Since the end of the humanitarian ceasefire earlier last month, the genocidal Zionist-American war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has entered into a brutal war of attrition. Israel has been unable to achieve any of its declared goals, putting the Zionist-American alliance in a severe political, military, and humanitarian quandary that will cost much to resolve.
Nevertheless, this barbaric alliance persistently wages war on civilians, trying to compensate for its military failures against Hamas and the resistance brigades. It has not been able to weaken their combat capabilities or liberate any prisoners and abductees, which has increased Israeli public demands for the war to stop and for the immediate release of these captives.
These demands are now heavily pressuring the Zionist war council to find a formula to save face and complete a prisoner exchange deal. Intelligence chief was instructed to reconnect with mediators to break through Hamas's condition for this, which is a permanent ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of forces from the Gaza Strip. Will this round of negotiations stop the war or fail again, resulting in continued cycles of destruction, terror, death, displacement, and suffering? What are the challenges that Hamas and the resistance factions face in these negotiations, and how can they be addressed?
Negotiation Pitfalls
Hamas and the resistance factions' negotiating position on prisoners poses a significant challenge. They want to alleviate their people's suffering and allow the resistance to catch its breath; however, they do not want to give the Zionist entity another chance to resume its savage war of extermination against civilians, causing displacement and emptying the Gaza Strip to annex it.
This challenge pushes Hamas and the resistance factions to be more rigid in their negotiating stance, insisting on a full ceasefire before handing over any prisoner or abductee. This rigidity continues the Zionist entity's war and increases the toll of destruction and death among civilians. This same toll will be revisited by the Zionist entity when it resumes the war after receiving prisoners unless a full and permanent ceasefire agreement is reached; allowing it to focus on eliminating Hamas and the resistance. Hamas, faced with this negotiating deadlock, needs to be wary of the following pitfalls:
- The US administration, the primary partner in the barbaric alliance against the Palestinian people in Gaza, insists on enabling the Zionist entity to achieve all its declared and undeclared goals, despite occasional contradictory statements.
- US regional allies are expected to cooperate with it and the Zionist entity, even at the expense of Hamas and the resistance, as evidenced by their lack of any practical steps that would harm this cooperation since the beginning of the Zionist-American aggression on Gaza.
- Media reports indicate that talks of permanent ceasefire arrangements include the participation of external Arab or international parties or both, preventing the return of power to Hamas and the resistance to the pre-war status and supervising post-ceasefire arrangements, potentially harming the resistance's gains and role in the next phase.
- Dividing the release of prisoners into stages, ending with a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, leaves room for the Zionist-American alliance to back out of agreements made with mediators and resume the war to eliminate Hamas and the resistance after receiving prisoners. Hamas must demand international guarantees to avoid this, although the other party in the agreement is the leader of the global order.
- Negotiations on a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire are meaningless while the war continues at the same pace on civilians, and the forced displacement initiative is in full swing, moving from one area to another.
This means that efforts must be made to calm the battlefronts and stop destroying buildings, markets, shelters, and forcing citizens to flee as an indicator of genuine intentions towards a total and permanent ceasefire. Every day of preparation and during negotiations sees more than a thousand civilians fall between dead and wounded.
The process of accommodating Palestinian displaced persons in temporary safe shelter areas south of Rafah is underway, and it has become necessary for Hamas, Palestinian forces, and institutions to seek ways to address this disaster and move immediately to prevent it by stopping the passage of displaced Palestinians to Egyptian territory.
Facing Displacement
According to United Nations reports, the number of dead and injured Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip last month was about 7,000 martyrs and 18,000 wounded, making the total around 22,000 martyrs and 57,000 wounded, 70% of whom are women and children, not including those who died under the rubble and whose bodies could not be retrieved. This means that the pace of destruction and the number of casualties in the last month was no less than in the first two months of the war and even increased.
A UNRWA report for last December stated that about 1.9 million people in the Gaza Strip have become displaced, nearly 85% of the population, including individuals displaced multiple times, as families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.
The report highlighted the increasing lack of food and basic necessities for survival, deteriorating sanitary conditions, worsening already dire living conditions, escalating protection-related problems, and mental health issues, and the spread of diseases.
These conditions reported have exacerbated the displacement process and compliance with the increasing pressure by the Zionist army to move towards the border with Egypt, hoping to find safe shelter providing the minimal resources necessary for life in such conditions, facilitating the emptying of the Gaza Strip. This is particularly true as residents, chased by the Zionist killing machines, are forced to cross the border and move to Egyptian territory, transitioning from displaced to refugees.
This operation is proceeding rapidly, and numerous regional and international measures are being taken on the ground to provide temporary safe shelters for Palestinian displaced persons south of Rafah on the border with Egypt.
Such a situation cannot be addressed with mere statements of condemnation or appeals to the United Nations and international institutions; rather, it requires, particularly from Hamas and Palestinian institutions, searching for confrontation methods and immediate action to prevent its occurrence by blocking the crossing of Palestinian displaced individuals to Egyptian territory.
