On the eve of the 15th month in the Israeli war of termination launched on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023 – in response to the Al-Aqsa Flood resistance operation by Hamas – many sources changed their tune.

Previously pessimistic, they now independently shared hopes for “a breakthrough” that could silence the Israeli killing machine and the resistance rockets, at least for a few months.

According to five sources, including Palestinians, Egyptians and others—speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly earlier this week – a deal to start an extended, delicate and complicated ceasefire might be in the offing. This is thanks to the talks Cairo has hosted and worked on through direct and indirect contact with all the parties, those engaged in combat and those with political weight and interest.

 The sources, both diplomatic and security, had made statements to the effect that Netanyahu was not ready for a deal, which made a ceasefire unlikely or impossible. Now they suggested that an initial ceasefire deal could be signed in the coming weeks. Some suggested that the deal could be signed as early as the third week of this month, prior to the Christmas-New Year holidays. Others suggested it might take slightly longer but would happen prior to the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on 20 January. Only one said the signing would “have to wait for Trump to enter the White House”.

 This shift in positions, the sources said, has two clear signs. The first is that Netanyahu actually agreed to start a ceasefire – without committing to end the war fully or to withdraw fully, as two sources said. The second sign, according to the same sources, is that Hamas has changed its previous positions that had made any ceasefire agreement conditional on an Israeli commitment to a full and prompt withdrawal of its troops from Gaza, and Hamas being at the helm of any future Palestinian government to run the Gaza Strip.

 Today, after extended engagement and pressure from mediators, the US, Egypt and Qatar, both sides are showing willingness to do what it would take to pursue a truce that could go into effect in the first or second months of 2025.

 Fatigue is identified by the sources as a key reason for the change of positions of both Israel and Hamas. “Netanyahu is well aware that his army is growing tired and frustrated and that public opinion, while still mostly behind the war, is also growing tired of the continuous state of insecurity that started on 7 October (2023) and has not come to an end,” said one regional diplomatic source. He added that despite the ceasefire deal that was signed between Israel and Lebanon-Hizbullah to end the conflict that started on 8 October 2023 as a result of the Israeli war on Gaza, the residents of the north of Israel are still not secure enough to go back to their homes.

 Meanwhile, the same source added that despite the sustainable damage that Israel has inflicted on Hamas, especially its military capacity in Gaza, the residents of the south of Israel too remain apprehensive. According to the same source, “Clearly, Netanyahu is also tired of the pressure being put on him almost everyday from the families of the Israeli hostages” captured by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters on the day of Al-Aqsa Flood.

 Meanwhile, sources agreed that Hamas too is suffering from fatigue and worse. According to an Egyptian source, Hamas has not just lost several top leaders, including its military commander Yahya Al-Sinwar. It has also sustained incredible damage to its capacities. “Hamas leaders, who are now forced to live in several cities across the Muslim world, after being asked to move out by Qatar – which had previously hosted them almost unconditionally – are very well aware of the level of fatigue and frustration the residents of Gaza are feeling today,” the same source said.

 He added that Israel had brought “doomsday to Gaza, in no uncertain terms, especially to the north of Gaza” on the border with Israel. “The humanitarian situation is catastrophic, to say the least; it is actually beyond catastrophic, and Hamas is aware that it cannot keep on fighting with no chance of a breakthrough on the ground, and so it becomes meaningless to allow more people to die and be injured.”

 Since the beginning of the war, which many had expected to last for days or at most weeks, Israel has killed some 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women, children and elderly people. “This number is far from being final because we have no idea of how many bodies are under the rubble,” one humanitarian source said. “We could well be talking about another 50,000 or even more; we just do not know because Israel never gave the residents of Gaza – or for that matter humanitarian organisations – time to go so far as to remove the rubble to retrieve the dead bodies and give people a decent burial.”

 But, according to a regional diplomatic source, there are two other crucial factors in the change in positions of both Netanyahu and Hamas. Netanyahu, he said, had “scored very high; he eliminated almost every single consequential resistance leader, especially [Hizbullah leader Hassan] Nasrallah and Sinwar.” He added that Netanyahu had also inflicted hard-to-recover damage of the capacities of both Hizbullah and Hamas “and is currently exercising pressure to make sure that neither will be able to start the long and taxing process of rebuilding their capacities”.

 In the meantime, the source added, Netanyahu is fully aware of the significant damage he had brought to the image of Israel across the world and to the level of tension that had come to his relations with several world allies. “Some might think that, unlike the case of [outgoing US President Joe] Biden, Trump would have perfectly harmonious relations with Netanyahu but this is not the case; Trump and Netanyahu do not have an easy relationship to start with and Trump does not want a tragic scene to pop up out of Gaza everyday because he wants to fast-forward the expansion of the Abraham Accords,” the source said.

While campaigning, Trump repeatedly said that it would take him a very short time to get more Arab countries to sign normalisation agreements with Israel, just like the UAE and Bahrain did in August 2020, under the banner of the Abraham Accords. Informed diplomatic sources say that Trump knows very well that the big prize is a normalisation agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. This, the diplomatic sources say, is not going to happen before the war on Gaza is brought to a halt one way or the other.

“This is precisely the point. The war on Gaza will start to come to an end, and so will Hamas rocket attacks and any other possible resistance attacks against Israeli targets,” said an Egyptian source. However, he added, “we are not talking about a comprehensive deal that will be signed to end the war as was the case with previous Israeli wars on Gaza but rather a sequence of agreements that will take time and a lot more negotiations. We are not going to see an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza any time soon, and we are not going to see a return to the norms of 6 October 2023 at all.”

What is likely to emerge from the talks that Cairo has been hosting this week for delegations of Hamas and Fatah and the talks it has been conducting with Israel and the partner-facilitators, is rather an agreement to stop the fighting, execute the prisoner swap deal, allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, launch a governance committee from both Fatah and Hamas to run Gaza and establish a monitoring mechanism to observe the implementation of the agreement that should be reached.

Is there a reason to think that things could fall apart again? According to a high-ranking Egyptian source, “this is always the case as we have seen during the past year.” However, he added, “but it does not look like things are going to collapse this time.”

* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly