“This time it seems to be the right one,” notes The Orient-The Day. Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to an agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, after 15 months of war. The Israeli government must still give the green light this Thursday. After more than a year of blockage, indirect negotiations in Doha accelerated as Joe Biden left the White House, replaced Monday by Donald Trump. They resulted in the formalization of this three-phase agreement providing for a truce from Sunday January 19, the release of 33 Israeli hostages in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid.
This ceasefire is “good news for Israelis in general and for the families of the hostages in particular,” soberly notes the Israeli daily Haaretz in his editorial this Thursday. Before explaining: “The truth is simple: the war is over. In fact, it has become useless for several months, and the soldiers have died for political and not security reasons.” And the newspaper added that “the time has come to rebuild”.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump can “each claim victory”
Can this truce be credited to Joe Biden, Donald Trump or the two American leaders? As noted Al-Monitorthe president-elect “quickly took credit for the deal on his social media platform, Truth Social,” saying the negotiations were only possible “thanks to [sa] historic victory in November.
“The long-awaited and tortuously negotiated Gaza ceasefire agreement is in part the result of a remarkable collaboration between President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump, who temporarily set aside their mutual animosity to achieve a common objective”, believes across the Atlantic The New York Times.
“The two presidents asked their advisers to work together to push Israel and Hamas to cross the finish line with a view to an agreement,” recalls the famous American daily. “Each of the presidents had an interest in resolving the issue before the day of their inauguration,” notes this media. Indeed, for Joe Biden, the agreement “represents a final vindication of his mandate, which, he hopes, will be the end of the deadliest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while freeing Americans and Israelis from their captivity. For Donald Trump, this agreement “takes a major issue off the table for now as he begins a second term, allowing him to focus on other priorities.”
CNN is on the same line. “Ultimately, the agreement allows both Joe Biden and Donald Trump to each claim victory,” analyzes the American channel’s website. “This is one final piece of positive news for a president who is set to leave office with the lowest approval ratings of his term. And it reinforces the good reputation of a president-elect who swore that ‘ “all hell would break out in Gaza if the hostages were not released before his second inauguration,” CNN analyzes.
And after?
As reported The Orient-The Day“while the negotiations were coming to an end”, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken took this “opportunity to detail his vision for the future” of Gaza, “involving in particular the creation of an independent Palestinian state and the establishment of management by the Palestinian Authority of the Occupied Territories”.
“If the creation of a Palestinian state is supported by the main Arab countries, which make it a condition for engaging in the reconstruction and governance of the post-Hamas Gaza Strip, the realization of this plan could however be postponed indefinitely”, nevertheless notes the French-speaking Lebanese daily. “The Israeli government continued to firmly oppose any mention of a two-state solution, referring to a ‘position which is not realistic,’ according to the head of Israeli diplomacy, Gideon Saar,” he continues. .
Still in the Middle East, Al Jazeera notes that “many Palestinians welcome” the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, “hoping that the devastating 15-month war is finally over.” In Gaza, however, “the joy of the Palestinians is tempered by grief, after having experienced the death of so many of their loved ones”, explains the 24-hour Arabic-language news channel based in Qatar, in an article spotted by Le Figaro. “Now that the end of poverty seems imminent, Palestinians are struggling to digest all that they have lost, and all those they lost in the war,” notes Al Jazeera, indicating that while “many Palestinians are eager to return and rebuild their communities, others cannot imagine remaining in the besieged enclave any longer.”