A few days after the beginning of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City and the cities of the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas began to ask for a ceasefire. These voices increased when the ground maneuver began. Sinwar and his associates realized very quickly that the Israeli response this time was different from its responses to attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that previously led to severe clashes within the Strip.
The great hope that Israel would refrain from launching a ground maneuver as long as its hostages were held by Hamas was not realized. At the beginning of the war, in light of the accusations hurled at Hamas about the immorality of kidnapping women, children, and adults, the organization tried to claim that mobs accompanying its men – and not its own operatives – were responsible for the abductions, and that the lack of a ceasefire made it difficult for it to advance their release. However, it soon became clear that it intended to trade the hostages and exact of Israel a similar price for the release of Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons.
Since then, Hamas has tried to balance between the need for a ceasefire, which has become more and more acute as the ground maneuver deepens and expands, and its interest in utilizing the many hostages in its hands to reach another prisoner deal that will score it many points in Palestinian public opinion. A release of Palestinian prisoners might also perhaps help it rebuff the criticism that will be hurled at it after the war regarding the severe destruction it has brought on the Gaza Strip and perhaps on the Palestinian cause as a whole.
At a press conference in Beirut on November 21, Khalil al-Hayya, a prominent Hamas leader, presented the deal for the release of 50 Israeli hostages, which was approved a few hours later by the Israeli government, as a hudna agreement – that is, a temporary truce or lull. He was cautious and did not display the same smugness seen in the past among Hamas leaders after clashes with Israel from which they emerged alive, or after previous prisoner release deals. He refused to reveal many details about the deal; he stated the number of trucks that would enter the Strip every day as a result of the agreement, and talked a lot about the importance of supplying the needs of the population. Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas, and Azat al-Rashak, a member of the Political Bureau, also defined the deal as a hudna agreement.
It seems that the intense force that Israel has used so far in its war in the Gaza Strip, and that which it still intends to use, dictates to Hamas an agenda that requires it to pause and regroup in order to examine ways to ensure its survival as an organization or political movement, as well as the survival of its leaders.
A few days after the beginning of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City and the cities of the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas began to ask for a ceasefire. These voices increased when the ground maneuver began. Sinwar and his associates realized very quickly that the Israeli response this time was different from its responses to attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that previously led to severe clashes within the Strip.
The great hope that Israel would refrain from launching a ground maneuver as long as its hostages were held by Hamas was not realized. At the beginning of the war, in light of the accusations hurled at Hamas about the immorality of kidnapping women, children, and adults, the organization tried to claim that mobs accompanying its men – and not its own operatives – were responsible for the abductions, and that the lack of a ceasefire made it difficult for it to advance their release. However, it soon became clear that it intended to trade the hostages and exact of Israel a similar price for the release of Palestinian women and minors held in Israeli prisons.
Since then, Hamas has tried to balance between the need for a ceasefire, which has become more and more acute as the ground maneuver deepens and expands, and its interest in utilizing the many hostages in its hands to reach another prisoner deal that will score it many points in Palestinian public opinion. A release of Palestinian prisoners might also perhaps help it rebuff the criticism that will be hurled at it after the war regarding the severe destruction it has brought on the Gaza Strip and perhaps on the Palestinian cause as a whole.
At a press conference in Beirut on November 21, Khalil al-Hayya, a prominent Hamas leader, presented the deal for the release of 50 Israeli hostages, which was approved a few hours later by the Israeli government, as a hudna agreement – that is, a temporary truce or lull. He was cautious and did not display the same smugness seen in the past among Hamas leaders after clashes with Israel from which they emerged alive, or after previous prisoner release deals. He refused to reveal many details about the deal; he stated the number of trucks that would enter the Strip every day as a result of the agreement, and talked a lot about the importance of supplying the needs of the population. Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of Hamas, and Azat al-Rashak, a member of the Political Bureau, also defined the deal as a hudna agreement.
It seems that the intense force that Israel has used so far in its war in the Gaza Strip, and that which it still intends to use, dictates to Hamas an agenda that requires it to pause and regroup in order to examine ways to ensure its survival as an organization or political movement, as well as the survival of its leaders.