Gaza ceasefire: Biden, Trump and the remaining hurdles
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and James Hansen. Now that a ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, many are now asking whether a similar deal can be struck to end the fighting in Gaza.

On yesterday's episode, our Israel correspondent, Gabrielle Weineger, told us she thinks that remains unlikely. So today, we're going to explore this issue in more depth and examine what the major obstacles are to a ceasefire in Gaza. Our guest is The Times' Middle East correspondent, Samer Al-Atrush. Samer, first of all, do you agree that a ceasefire in Gaza is unlikely any time soon?

Well, I mean, it's likelier than it was before the ceasefire in Lebanon because Hamas has lost another sort of major bargaining chip, which was the threat of regional war having Israel fight on more than one front. So

With the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Hizballah has been taken out of the equation. Iran's been taken out of the equation, as I've indicated. Iran's unlikely to take any action now that there's a ceasefire in Lebanon. In that aspect, you know, Hamas has lost a major bargaining chip, a major point of pressure on Israel.

The other thing that's happened is that Hamas have been practically expelled from Qatar, which was hosting the political leadership. So Hamas is in many ways much more isolated and under much more pressure than they've been. I think over the past 10 months, Hamas was under the impression, certainly they believe that their attack last year against Israel, the October 7 attack, would set off some sort of regional war.

I think at this point they've been disabused of that. So their position is much weaker than it's ever been. On the other hand, they are now in a position where they think that there's nothing left to lose, right? And the only bargaining chip they have left is the hostages. That's something that they've always believed, that the main pressure card...

that they have against Israel as hostages. And they are very unlikely to sign onto a deal that would release all of the hostages without at least, you know, taking the clock back to October 6th, the day before they attacked Israel. So that would mean a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, you know, uninterrupted reconfiguration

reconstruction aid, the unhindered flow of refugees from North Gaza who have made it to southern Gaza to go back to the north. So these are the demands all along for the ceasefire. And I think

I think they're still unlikely to agree to anything less than that, but the pressure now is much more considerable than it was a month ago. So, Mayor, what are the obstacles then to a ceasefire on the Israeli side? I mean, is the biggest of them the political pressure that Netanyahu is under from the most hardline members of his coalition who would be very hostile to any kind of deal with Hamas?

Yes, unlike the Lebanon ceasefire where the war had run its course, nobody in the Israeli government has any designs on Lebanese territory. And yes, I think some people are disappointed that they didn't go all the way, but nobody realistically thought that was an option. In Gaza, it's an entirely separate issue. You have unity, not just from the hardliners. And there's a really cabinet that, you know, Hamas has to be entirely eradicated.

which again is an implausible goal, but that's one that they have nonetheless. You do have the hardliners, I mean, the extreme hardliners, because the Israeli cabinet is entirely hardline, but the extreme hardliners, the extreme rights, the Ben-Egbirs, the Smotriches, who also want to resettle Gaza. They want to bring back settlements into Gaza. So

all these things make it a much tougher choice for the government to reach unity on a ceasefire deal in Gaza. I think the main dissenter in the cabinet was Yoav Golan, the defense minister, and he's been sacked. So that was sort of the main voice of dissent against this policy, you know, the kind of voice that

I think you'll hear in the IDF and in intelligence services would say, well, you know, we killed all their leaders. A lot of a lot of their fighters have been killed by some estimates, 18000 or more, according to Israeli estimates. Hamas members have been killed. You know, we are not going to be releasing all the hostages by force. That's simply not acceptable.

a feasible prospect. They will more likely be killed by Hamas or by our own bombardment than freed by special forces operations. And we should strike a deal. So that was the argument that was presented by Gallant. He's out of the cabinet right now. And I think, you know, it's just going to be so much harder to reach a type of ceasefire.

So what kind of ceasefire agreement might the Israeli government be prepared to accept? I think what Israel would be interested in doing is reaching a ceasefire agreement that releases the hostages, but that doesn't stipulate that they have to withdraw their forces entirely from Gaza. They would want to retain control in a buffer zone. They would want to retain control along the border between Gaza and Egypt. Also,

in a quarter dividing Northern Gaza from Southern Gaza so that, you know, Hamas doesn't return to, to North Gaza so they can vet the returnees. And I think they're thinking now is that, well, given that Hamas is under so much more pressure right now, they're, they're, they're very isolated. If we stick to our guns and we don't compromise, Hamas will eventually be forced to accept these terms. I think that that's what they're looking at. Uh,

And certainly Hamas is going to come under pressure to accept these terms. They're going to come under pressure from the mediators. They're going to come under pressure from the U.S. I'm not sure that they are still in a position where they think, well, this is the best that we can get, or whether they're being placed in a position where they think, you

you know, we have nothing else to lose. So we might as well go out with the blades, you know? So that's a danger of putting them in that corner. So, you know, time will tell. I mean, they are, again, they are more isolated than they've been at any point. Fears of a regional war have dissipated, which had worked in their favor, really, in Hamas's favor to bring pressure on Israel. You know, people were telling Israel, look, if you don't sort out Gaza, you might end up with a regional war that might draw in U.S. forces.

That's dissipated for now. I think there's still fears of an default on the West Bank, but that also is something that doesn't seem as imminent as it might have, I think, some months ago, especially when Israel widened its military operations there and there were increased settler attacks against Palestinians there. But it's still a danger. And the U.S. is still pressuring Israel to make sure that tax revenues go to the Palestinian Authority there to prevent its collapse.

And is a ceasefire more likely to happen under Donald Trump than Joe Biden? I suppose partly because the Biden administration only has weeks left, but also because Netanyahu appears to have a better personal relationship with Trump than he does with Biden.

Yeah, I think, you know, Netanyahu has also had a difficult relationship with Trump. He's certainly been trying to, you know, mend defenses and sway Trump to his point of view. Trump is certainly seen as more supportive of Israel than Biden, although, you know, Biden supporters would argue that that's very unfair because Biden has been really 100 percent supportive of Israel. I mean, there has been a weapons shipment here or there.

of heavy sort of bunker busting type bombs that were withheld. But there's been a kind of successive multi-billion dollar packages

that have been sent to Israel. And I think many people in Israel recognize that, that the Biden administration has been very supportive. And in fact, that cost him a lot of Arab and Muslim votes in the US. So on the one hand, yes, Trump is seen as more supportive. On the other hand, unlike Biden, Trump is not the sort of person

I think Netanyahu would feel comfortable ignoring or thinks that he can get away with ignoring. You know, Biden could put down ultimatums. I mean, you know, they gave Israel an ultimatum about allowing more aid into Gaza, 350 trucks a day. Israel ignored it. And the weapons kept flowing anyway. I mean, the ultimatum did come with a warning that we might have to revisit our military aid. And that's not the sort of thing that you can do with Trump. You know, he takes things incredibly personally and he lashes out

and he acts, you know, if he's upset. So if Trump comes into office, you know, with the same mindset that he did before, which was saying that the war has to wrap up very quickly and that he would end the war, I would assume that nobody would ignore that. You know, when he comes into office, if he puts his foot down and says the war is over, I think the war will be over very soon. And the other thing is that Trump

has very close relations with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. He has a close relationship with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. So he's probably more likely to take their concerns and views on board than Biden perhaps did.

And they would very much like to see an end to this war. I think with the Saudis particularly, they're dangling the prospect that an end to the war and a commitment from Israel towards the Palestinian state, as unlikely as it is, that would in turn allow Trump to officiate over a Saudi-Israeli peace deal.

Samir, thank you. That is The Times' Middle East correspondent, Samir Al-Atrish. And that's it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow.

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