Armin Rosen
Unherd, Jan. 18, 2025
“But accepting this deal is hardly an act of insanity. Aside from freeing the hostages from a living hell, the goal of this agreement, as with many of Netanyahu’s decisions over the past year, has been to create the freedom of action needed to keep fighting.”
After the horrors of October 7 and 15 gruelling months of war, we finally have a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. But the pause in fighting may cause more problems than it solves. It breaks new ground in conflict resolution: never before has a country agreed to trade strategic territory for hostages. And yet, this is what Israel has promised. Under a new agreement with Hamas, the IDF will withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor bisecting the Gaza Strip, relinquishing much of its ability to protect the border communities ravaged 15 months ago.
If, moreover, the agreement proceeds to its anticipated second phase, the IDF will leave the Gaza-Egypt frontier, abandoning the Strip’s invaluable smuggling routes to Hamas, at the same time that hundreds of Hamas terrorists will be freed from Israeli jails. In return, Israel will receive an unknown number of living hostages. Thirty-three of the roughly 100 remaining hostages are set to be freed in the deal’s first phase, including women, the elderly, and very young children, but Hamas hasn’t told Israel which of the captives are still alive. ....SOURCE