On the Gaza Ceasefire: Reasons for Optimism and Caution

Wednesday’s parallel announcements from the Qatari and US administrations regarding a ceasefire deal in Gaza have been greeted with excitement and relief. After more than a year of intense fighting, violence, and destruction, a deal was badly needed, particularly for the captives held by the two sides, and for the people of Gaza, who have found themselves trapped between two equally determined forces in the shape of Hamas and the Israeli government, suffering the despair of mass fatalities, famine and destruction.

Reporting suggests that detailed plans are in place for humanitarian access and re-opening of the border crossings, as part of the currently unfolding ceasefire talks, including the Rafah crossing to Egypt. Resolution and implementation of these plans would go a long way towards easing the suffering of the civilians in Gaza. The border crossing to Egypt at Rafah has been a point of contention since the conflict reignited, with continuous talks with Egypt regarding its reopening, and much discussion in Israel over the Israeli Defence Forces’ decisions to pause fighting at various times to allow the passage of humanitarian aid along a neighbouring road. On its own, this aspect, if implemented, marks a major development in the armed conflict and an immense improvement in living conditions for the citizens in Gaza.

This ceasefire is undoubtedly good news from a human and humanitarian perspective, but our research suggests that while there are good reasons to be optimistic about this agreement’s ability to improve prospects for peace, it is also worth bearing in mind the harsh lessons of past, failed ceasefires.

Why we may have reasons to hope

Two aspects of the news concerning this ceasefire are encouraging: the involvement of third parties in mediation and announcements, and the reported elements of the ceasefire that set out a medium- to long-term perspective for continued talks. Regarding external mediation, the deal is announced by Qatar and by the US, sides that have been in direct contact with Hamas and Israel, and which are widely seen as powerful but careful brokers and mediators.

The importance of external support and guarantees cannot be overstated. In fact, decades of research in political science and international relations find that these factors form the basis of successful ceasefire deals (see for instance the work by Virginia Page Fortna and Valerie Sticher and Govinda Clayton). Additionally, in this case, the coalition of external support for the deal is fairly wide-ranging, with involvement of the US, Qatar, Egypt, and the UN. The ceasefire has also been welcomed by multiple other countries and organisations, including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, South Africa, EU, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Norway, Australia, ICRC, and others.  Even though the sides have not confirmed the deal at the time of writing, the announcement of ceasefire has come from countries that have had close and continuous contact with Israel and Hamas, respectively; neither of the two warring sides can thus expect to renege on the deal, without causing reputational damage to their partners and likely suffering the consequences  where those relationships are concerned. For instance, the incoming US administration has hailed this ceasefire as their own success and will not want to be gainsaid.

The reported contents of the ceasefire suggest that it does appear to have a long-term perspective, and sets out three stages, the final one of which is to include reconstruction of Gaza. None of the sides involved in the talks can expect that such an undertaking could go forward without direct and continuous long-term involvement of the conflict sides and third parties’ mediation. This suggests that some form of continued process of talks has been discussed and broadly agreed. Ceasefires, particularly those that focus on humanitarian and public health measures, rarely contain this medium- to long-term perspective. Most such ceasefires turn into opportunities for sides to regroup and resume conflict.

PeaceRep’s own research on Covid-era and vaccination- and public health-related ceasefires finds that ceasefires with such a narrow purpose tend to be successful but only as one-off deals. As detailed here for the case of polio vaccinations in Gaza last year, these narrow humanitarian aims are exceptionally important to fulfil, but one must be cautious not to expect peace to follow from a humanitarian ceasefire. If the reported details of this current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas are correct, this agreement may be more than a one-off humanitarian deal and may contain elements of a nascent peace process.

Why we must nevertheless remain cautious

All that said, arguments countering optimism abound. All ceasefires are fragile, even when they come with external support and detailed implementation plans. In fact, most ongoing armed conflicts are recurring conflicts, and agreements of any sort are more likely to fail than to succeed. Three types of issues related to this ceasefire between Israel and Hamas suggest that caution is required: concerns related to the formal aspects of the deal, strategic and tactical reasoning of the warring sides, and particularities of the context in which they operate.

The formal aspects that cause concern relate to the uncertainty regarding the terms, the parties’ acceptance of the deal, and the fact that the start of the ceasefire is delayed. While some purported texts of the agreement have already found their way to the internet, the full terms and texts have not been released. This lack of information makes it difficult to understand what type of guarantees the external parties are offering, and what kind of monitoring of the ceasefire will be in place. Ultimately, any reputational damage to any side from the deal falling through is softened by the lack of information about what the parties were agreeing to.

On top of the lack of clarity regarding the terms, the parties have not yet stated that they are fully signed up to the ceasefire: the Israeli cabinet is still discussing the ceasefire and its terms as this blog is being written. Even if the deal is ultimately confirmed by all, the delay to the start of the ceasefire is of particular concern, as such an arrangement often means that sides will attempt to gain an upper hand in the leadup to the announced start date of the ceasefire, and there have already been reports of continued attacks.

There is a limit to the usefulness of cynicism in the face of a hopeful event but acknowledging the possibility that the talks are used for a strategic or tactical purpose different from peace is not yet pushing against that limit. In this case, the alternative motivation for talks may be a lack of information. Information deficits have long been understood as the core problems of armed conflict: sides often do not know what the others’ ability or resolve are, and engaging in talks is one way to overcome this problem, particularly when it comes to assessing resolve. A ceasefire deal is thus potentially a source of information: either side may make the assessment that, if the other side is agreeing to a deal, that may be showing that they no longer have the capacity or willingness to fight and win. What follows for the side that thinks itself more powerful is pulling back from the deal and attempting to end the conflict though military victory.

Finally, there are elements of the context that make peace deals difficult. Factions and spoilers may turn out to be a key obstacle in this case: neither Hamas nor the Israeli government is a unitary, monolithic organisation, and within each there may be factions that see benefit in derailing the deal. In the case of Israel, the government already includes far right parties that may be looking for a way to distinguish themselves in the eyes of the voters, which is an effective strategy in a very proportional electoral system such as Israel’s. In the case of Hamas, the dilemmas may well be similar, as different factions may have differing views on how to achieve their goals while keeping the population of Gaza on side.

The return to some form of peace in Gaza may well hang in the balance of what happens over the coming weeks. If the warring sides are able to contain military action in the period before the deal takes effect and then follow through with the terms in the initial period, we may yet see enough goodwill develop on all sides to allow a more structured peace process to move forward.

 


PeaceRep Resources on Ceasefires

Key findings on ceasefires from PeaceRep research

Reports:

Relevant agreements in the PA-X collection: https://pax.peaceagreements.org/agreements/search/results/?region=&countries=67&name=&match_any_issues=True&text=&search_type=simple