If your only source of information yesterday was the rhetoric of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya, you might not have come away hopeful of a two state solution securing everlasting peace in the Middle East.
The terrorist figurehead said the October 7th pogrom in Israel—when Hamas butchered 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages—“will forever be a source of pride for our people,” adding that
Our people will expel the occupation from our lands and from Jerusalem in the earliest time possible.
Which sounded very much like a restatement of Hamas’s earlier pledge to repeat the massacre of October 7th “again and again” at the earliest opportunity.
Meanwhile, seemingly on another planet, leaders in Europe and the U.S. celebrated reports that a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas will be signed this Sunday, pending the ironing out of some final details.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the (almost) completed talks bring “hope to an entire region” and are “a stepping stone toward lasting stability in the region.”
Others, including UK and Spanish prime ministers Keir Starmer and Pedro Sánchez, touted the supposed increased possibility of a two-state solution.
Not that those involved in the conflict actually want this. The Palestinians, said al-Haya, “will never see a moment of weakness from us”—hence fears that Hamas will simply use this ceasefire to rebuild and prepare for its next attack. For its part, Israel has won remarkable victories in its wars against Iranian-backed genocidal Islamists in Gaza and Lebanon. Now the ceasefire deal threatens to let Hamas off the hook – even allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to claim it as a “victory”.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet will vote on the ceasefire today. Some of its members have described its terms as “terrible” and a “catastrophe for the national security of the State of Israel,” saying the only option is to continue fighting Hamas until it is defeated. But it appears likely that Jerusalem will agree in the end, largely thanks to U.S. pressure – although Netanyahu has said that Hamas is already effectively breaking the terms of the deal
Assuming that reports are correct, the ceasefire will include three phases, and will see the staggered release of Israeli hostages (both alive and dead) in return for the freeing of hundreds of—or perhaps a thousand—imprisoned Palestinian terrorists and for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. One reported clause of the deal states that, “For each female soldier freed, Israel will release 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 serving life sentences.”
Regardless, Hamas insists that “we will not forget, and we will not forgive.”
