Israel & Gaza: An Unlikely Prospect for Long-Term Peace
Thomas Graham | 16 January 2025
Summary
The Israel-Gaza War moves into day 465, with bleak prospects for a longstanding resolution in 2025 despite an agreed ceasefire deal.
Israeli and Palestinian perspectives on the war are inherently conflictual, leaving little room for compromise and good faith in agreements.
While Hamas’ strategy has revolved around long-term resistance and attrition, Israel is unlikely to adhere to any agreement short of a perceivedly deserved total victory.
The 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel has so far resulted in 465 days of war, with few prospects for a lasting resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the contrary, grievances created by the tens of thousands of casualties are very likely to impede the good faith and trust required to uphold potential diplomatic agreements. More than ever, Israelis are convinced that there can be no peace while Hamas governs in Gaza, while a majority of Palestinians have found justification for the necessity of intifada. Stemming from these sentiments is an inability to find a resolution to this latest round of conflict, rooted in the belief that this is a critical moment where victory must be final. In a conventional account of warfare, Israel’s resounding victory over Hamas and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah should allow it to dictate the terms of surrender, but this is by no means a conventional conflict. The Palestinian identity, cemented by Yasser Arafat as recently as in the 1970s, is by nature one of ‘resistance’ and opposition to Israel, while Hamas’ commanders seem content in directing the war from underground tunnels or abroad.
While there are rumours of significant progress in backroom negotiations, mediated primarily by the US and Qatar and pressured by President-elect Donald Trump, Hamas’ wider strategy has certainly involved prolonging the war. Defeated on the battlefield, it is likely that the Palestinian militant group expects Israel’s internal war exhaustion and deterioration of international opinion to factor against the Jewish State in the balance of negotiations, forcing them to compromise in the final peace agreement. On this account, Hamas’ waiting game might backfire immensely. Israel’s rapid subjugation of Hezbollah on 27 November 2024 and debilitating strikes against patron Iran on 26 October 2024 make it evident that external assistance for the Palestinian forces will be very limited. More crucially, the incoming Trump administration is anticipated to adopt a pragmatic stance toward the region, likely to heavily favour its strong ally by allowing the Jewish State greater freedom to act in the interests of its ‘national security’.
The regional prospect for any longstanding peace in 2025 therefore remains bleak. From Israel’s perspective, it has won the war and reserves the right to remove the existential threat posed by Hamas from neighbouring Gaza. In the Palestinian perspective, resistance will prove vital for the survival of its statehood and no cost is too great to impede a definitive Israeli victory. Further complicating diplomacy, a domestically embattled Prime Minister Netanyahu and the war-battered Hamas leadership are both expected to seek a political victory to raise popularity at home, which will ultimately be reflected in the final ceasefire deal. In a region where compromise is perceived as weakness, the clash of these two outlooks is very likely to lead to more bloodshed, even in the eventuality of a fragile ceasefire. Nevertheless, if the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah is to be taken as precedent, where the former has daily struck militant targets within Lebanon and the latter has been quick to re-arm for the promise of future conflict, Middle-Eastern peace will have little chance in 2025.
Justin McIntosh/Wikimedia CC BY 2.0
Forecast
Short-term
The conflict is very likely to continue into 2025, as Israel and Hamas each believe they can attain more favourable peace conditions. Both groups seek a political victory to maintain domestic party integrity, further diminishing the chances of significant compromise in negotiations.
Medium-term
The eventual peace agreement between Israel and Hamas is unlikely to hold due to grievances resulting from the long-drawn conflict that undermines the ceasefire. Furthermore, the incoming Trump Administration is likely to grant Israel more freedom to act independently, realistically preceding airstrikes on arch-rival and Hamas patron, Iran.