The Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza was supposed to restart operations on 20 October with the presence of European observers in a way not dissimilar to the system that governed its operations until June 2007 when the European Union decided to end its observer mission after Hamas usurped power from the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The reopening of the crossing was part of the Trump peace plan, but on 18 October the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unsurprisingly released a statement announcing that the “Crossing’s opening will be considered based on the manner in which Hamas fulfills its obligations in returning the deceased hostages and implementing the agreed-upon framework,” a reference to the plan.
At the time of writing, Hamas has returned the remains of ten hostages out of 28 to the Israeli authorities through the International Red Cross (IRC). The delay in returning the other remains is due, according to Hamas officials and some US officials, to the fact that Gaza was “pulverised,” quoting an American official, during the two-year Israeli war, and this renders the search for such remains difficult and time-consuming.
There is also the unavailability of heavy equipment that would make the job of locating the remains easier and quicker. Some of the people who could have helped in the search for the remains probably also died under the Israeli bombing.
Egypt has been involved in facilitating the search for the bodies of the hostages, as has the US administration, which has called for Turkish help in this macabre search. The irony of the situation is that the Israeli government has had the audacity to cry wolf as a result of the delay in the repatriation of the remains, while utterly ignoring the fact that hundreds of Palestinians – some estimates refer to thousands – are buried under the rubble because of the Dresden-like bombardment of Gaza over the last 24 months.
Not only has Israel made a fuss out of the delays, but it has also raised the alarm over a question that could be very complicated, namely the disarming of Hamas, which is part of the second phase of the peace plan. No one had expected that the implementation of this would be plain sailing, given the fact that Hamas, at least publicly, has on various occasions stressed that laying down its arms can only take place once an independent Palestinian state is established.
Last Saturday, Israel still had not fulfilled all its commitments in the first phase of the plan, and Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 14 TV that the “war against Hamas” would end once the second phase of the Trump peace plan was implemented, implicitly meaning with the complete disarmament of Hamas. He said that this could happen the “easy way” through diplomacy, or the “hard way” through military means, and only then would the war come to an end.
Some observers might claim that such statements are meant to appease the extreme-right ministers in the Israeli Coalition, such as Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister of National Security, who threatened the other day that he would “bring down” the government if Hamas is not defeated.
But how and when can Israel claim that it has “defeated” Hamas? Supposing that the mediators with the cooperation of Hamas came up with some ideas or scenarios for its disarmament in a way that would save face for Hamas, and, in the meantime, would satisfy the disarmament conditions? Would Israel consider this to be the “defeat” of Hamas? I doubt it.
Netanyahu has an interest in continuing to beat the drums of war and even to resume military operations in Gaza for as long as necessary and until the next general elections in Israel in October next year. There have been reports in Israel that he is thinking of advancing the date of the elections to June instead.
Will the US administration allow him to wreck Trump’s signature foreign-policy achievement in his second term? The answer is negative for the time being. But tomorrow is of course another day.
If there are persistent interrogation marks over how long Israel will remain committed to the US peace plan, there are also question marks over the true intentions of Hamas. The mass public executions without due process that were carried out by its members in parts of Gaza when Israeli forces withdrew in the framework of the first phase of the peace plan last week do not augur well for what Hamas is planning for the day after in Gaza.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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