Amid the horror of the last seven weeks, recent days have brought some degree of relief for many in Israel and Gaza. Hostages released by Hamas are deeply traumatised by their ordeal; many will face fresh despair as they learn that their friends and loved ones are dead, or as they attempt to come to terms with leaving fathers and husbands in captivity. Inhabitants of Gaza remain homeless, hungry, desperate, grieving and terrified by the prospect of death soon raining down upon them once more. And yet the ceasefire and releases have brought a faint glimmer of limited hope when previously there has seemed to be none.
Qatar said on Wednesday afternoon that it was “very optimistic” that the ceasefire will be lengthened further. Hamas said it was willing to back a four-day extension, and Israeli officials indicated that it had enough hostages to cover two to three days more of releases, with an estimated total of 161 hostages held captive in Gaza. For Hamas, this time has allowed it to regroup, while the release of jailed Palestinians has boosted its support. However, almost as many Palestinians have been arrested as freed since the truce went into effect, including children, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. For Benjamin Netanyahu, the pause has indicated recognition of US concerns and addressed the fury of those lambasting the Israeli prime minister for not prioritising hostages.
Prospects of extending the ceasefire beyond the weekend look a great deal bleaker. Future releases will be harder to negotiate. Hamas will seek to extract a far higher price for those remaining, overwhelmingly men, than it did for women and children, particularly when it comes to soldiers. The Palestinian prisoners proposed for release will not only be women and children, but men, some of whom may have committed serious crimes. Mr Netanyahu, knowing that his political survival is tied to the continuance of this conflict, said in a video statement on Wednesday that he was “unequivocal” that the country would return to fighting, adding: “There is no situation in which we do not go back to fighting until the end.”
No one suggests that it is easy for Israel to remove those who wreaked the horrors of 7 October. But its tactics to date have shown very limited success against Hamas, at unbearable civilian cost. The Israel Defense Forces estimate that they have killed between 1,000 and 2,000 Hamas fighters in the assault on Gaza. That is a fraction of its 30,000 or so total, and a tiny number set beside the total Palestinian death toll of about 15,000, almost half of them children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, under Hamas control. With domestic political pressure growing, the Biden administration has made it clear that it opposes Israel extending that kind of campaign to the south, targeting people in the place it ordered them to flee to. With almost 2 million people packed into a smaller area, an even higher death toll might well result.
Yet it is not hard to conceive of an Israeli offensive which, if not the all-out assault waged on northern Gaza, is still far from being a carefully targeted surgical strategy. Without an enduring ceasefire materialising, violence might fade only slowly and uncertainly. But there may be a few precious days left in which to advance towards a meaningful political process to end these hostilities. The last few days have shown that progress is possible. The last few weeks have shown that the alternative should be unthinkable.
