The release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel, and the extraordinary images of catharsis and relief that followed, were the best possible argument for the virtues of Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who helped broker the deal, boasted that “deal guys” like him had succeeded because they were prepared to leave the details for later; the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, similarly said on Friday that “if we went for full-package negotiations, we wouldn’t have reached these results”.
But now the difficulties of that approach will start to come into focus – and the plan repeats a pattern seen in past attempts to engineer a lasting peace.
