After two years of war, there is a chance of a deal that will end the killing and destruction in Gaza and return the Israeli hostages, living and dead, to their families. It is an opportunity, but it is not certain that it will be seized by Hamas and Israel.
It is a grim coincidence that the talks are happening exactly two years after Hamas inflicted a trauma on Israelis that is still acute. The 7 October attacks killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and 251 were taken hostage. The Israelis estimate that 20 hostages are still alive and they want the return of the bodies of 28 others.
Israel's devastating military response has destroyed most of Gaza and killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including more than 18,000 children. The figures come from the health ministry that is part of the remains of the Hamas administration. Its statistics have usually been regarded as reliable. A study in The Lancet, the medical journal based in London, suggested they were an underestimate.
Israelis and Palestinians both want the war to end. Israelis are war-weary and polls show that a majority want a deal that returns the hostages and ends the war. Hundreds of thousands of reservists in the armed forces, the IDF, want to get back to their lives after many months in uniform on active service.
More than two million Palestinians in Gaza are in a humanitarian catastrophe, caught between the firepower of the IDF and hunger and in some areas a man-made famine created by Israel's restrictions on aid entering the Strip.
The version of Hamas that was able to attack Israel with devastating force two years ago has long since been broken as a coherent military organisation. It has become an urban guerrilla force mounting an insurgency against the IDF in the ruins.
Hamas wants to find a way to survive, even though it has agreed to give up power to Palestinian technocrats. It accepts it will have to have to hand over or dismantle what is left of its heavy weapons, but it wants to keep enough firepower to defend itself against Palestinians who want to take their revenge for nearly two decades of brutal rule and the catastrophe the Hamas attacks brought down on them.
It is not saying so publicly, but an organisation that still has followers and a charter that seeks to destroy Israel will also want to emerge with enough left to rebuild its capacity to live up to its name, which is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has different survival strategies aimed at preserving his power amid political turmoil. His ambitions include returning hostages, destroying Hamas, and demilitarizing Gaza to craft a narrative of total victory to maintain his standing among supporters.
Amidst this framework, they have initiated negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh with the intention of addressing the future and governance of Gaza under international guidance, though complexity abounds in negotiations that could influence the Arab-Jewish relationship beyond the immediate conflict.
As both sides explore a potential ceasefire, the stakes are high, and the impact of these negotiations could drastically alter the historical trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
