A view of destruction following Israeli attacks on a house belonging to the Sabit family in the Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp, located in central Gaza in mid-June. Photo / Getty Images
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns to the White House today, there’s going to be a lot of talk about peace.
United States President Donald Trump seems to be in a peace-making mood.
After briefly bombing Iran last month, he swiftly hailed a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic republic.
Trump also took credit for a truce between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, though analysts warn that implementing the deal involving a range of armed groups and an entrenched insurgency may prove far tougher than brokering it.
And, this week, Trump hopes to herald a new ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip after an earlier agreement collapsed in March and prefigured months of further violence and suffering.
In Trump’s view - and possibly that of Netanyahu - a fresh truce could pave the way for a far greater peace in the Middle East.
Trump is keen to revive the spirit of the Abraham Accords, the normalisation deals between Israel and a small number of Arab states, chiefly monarchies, that were forged in Trump’s first term.
Top US officials want to bring Saudi Arabia into the fold and even imagine a pathway for Syria, whose transition from dictatorship is being led by former Islamist rebels, to join the agreements.
That may be wishful thinking, but Netanyahu sees the moment - just weeks after hitting Iran with airstrikes including those that killed top officials - as vital to his future prospects.
“Politically, Netanyahu will not have a better opportunity than the one he has after the success of Iran, which will fade with time,” Israel Ziv, a retired major general and former head of the Israel Defence Forces Operations Division, told my colleagues.
“That he can strike some kind of regional agreement with Syria, start a process on Saudi Arabia, bring back the hostages - that is, altogether, the highest advantage that he would be able [to] muster ahead of elections.”
Trump, who has used his social media platform to decry the prosecution of Netanyahu in a long-running corruption investigation, may believe the Israeli Prime Minister holds the cards for a broader set of diplomatic wins in the region.
“Trump can take this opportunity to widen the Iran ceasefire to Gaza and beyond,” a top Emirati official told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius last week. “How do we think big and imagine that this is a potential pivot point in history? Be bold. Go for the bigger prize.”
Standing in the way is the desolation that is Gaza.
Trump expects a renewed diplomatic push to yield a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, but the usual sticking points remain.
A June 30 iteration of a ceasefire deal would see Hamas release 28 Israeli hostages - 10 alive, and 18 bodies - in five stages over the course of the two-month ceasefire, according to a summary obtained by the Washington Post. In return, more aid would immediately enter Gaza.
“Since last year, Israeli military and defence officials have informed Netanyahu that the IDF’s first war aim - to degrade Hamas’ ability to threaten Israel - has been accomplished, and that its second goal of returning the hostages is only possible through a deal,” my colleagues wrote.
Pressure is building for both parties to accept a 60-day ceasefire, with Hamas reckoning with its mounting losses and Netanyahu facing a backlash even from top Israeli military officials.
Before leaving for the US, he presided over a combustive cabinet meeting that saw Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces, clash with far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition who oppose any peace without the full destruction of Hamas and occupation of Gaza.
“Do you want a military government [in Gaza]? Who will govern two million people?” Zamir asked during the meeting, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel continues to pound the devastated territory - its bombardments responsible for daily mass casualty events.
“Medical facilities were overwhelmed and running out of body bags,” my colleagues reported last week.
“According to the United Nations, mass casualties have been reported daily over the past five weeks, as Palestinian civilians have been fired upon as they approach or gather near militarised aid distribution points run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or wait on routes designated by the Israeli authorities for the United Nations to collect trucks carrying aid.”
The assaults on Palestinians desperate for aid in the blockaded territory are drawing greater scrutiny.
A number of US contractors guarding the GHF’s operations told the Associated Press last week that they had seen colleagues fire bullets and other munitions indiscriminately into the crowds.
At the end of last month, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published testimony from Israeli soldiers who said they were told to shoot unarmed Palestinians near the food distribution sites. (Both the GHF and Netanyahu’s Government have rejected these claims.)
More broadly, there’s still little clarity on who would administer Gaza in the wake of a ceasefire, amid persistent calls from the Israeli right to occupy the territory and coax its two million Palestinians to leave.
Plans for reconstruction, whenever they take off, may inevitably require the relocation of some of Gaza’s beleaguered population.
Amid the current conflict, rights groups and UN officials have warned of flagrant violations of international law carried out by Israel, even as it seeks to punish Hamas for the hideous crimes of its October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and abduction of hundreds of hostages.
The bombardments of civilian homes, “forcing people to move amid the threat of intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance underline that there appears to be a push for a permanent demographic shift in Gaza that is in defiance of international law and is tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” Volker Turk, the United Nation’s human rights chief, said in May.
Netanyahu and his allies have long shrugged off censure from the UN, which they say is biased against Israel.
But they may have to listen more closely to Arab interlocutors, for whom any sort of larger deal with Israel is contingent on some sort of meaningful resolution to the plight of the Palestinians.
“When you’re winning against your adversaries, you have to think about winning the long game, which is integration and acceptance in our region,” the UAE official told Ignatius. “That’s our advice to the Israelis.”