����ֱ��

Five days passed without incident following the Sharm El-Sheikh summit on Oct. 13. But on the sixth day, Sunday, Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire and responded harshly by launching scores of strikes, causing massive casualties. Hamas denied responsibility for the violation, but verifying the facts is difficult as the independent ceasefire observers envisioned in the plan do not appear to have started their task yet.

There have been expectations from Day 1 that Israel would stop implementing the deal once it got its hostages back. That speculation was based on many Israeli officials openly calling for continuing the war. However, the fact that the US has guaranteed this deal and President Donald Trump has personally staked his reputation on its success may make it difficult for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go along with his extremist partners.

The Oct. 13 summit was the brainchild of Trump. Thirty countries attended the summit, including some of the largest and most important Arab, Muslim and European countries, such as Indonesia and Pakistan, as well as Jordan, Iraq and all six Gulf Cooperation Council countries. India and Japan attended from Asia and, from Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and the UK. Four countries — Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the US — were the guarantors.

There have been expectations from Day 1 that Israel would stop implementing the deal once it got its hostages back

Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg

A main point of the conference was for the leaders of these 30 countries to bear witness to the agreement and ensure its faithful implementation, including a ceasefire, prisoner exchange, the resumption of aid, an Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian governance of the Strip without Hamas, and reconstruction of Gaza with international support.

Until Sunday’s events, there had been a significant lull in Israel’s attacks, several exchanges of hostages and a trickle of aid, thanks to continued engagement and prodding by the guarantors. But once Israel got its hostages back, hard-line pressure started to mount to resume the war against Gaza, with extremists fantasizing of ethnically cleansing the Strip and sending Israeli settlers to occupy it.

Right-wing members of the Israeli government were thumbing their noses at the Gaza deal. On Tuesday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Netanyahu to “order the (Israeli army) to fully resume combat in the Gaza Strip with maximum force.” He added: “Now that we have received the hostages, we must return to war and open the gates of hell upon Gaza.” Other ministers from the extreme right said similar things before Sunday’s attack. Netanyahu himself disagreed publicly with Trump over the key issues of the West Bank and Palestinian statehood.

According to the plan, Gaza will be demilitarized and all “military, terror and offensive infrastructure” destroyed. A multinational force overseen by the US military will monitor the ceasefire but it does not appear that this force has commenced operations. The plan also says Gaza will be initially governed by a temporary transitional committee of Palestinian technocrats — supervised by a “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump himself.

Hamas — which seized control of Gaza in 2007 by ousting its rivals a year after winning legislative elections — would play no future role in its governance, directly or indirectly, according to the Trump plan. It is a historic irony that Hamas was able to keep its hold over Gaza through Israeli support. Netanyahu thought of Hamas as a counterbalance to the Palestinian Authority, which he saw as a precursor to the idea of an independent Palestinian state that he so loathed.

However, governance of the Strip, according to Trump’s plan, will eventually be handed over to the PA — which administers the West Bank — once it has undergone reforms. But these provisions are yet to happen, leading Gazans to wonder whether any of it will happen any time soon, especially as Israeli officials keep casting doubts over the possibility of implementing the plan.

Hard-liners in Israel and Hamas are not the only spoilers. Israel has groomed a new generation of shady collaborators in Gaza

Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg

Hard-liners in Israel and Hamas are not the only spoilers. Israel has groomed a new generation of shady collaborators in Gaza, who have been accused of committing serious crimes, including killings and stealing aid supplies. Because of the security vacuum in Gaza, Hamas is taking the law into its own hands and going after these gangs, using their presence to justify keeping its weapons to “defend the civilians” of Gaza. It has said that it will disband and hand over its weapons only to a genuine Palestinian force.

Islamic Jihad, a close ally of Iran and the second-largest armed faction in Gaza after Hamas, can also play the spoiler role, depending on where Tehran stands on the Gaza deal. Its leader, Ziyad Al-Nakhalah, has rejected it as a “surrender plan.”

The Iranian position has been ambiguous, giving the plan a cautious “yes” officially, but hard-liners there have not hidden their disdain for obvious reasons. If the deal goes according to plan, pro-Iranian Palestinian factions would be disarmed and possibly banished from Gaza, depriving Tehran of an important foothold. Iran has little use for the PA and in the past has rejected the two-state solution.

On these two points, hard-liners in Iran and Israel agree. Since the start of the Iranian revolution 46 years ago, support for Palestinian hard-liners has been a rallying cry for Iran, confirming its revolutionary pedigree and claim for leadership in the Muslim world. Giving up that foothold will be difficult for Iran’s radicals, especially after losing Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Assad regime in Syria.

The guarantors must pressure all parties to honor their promises and Iran also needs to play a more positive and constructive role. Israel, in particular, has to implement its side of the bargain in good faith, including by quickly withdrawing its forces according to the plan instead of haggling endlessly over every inch of territory. It must allow aid in quickly and at scale and stop using it for political leverage.

For the Trump plan to succeed, and to prevent any repeat of Sunday’s clashes, constant engagement is needed by senior administration officials to ensure that all of its steps are being implemented according to schedule. The sooner the nonpartisan Palestinian security force trained by Egypt starts playing its role, the more likely it is that Hamas will lay down its arms. Similarly, the multinational observer and peacekeeping force and the Board of Peace need to make their presence felt. Otherwise, the spoilers will reverse the limited progress that has been made since Sharm El-Sheikh.

• Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the GCC assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation. The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily represent those of the GCC. X: @abuhamad1