment issue is about more than offering temporary relief to a population in a territory in which Israel destroyed or damaged 90 per cent of its housing stock and critical infrastructure.

It’s about whether Gaza can be reconstructed without resettling the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants and the rebuilding’s purpose.

The homes and equipment sit on trucks lined up on the Egyptian side of Gaza's border, waiting for a green light to enter the Strip.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is laughing all the way to the bank with US President Donald J. Trump’s insistence that reconstruction of the war-ravaged Strip requires emptying Gaza of its population, not because there are no alternatives but because he wants to turn the Strip into a beachfront real estate development.

Credit: ANI News

In a statement to the media, alongside Marco Rubio on his first visit to Israel as US Secretary of State, Mr. Netanyahu said they had discussed “President Trump’s bold vision for Gaza, for Gaza’s future, how we can work together to ensure that future becomes a reality.”

With two more staged prisoner exchanges scheduled in the Gaza’s ceasefire’s first phase, which ends in early March, Hamas potentially has another opportunity to try to force Israel to fully comply with the truce that stipulates the import into Gaza of 60,000 mobile homes and construction equipment to remove tonnes of rubble.

Last week, Hamas temporarily suspended the exchanges, forcing Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian goods in accordance with the ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.

Mobile homes and heavy equipment line up at the Egypt-Gaza border. Credit: Eye on Palestine

It was not immediately clear whether Hamas may want to repeat its performance, even though Mr. Netanyahu refused to authorise the import of the homes on the eve of Mr. Rubio’s arrival in Israel.

An Israeli official said a meeting of senior security officials had “decided that the issue of caravans will be discussed in the coming days.” He added that “Israel is fully coordinating with the United States.”

Responding to an Israeli drone attack in Rafah this weekend that killed three Palestinian policemen, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan said the group would discuss the alleged violation of the ceasefire “before taking any step.”

Warning that “the ceasefire is in jeopardy,” Mr. Hamdan said Hamas “would do our best to continue on this ceasefire agreement. We will apply all what we have agreed upon, but I think the mediators have to do their best to bring Mr. Netanyahu back to the table… Otherwise, I will be clear on this: If Netanyahu decides to attack Gaza another time, it will not be an easy trip for him.”

Hamas has used the ceasefire’s six completed prisoner exchanges to display after Israel’s 15-month onslaught its military’s sustained command and control, discipline, and ability to control public spaces and stage high-profile events, with the emergence of hundreds of fighters dressed in crisp uniforms and equipped with seemingly well-maintained automatic weapons and pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns.

The postponement of the import of mobile homes and equipment fuelled Palestinian concerns that Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to allow mobiles homes and construction equipment into Gaza constituted a first stab at trying to force Gazan Palestinians to leave their homeland in violation of international law. Messrs. Netanyahu and Rubio reinforced those fears with the prime minister’s most recent statement.

Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal strokes with the prime minister’s effort to weaken Hamas’s negotiating position by demanding the ceasefire’s first phase be extended beyond early March so that more hostages can be released before the second phase kicks in. The hostages are Hamas’ main trump card in the negotiations.

Osama Hamdan at this month’s Al Jazeera Forum

Reading from notes at last week’s Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, Mr. Hamdan matched Israel’s hardened attitude with a stiffening of the group’s position going into negotiations to secure the Gaza ceasefire’s second phase that would make the truce permanent and ensure a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip.

Mr. Hamdan’s remarks highlighted the gap between Hamas’ position and Israel’s insistence, as reiterated by Messrs. Netanyahu and Rubio in their statements, that the group be disarmed and banned from playing a political role in Gaza’s future.

They also appeared to voice Hamas’s determination to resist attempts to replace its control of Gaza with a role for the West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority envisioned by Arab States.

Claiming victory in Gaza with the support of Iran, Turkey, and South Africa, which charged Israel with committing genocide in Gaza in the International Court of Justice, Mr. Hamdan seemed to want to provoke by insisting that these countries rather than Arab states, like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which failed to aid the Palestinian resistance, play a significant role in post-war Gaza.

“Anyone who wants to act in Israel's place will be treated as such… and bear the consequences of being an agent of Israel,” Mr. Hamdan said, suggesting that the group would target an Arab and/or Palestinian security force if it were deployed in Gaza.

Mr. Hamdan rejected demands that Hamas disarm or suggestions that its leaders agree to go into exile and the group step aside.

In the past, Hamas has said it was willing to cede government in Gaza to a national committee provided it had a say in choosing its members. 

Arab leaders are mulling various post-war Gaza governance options, including an administration of local technocrats, in advance of a February 27 summit in Cairo. The summit is expected to produce an alternative to Mr. Trump’s resettlement proposal.

Mr. Hamdan ended his remarks by saying Hamas had demonstrated its capability with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel in which it and other Palestinian groups killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251 others.

It was unclear whether Mr. Hamdan was staking out a negotiating position or stating a stance doomed to fail the second-phase ceasefire talks.

Egyptian media reported this weekend that Hamas had agreed in talks with Egyptian officials to that it would not be involved in the operations of a committee that would oversee Gaza’s reconstruction as part of the Arab plan.

Mr. Hamdan could be playing with fire. Mr. Netanyahu may not want to jeopardise the remaining two prisoner exchanges scheduled for the ceasefire’s first phase, but Mr. Trump has given him a free hand in deciding what to do next.

“Israel will now have to decide what they will do about the 12:00 O’CLOCK, TODAY DEADLINE imposed on the release of ALL HOSTAGES. The United States will back the decision they make!” Mr. Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social, after Hamas swapped three more Israeli hostages for 369 Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

Mr. Trump set the deadline after Hamas initially postponed the exchange. Mr. Netanyahu subsequently reiterated the ultimatum but seems now willing to proceed in the stages set out in the ceasefire agreement.

However, the prime minister is keeping everyone guessing what will happen after that.

“President Trump and I are working in full cooperation between us. We have a common strategy. We can’t always share it…with the public, including when the gates of Hell will be opened as they surely will if all our hostages are not released until the last one of them,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to the threat Mr. Trump issued last week.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.