Ramallah – Following 470 days of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas came into effect on Sunday, allowing over two million Gazans displaced multiple times to return to what is left of their homes.
The first of a three-phase deal announced in Doha and mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US will last 42 days and includes the release of 33 Israeli captives in exchange for over 1,600 Palestinian prisoners.
Phase two would mark a “permanent end to the war”, the return of the remaining captives and Palestinian prisoners, and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of land some 100 metres wide and 14 km long running along the entire border between Gaza and Egypt.
The third and final phase involves Gaza’s reconstruction and a repatriation of the remains of Israeli captives.
The long-awaited ceasefire has raised questions about what role Hamas will play in Gaza after the war, with experts saying that the group’s future in governing the devastated enclave remains unknown – but that they can’t be excluded.
The group’s priority will be to rebuild its organisational structure, analysts say, noting that despite the objections of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), Hamas must be part of the reconstruction plans led by Egypt and the UAE with international backing.
Interim damage assessment reports by the World Bank, the United Nations, and independent experts warn that removing 42 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardments could take as long as 15 years, with the cost of reconstruction estimated at over $80 billion.
Ahmed Rafiq Awad, director of Al-Quds Center for Political Studies, told The New Arab that Hamas remains firmly established on the ground and is an integral part of Gaza’s social fabric.
“There will certainly be attempts to exclude it, refuse to deal with it, and besiege it politically the day after the war ends because many parties don’t want Hamas to exist,” Awad said. “Hamas will be threatened with marginalisation and a lack of funding if it remains in control of Gaza.”
But for the political analyst, the question is not whether Hamas will remain in Gaza, but in what capacity.
“Will it continue as an armed movement, will it be integrated within a new Palestinian framework, or transform itself into an accepted political party?”
Following talks brokered in Cairo, Palestinian officials said in December that Fatah and Hamas had agreed to appoint a committee of politically independent technocrats to administer the Gaza Strip after the war.
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The committee would report to the Palestinian Authority, which is headquartered in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and work with local and international parties to facilitate humanitarian assistance and reconstruction.
While the two factions agreed on the general terms, there will still be more negotiations over additional details and the individuals who would serve on the committee.
At the time, Jibril Rajoub, secretary-general of Fatah’s central committee, had denounced the arrangement because it would entrench the division between the West Bank and Gaza by accepting two administrations, proposing instead that Hamas hand over the administration of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
“The Biden administration’s vision for the future of Gaza is very different from Trump’s, Israel’s and Egypt’s. The committee was rejected by the PA, which doesn’t want to share responsibility with Hamas because that would confuse the entire scene,” Palestinian analyst Ahmed Rafiq Awad said.
On the other hand, the PA, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank, recognises Israel and cooperates with it on security matters, a deeply unpopular policy among Palestinians of all stripes, many of whom view it as a “subcontractor of the occupation” even though Israel accuses it of not doing enough to curb militancy.
“The Palestinian Authority is at a crossroads, some might even say it is facing a real crisis, and will not return to Gaza without a Palestinian consensus, and may only return after working to improve its situation, which is a popular and international demand,” said Awad.
Bilal Al-Shobaki, head of the Political Science Department at Hebron University, is less optimistic about the future, noting that the ceasefire agreement may not necessarily end the war.
When the Israeli cabinet pushed through the ceasefire deal, hardline National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and two other ministers from his nationalist-religious party resigned in objection.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stopped short of resigning but threatened to remove his Religious Zionism party from the coalition government if Israel agreed to a full end to the war before achieving its aims in Gaza, which include the complete destruction of Hamas.
“Hamas’s future is linked to the success of the first phase and whether it will lead to the end of the war, the flow of aid, and effective reconstruction,” Al-Shobaki told TNA. “In this phase Hamas will focus on rebuilding its organisational structure without the need to boost its military capability, which will not be a priority.”
Any Palestinian party or group looking to administer the Gaza Strip must take into consideration the facts on the ground, added Al-Shobaki.
“The complex humanitarian crisis cannot be managed by Hamas alone, assuming that Hamas will take complete control, which is unlikely. Nor will the Palestinian Authority be able to manage the Gaza file in isolation of Hamas,” he said.
Al-Shobaki says the only solution is to build a real partnership between the two factions, with the Palestinian Authority handling files at the regional and international levels, particularly regarding the reconstruction and the flow of funds and humanitarian aid.
“We have not reached a stage where one party can completely and radically exclude another. Both parties must be convinced that power cannot be monopolised,” he added.
Director of Yabous for Consulting and Strategic Studies Suleiman Bisharat says that the ceasefire agreement means one thing: that Hamas and Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza cannot be excluded from the future political scene in Palestine, specifically from Gaza.
“Fifteen months of war could not break Hamas and the resistance, which showed that it was capable of managing one of the most dangerous stages of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said Bisharat.
There will be attempts to create a rift between resistance movements and wider Palestinian society in the absence of alternatives, said Bisharat.
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“So far,” he added, “the Palestinian political project and the peace process have failed to secure any rights for Palestinians, which will convince both the people of Gaza and the West Bank that resistance factions must continue to be present on the political scene”.
Both regional and international powers, and the resistance itself, must assess their political discourse which could open new political channels to interact with Hamas if the group adopts a balanced stance, said Bisharat, noting that the Palestinian Authority is also facing a major crossroads.
“The PA’s refusal to collaborate with Hamas and other factions in the Gaza administration committee gives the impression that it was to hold exclusive authority over Gaza, which could lead Egypt and other regional and international powers to bypass the Authority altogether regarding the future of the Gaza Strip,” Bisharat explained.
He added that the PA has made a mistake in its position since the first day of the Gaza war.
“The PA tried to be cautious in its discourse on the situation in Gaza, but did not provide a model that would convince Palestinians in Gaza that it was truly concerned about their plight, which will make it difficult for Gazans to accept them,” added Bisharat.
“It is also likely,” he continued, “that the US would see the outcome of the war as an opportunity to focus on Gaza at the expense of the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to continue its settlement and annexation projects there, and largely isolating the Palestinian Authority”.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
