Is the ceasefire in Gaza on the verge of breakdown?

Exactly three weeks into a fragile and long-awaited ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the deal may be teetering on the edge of collapse.

Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, announced on Monday that the sixth Israeli captive release scheduled for Saturday has been cancelled “until further notice”. Hamas added that the decision was taken five days before the scheduled exchange, “allowing mediators ample time to pressure the [Israeli] occupation towards fulfilling its obligations”, according to a statement from the group.

Obeida said Israel has failed to abide by the terms of the deal and has delayed the return of forcibly displaced Palestinians back to their homes in northern Gaza, targeted them with “shelling and gunfire”, and obstructed aid supplies from entering Gaza as agreed.

Israel committed to bringing in 60,000 mobile homes for those in tents, which are unfit for winter weather in Gaza. None have been delivered so far. There are also shortfalls in food and fuel deliveries. 

The Israeli captives will not be released “until the occupation commits to and compensates for the entitlements of the past weeks retroactively”, the statement said. 

Obeida said “the door remains open” for the prisoner exchange, and Hamas will remain committed to the deal as long as Israel holds up its end.

Trump raises stakes

But it was the timing of that announcement that suggested the message was not just for Israel but for its biggest backer, the United States.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, US President Donald Trump not only doubled down on his earlier announcement to expel all Palestinians from Gaza and build a beach resort but also asserted that Palestinians who leave Gaza will have no right to return. 

Be it the Palestinian Authority and its commitment to the 1993 Oslo plan for a two-state solution or Hamas’s long-held belief that Palestinians should have access to all of what is now the state of Israel, the notion of the right of return for Palestinian refugees has been a constant. 

The principle has even been baked into the mission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency since Palestinians were expelled in 1948 when Israel was created, in what Palestinians call the Nakba, catastrophe in Arabic. The agency is meant to serve refugees until they can go back home to an established Palestinian state. 

More than 80 percent of Gaza is made up of Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel. 

“We’ll build beautiful communities… we’ll build safe communities a little bit away from where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own [Gaza]. Think of it as a real estate development for the future.”

Asked by Fox News anchor Bret Baier if Palestinians would have the right to return, Trump responded, “No, they wouldn’t.”

“They’re going to have much better housing… I’m talking about building a permanent place for them,” he added. “I’m talking about starting to build, and I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions.” 

Egyptian security sources told the Reuters news agency on Monday that talks on implementing phase two of the ceasefire deal are now on hold until there are clear indications from the US about the continuation of the agreed-upon plan: further captive swaps and a declaration of “sustainable calm” in the enclave. 

Those same sources indicated to Reuters that they fear the deal falling apart. 

Egypt, along with Qatar and the US, is a mediator in the negotiations. The talks on phase two were confirmed to have started last week, according to Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff. But without firm commitments, Israel has repeatedly said it is prepared to restart its aerial bombardment. 

On Monday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to stand at its highest state of readiness.

The developments played out as Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington.

Following the meeting, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in which it said that “the only way to confront the risks and threats to regional and international peace and security resulting from the Israeli occupation… is for the international community to adopt an approach that takes into account the rights of all peoples of the region without discrimination, including the Palestinian people who suffer from unprecedented injustice to their basic rights, [and] their right to live in peace on their land and in their homeland.”

The statement did not directly address the US or Trump. 

“Egypt adheres to its position rejecting any infringement of [Palestinian] rights, including the right to self-determination, remaining on the land and independence, as well as the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were forced to leave their homeland,” the statement said. 

An emergency meeting of the Arab League is already scheduled for 27 February in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. 

‘Arabs need to wake up’

What perhaps began as a tactical decision by Trump to adopt an extreme position towards a negotiation on Gaza has morphed into something far more serious, regional analysts told Middle East Eye. 

But precisely what that is is hard to pin down. Trump has often adopted a strategy of keeping his viewers on edge, as he did during his career in reality TV. 

“It seems like his administration is playing catch up with him. They tried to walk back some of his statements [last week], but it seems like he’s adamant about it, and it seems like he wants to enforce it on his administration and on the Palestinians,” Osama Abuirshaid, the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, told MEE. 

“Now, whether that is going to work or not, that’s a different story, but his rhetoric will have consequences,” he added. “We’re talking about someone who’s impulsive, someone who does not have that compounded intelligence.” 

