Relief and disbelief welcome the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza in Israel | News of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Throughout Israeli society, reactions to the news of the Gaza ceasefire agreement were almost uniform: joy.

In Tel Aviv, families of prisoners during the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 celebrated on Thursday after the announcement. A man dressed as US President Donald Trump – who played a major role in brokering the deal – carried Israeli and American flags and posed for photos with smiling bystanders.

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Two years of war on Gaza broken Israeli society. The minority who publicly opposed Israel’s killing of more than 67,000 Palestinians say they are outcasts, while those who cheered what experts say was genocide are angered by growing international condemnation of Israeli aggression.

“I cried when I got the news,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flashenberg said from Berlin. “It’s really big. It’s like there’s a complete emotional meltdown all over Israel; it’s like people are relieving their stress. There’s just huge, huge relief.”

Cautiously optimistic

For some, the news seems too good to be true, with speculation and nerves turning to how the ceasefire might eventually collapse, as an agreement did earlier this year.

Aida Touma Suleiman, a member of parliament from the left-wing Arab Front for Change party, said: “Everyone is happy. This is what we have been calling for for two years.” “I was watching videos from Gaza and Tel Aviv TV showing the families of the hostages: everyone is happy.

“Although there is still caution,” she added. “There is a feeling that someone, somewhere, will find a reason to return to war. People do not trust this government – not only in Gaza, but in Israel as well.”

Much of this suspicion centers around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has previously resisted calls to end the war at every opportunity.

Accusations leveled against him by political opponents and families of prisoners that he was working to prolong the conflict to achieve his own political goals – to ensure the cohesion of his coalition – remained throughout the war. Former US President Joe Biden also indicated that this may be the case.

Today’s ceasefire does little to remove these doubts. Netanyahu still faces the possibility of a verdict in his long-running corruption case trialthat a question In his failures before the October 7 attack, as well as the controversy surrounding the expansion of the Israeli army draft To its ultra-Orthodox community, whose parties form an important part of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. All of these matters have been relegated to secondary concerns while the war on Gaza continues, but this will change once the fighting ends.

However, with elections looming next year, or perhaps sooner, Netanyahu has had successes he can point to, particularly in weakening the Iran-backed “axis of resistance” in the broader region. Perhaps the most notable was the 12-day war with Iran last June, and the beheading of many leaders of the Lebanese Hezbollah group in last year’s war.

“Netanyahu will portray this as a victory,” Mitchell Barak, a former aide to the prime minister and political pollster, told Al Jazeera from West Jerusalem. “He can say that he achieved everything he wanted at the beginning of the war. He recovered the hostages, and destroyed Hamas. On the sidelines, he will also claim that he used the opportunity to eliminate Hezbollah, weaken Iran and watch for the fall of the Syrian regime. He will claim that he reshaped the Middle East, eliminating many, if not all, of the major threats to Israel.”

Others in Netanyahu’s far-right coalition appear already prepared to oppose the deal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have expressed their hostility to the ceasefire, and have previously vowed to leave the government if an agreement they disagree with is passed. However, what real resistance they can muster – with Israel’s political opposition already pledging support for the government to secure the deal – is unclear.

“The Hadash party and the so-called opposition have said they will support a ceasefire,” Touma Suleiman said of the main opposition that has largely supported Israel’s actions in Gaza. “Ben Gvir and Smotrich will make some noise, but they can’t do much.”

Trump’s hand

It is unclear to what extent the Israeli public gives Netanyahu, unlike Trump, credit for the ceasefire.

The United States is Israel’s strongest ally, amid international criticism of its actions in Gaza. In addition to its comprehensive support at the United Nations, Reports A Costs of War project released by Brown University this week confirms what many have long suspected: that the US Treasury has largely funded Israel’s war on Gaza and its attacks throughout the region.

However, for many Israelis, the failed Israeli strike on Hamas negotiators in Qatar and the unified response from Arab countries marked a turning point for the US administration and its priorities in the Middle East, and ultimately led to Trump telling Netanyahu that he had to agree to a deal and end the war.

“I think that Trump, who is allied with this coalition of Islamic and Arab countries such as Türkiye and Qatar, may have succeeded in forcing the Israeli government to do so,” Flashenberg said. “This could have been reached earlier, which suggests that it was Trump who forced it.”

The future is not written

“Netanyahu must complete the first phase,” Touma Suleiman said of the loose ceasefire plan. “We know that, but there is still a lot we don’t know about Phase 2.

“This remains to be negotiated – and on the Israeli side, these negotiations will be led by a government that may be looking to resume the war.”

However, any effort to resume hostilities will unfold against the backdrop of an unpredictable US president who appears deeply invested in the process, having sent his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to negotiate a ceasefire.

“How long this will last depends on Trump,” Barrack said. “He is using the presidency as a global bully pulpit. He has shown that he is willing to do anything, regardless of norms, and he is writing his own rule book with new standards.”

Barak continued: “Israel has always been a crucial ally of the United States in the Middle East, as well as its most favored country, but it is no longer really clear whether Trump particularly cares about important allies or favored countries, or even foreign allies in general.” “He wants peace, and Netanyahu knows that. He knows that Trump could really leave him — and that would be a disaster.”

“Trump can leave, and Netanyahu knows it.”