Why a Gaza hostage deal may be imminent

Hamas and Hezbollah are beaten, Iran is cautious, Netanyahu somehow survived, and Trump is coming

There is an unmistakable sense emerging in Israel that a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas may be imminent. That’s because the two players who have been delaying a deal – Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu – face a changed landscape.

In the case of Hamas, this is a litany of failure; its cataclysmic decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 has clearly backfired, to the point that a reset is needed. With the Israeli prime minister, Israel’s considerable successes since the summer offer a chance to turn around the narrative that says Oct. 7 happened on his watch, and therefore he must go. Moreover, his patron, President-elect Donald Trump, wants the war to end, and that will be tough for Netanyahu to ignore.

Let’s look at Hamas first. Yes, it can be said that Hamas are nihilists who want catastrophe and thrive off it, and that’s undoubtedly true. But even a twisted calculus needs to win over people, and Hamas is right now convincing far too few. It is true that Israel was humbled on Oct. 7, its international alliances are strained and economy slowed, and Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court. It’s true that by sacrificing tens of thousands of Gazan lives, Hamas has achieved much global hatred for Jews.

Is that enough to make it look like a victory for Palestinians? No matter how desperate and twisted a society may be, however brainwashed people are, this one is a stretch.

Gaza lies in ruins, and it is not an exaggeration to say swaths of it will be unlivable for many years. Most of its 2.2 million people are refugees, and this time they are genuinely displaced – not refugees by the definition used by UNRWA, where the status is passed on through the generations. Its three key leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — have been killed; the remaining cabal has been kicked out of Qatar.

Hamas had hoped that its invasion of Israel would trigger a regional war. While this succeeded, it was not with the result Hamas had hoped. Israel’s Arab citizens did not revolt and a new intifada did not erupt in the West Bank (there is violence there, but not at an intifada level).

Hamas had hoped that its sister Iranian proxy, the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, would invade Israel on Oct. 7 as well. This didn’t happen, though Israel tolerated the Hezbollah campaign of assault by rockets, shells and drones, which began on Oct. 8, for almost a year. But when it struck back it did so decisively, killing most of the Hezbollah leadership, sidelining many of its forces, wiping out most of its rocket arsenal, and rendering it so degraded that the Bashar el-Assad regime in Syria, which had banked on Hezbollah assistance, collapsed.

Hezbollah is now compelled to move back from Israel’s border in a cease-fire that marks a clear defeat.

Hamas had furthermore hoped that the circus-master Iran would join in, and this too occurred, but with unfortunate results from its perspective. Iran staged two attacks on Israel, including the largest ballistic missile attack in history in September. But most of its projectiles were shot down, the damage was minimal, and Israel’s counter strike took out a significant portion of Iran’s air defenses and munitions manufacturing capacity.

Worst of all for Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Middle East meltdown and the bumbling reaction to it by the Biden Administration ended up hurting the Democratic candidate with both Muslims and Jews, for opposite reasons, and contributed to the return to the White House of Trump in the Nov. 5 election. According to reports, Trump is now weighing a strike against the nuclear sites of Iran, before the Islamic regime achieves a bomb – which is something Biden or Kamala Harris were never likely to do.

Iran is now in not much of a position to help Hamas, and Doha, which had provided hundreds of millions in funding, has clearly lost patience as well. The people in Gaza are so desperate that their hatred of Hamas is starting to actually be stated out loud. All of which may explain the recent reports that Hamas is dropping its condition that a hostage deal must mean an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip.

If these reports are true, I assess Netanyahu will find a way to do the deal, which the latest Channel 12 poll showed 72% of Israelis want (with only 15% opposed).

The cynical and unfeeling Israeli prime minister was clearly willing to do almost anything to prolong the war until now, because this bought him time. He has been arguing that the political accounting for the debacle of Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were massacred and about 250 kidnapped to Gaza, must be put off while there is fighting. Infuriatingly, this worked out for him; he remains in power, and is clawing his way back in the polls, even though it has clearly meant a sacrifice of scores of hostages’ lives.

But this is the moment when his calculation may flip.

If Israel can get back the hostages without having to leave Gaza, after the victory over Hezbollah and the relative humbling of Iran, Netanyahu will be able to argue, not without merit, that Israel is better off than it was before the war began. This will not convince people who understand how much of it was avoidable. It will not mollify those who are outraged that Netanyahu rebuffed Biden’s efforts to forge peace with Saudi Arabia as part of a regional anti-Iran alliance to end the war while restoring the Palestinian Authority to power in Gaza. It will not win him the support of people who understand history and strategy; but that is not a majority of the electorate.

Such a new narrative would give Netanyahu something to work with. Expect him to work well.

Expect this especially because Trump appears to want it.

The calculus is shaped by the unique dynamics of U.S.-Israel relations under Trump. Unlike Biden, whose calls for restraint Netanyahu often sidestepped, Trump’s demands carry a different weight. Trump has made it clear that he wants the war in Gaza to end, a position that aligns with his broader regional ambitions to recalibrate U.S. strategy in the Middle East. For Netanyahu, defying Trump is a far riskier proposition than ignoring Biden. Netanyahu has basically convinced his base that Trump is Israel’s savior, and in so doing has alienated the Democrats badly. There is nowhere else to go.

Trump’s position on the war is not solely a reflection of political calculation (to the extent that Trump calculates). His approach to the Middle East has always been unconventional, favoring dramatic moves to reshape the region’s balance of power. In this case, he seems in lockstep with Biden, who needs a deal to go out on a note that is in any way positive. Rarely will Trump and Biden find themselves so aligned. Both will take credit. Let them.