‘The Arabs need to basically wake up and realise that as of 20 January, the United States of America is no longer the United States of America’

– Khalil Jahshan, Arab Center Washington DC

In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be trying to delay phase two of the ceasefire deal to placate his far-right coalition in government and avoid a winding down of his political career. “Trump has created that space for him,” Abuirshaid said.

Trump had made no indications about taking on Gaza as his own personal real estate portfolio prior to Netanyahu’s visit to Washington last week. 

“If there is no firm stand by the Arab and Muslim states and the UN and the international community, this can happen not by just evicting the Palestinians, but by starving them to death, where they will have only one option: to leave,” Abuishaid added. 

Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of Arab Center Washington DC, agrees that it’s the Arab states that must push back to create some sort of shift in Trump’s position. 

“The Arabs need to basically wake up and realise that as of 20 January, the United States of America is no longer the United States of America. Its policies in the region are no longer the same policies they are accustomed to,” Jahshan told MEE.

“Their alliances with the United States are no longer valid, and they need to adjust. They need to basically say, ‘If you are trying to demean us and dictate to us policies that are contrary to our national interest, then our relationship needs to be reassessed’.”

Arab vulnerability

However, countries like Egypt and Jordan, where Trump said he intends to send Palestinians from Gaza, may not have much leverage at all. 

They are consistently among the top three recipients of US military aid after Israel, figures from the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development show. 

In the latest figures from 2023, both Arab nations received more than $1.5bn from Washington, while Israel received more than $3.3bn. 

Cairo and Amman were also the first two governments in the region to normalise relations with Israel many decades ago. 

“You have just two main players in this case: Saudi Arabia, in general terms, and Qatar in terms of the process itself. They need to basically act like the adult in the room and say, ‘This needs to stop if our relationship is to proceed forward’,” Jahshan said. 

Successive US administrations have touted Saudi normalisation with Israel as a major foreign policy prize, but the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 derailed that goal, and late last year, the Saudi crown prince accused Israel of waging genocide in Gaza. 

Jordan’s King Abdullah is expected at the White House on Tuesday, making him the first Arab head of state to meet with Trump in his second term. Gaza will be at the top of the agenda.

“The King will also hold meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, and key members of Congressional committees,” the Jordanian embassy said in a statement supplied to MEE.

‘We’ve often emphasised and reiterated that Palestine isn’t up for negotiation’

– Faye Nemer, MENA American Chamber of Commerce

It’s unclear what kind of sway he might have, but Jahshan thinks that merely coming to see Trump is ill-advised despite its effect on a president who likes to have a queue outside his door. 

“I don’t know if these Arab leaders have any dignity left. I don’t know why they’re coming to Washington. It doesn’t make sense,” Jahshan told MEE.

“Not only did he negate their policies, not only did he throw their alliances [out] for both Egypt and Jordan, he threw them in the garbage.” 

In a statement, Arab Americans For Peace, formerly known as Arab Americans For Trump until the president’s remarks on “taking over Gaza” last week, said it “support[s] his majesty’s firm stand on peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution, as President Trump promised us during his campaign.” 

“We commend his majesty’s noble and steadfast position… which must be satisfactory to ALL parties,” the statement continued. “We are aware of his majesty’s efforts in coordinating the Arab position on peace among the main key Arab leaders.”

Faye Nemer, who heads the MENA American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, and voted for Trump because of his campaign promise for “a lasting peace” in the region, told MEE she is hopeful about King Abdullah’s visit because she believes Trump can be moved to act differently. 

“Hopefully that will yield some meaningful results that are for the betterment of the Palestinian people. Anything to the contrary would really be very disruptive and destabilising to the region,” she said, adding that she does not regret her vote for Trump in the November election. 

Trump became the first US presidential candidate to visit the so-called Arab capital of America just outside of Detroit, days before the November election. His pledge to put an end to the war on Gaza galvanised the Arab-American community and turned Dearborn Republican after more than two decades of being a city of Democrats. 

“We’ve often emphasised and reiterated that Palestine isn’t up for negotiation,” Nemer said. “We don’t see President Trump as an individual who would renege on a deal that he helped craft and push through.”