Three Key Outcomes from Hamas-Israel Negotiations

Despite the stark imbalance in military power between the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel, the aftermath of the 2023-2025 Gaza Genocide War has introduced new variables that could alter the overall nature of the relationship between the two sides. This shift may eventually lead to different power dynamics, gradually transforming the nature of their interactions.

This reflects the erosion of the “relative value” of military dimensions in the future of the relationship, in contrast with the increasing importance of “comprehensive power,” including moral, symbolic, liberatory, and political aspects. This could ultimately enhance Hamas’s ability to persist in its negotiating policies, possibly even achieving “repeated goals” against Israel without needing to offer additional concessions that were not agreed upon in the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement for Gaza on January 15, 2025.

In analyzing the factors that affect Hamas’s relationship with Israel, along with its external contexts and potential future trajectories, four key observations stand out:

Observation 1: Israel’s Inability to Conclude the War

The Netanyahu government has failed to decisively end the conflict through military means, despite utilizing all tools of genocidal warfare, including: using starvation as a weapon, enforcing an economic blockade, repeatedly targeting humanitarian aid recipients, and intentionally bombing hospitals, shelters, schools, and infrastructure. Israel also implemented “scorched earth” policies, displacement, and ethnic cleansing as part of what was known as the “Generals’ Plan,” among other tactics. Despite all this, Netanyahu and his military establishment failed to force Hamas, particularly, and Palestinian resistance factions, in general, to “raise the white flag” and surrender to Israel’s conditions in the negotiations.

Despite Israel’s continuous and varied negotiation tactics, and Netanyahu’s ability to delay the prisoner exchange deal for several months, pressure from the families of detainees in Gaza steadily increased. Calls for an investigation into the state’s failure to respond to the October 7 attack were also raised. This indicates two things:

• • Firstly, Netanyahu and his government may soon face a moment of internal conflict, with accusations of negligence and responsibility for the failure being exchanged between political and military leaders.

• • Secondly, Israel’s remaining leverage against Hamas and Gaza is limited and increasingly ineffective, primarily serving the purpose of “buying time” and “postponing” outcomes, especially since the genocide war failed to achieve mass displacement of Gaza’s population, let alone break the will of the resistance.

Observation 2: Hamas’s Ability to Cause Strategic Disruption

Hamas has proven its ability to “disrupt” Israel’s strategy and prevent it from gaining “preemptive initiative” against the Palestinian side. Hamas’s negotiating approach demonstrates a deep understanding of Israeli mentality and a capacity to exploit internal contradictions and conflicts within Israeli society. This was evidenced by the messages conveyed by the Qassam Brigades in the backgrounds of the Israeli prisoners’ handover scenes (such as: “We are the flood… we are the next day,” “The land knows its people… not the double nationals,” “Take off your shoes, every inch of this land is soaked with the blood of martyrs,” “And to freedom’s red door, every bloody hand knocks,” and “We are the flood… we are the great strength”).

Analyzing these messages showcases Hamas’s skill in the realms of negotiation, media, and propaganda. Hamas presented a different model from the “Arab moderate negotiating approach,” which had been seen since the disengagement agreements between Egypt, Syria, and Israel (1974-1975), that ultimately led Arab states to follow the path of settlement and normalization (Camp David 1978, Madrid Conference 1991, Oslo Accords 1993), with all their negative outcomes on Arab unity and the conflicts within Arab stances.

Hamas succeeded in balancing flexibility with adherence to its core principles and the rights of its people. It has forced Israel to change its criteria for the release of Palestinian prisoners, emphasizing “political parity” and improving the Palestinian negotiation position, focusing on the value of prisoner freedom. This is an issue that touches almost every Palestinian home, unlike the Arab and Palestinian negotiators who ignored the issue of prisoners in the peace process, focusing solely on the process without achieving true peace, especially with the failure of the Oslo process.

Although the “indirect negotiations” between Hamas and Israel could be the most difficult negotiations in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have led to three intertwined outcomes:

• • Firstly, the confirmation of the “moral superiority” of the Palestinian people over their enemy, as exemplified by the Qassam Brigades’ careful treatment of Israeli detainees, notably in the case of soldier Omri Shimkov, who kissed the heads of his captors in the Nuseirat area on February 22, 2025. This highlights Hamas’s commitment to the “battle for hearts and minds,” alongside the steadfastness of the resistance factions on the ground.

• • Secondly, the strengthening of Hamas’s negotiation position and the granting of a degree of “regional legitimacy” to it as a “responsible negotiating party” in front of Qatari and Egyptian mediators, despite the intensifying U.S. threats and Israel’s continued evasions.

• • Thirdly, Palestinian resilience and determination in resisting U.S.-Israeli pressures could ultimately garner some regional Arab support, leading to a consensus on the “minimum” demand: the rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people, and the “maximum” demand: a return to supporting the international recognition of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, as a “realistic solution” to the consequences of the genocide war.

This could also include the official Arab openness to Palestinian resistance factions that align with the declared Arab goals of preventing the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land. Thus, the Palestinian issue plays the role of a “lever,” potentially creating greater cohesion within the regional system against external pressures, especially U.S. influence.

Observation 3: Increasing Complexity of the Conflict

The nature of the conflict between Hamas and Israel has had significant implications for the increasing complexity of their relationship, especially after the October 7, 2023, attack. This attack occurred within the context of resisting the transformations of the Zionist project, especially after the rise of new right-wing, nationalist, and religious currents in Israeli politics, and Israel’s abandonment of its policies of managing or “freezing” the conflict. Instead, Israel has moved towards a phase of “resolving the conflict” through the displacement and genocide of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, continuing the blockade of Gaza and isolating it completely from the broader Palestinian body, while preventing any potential for Palestinian unity (as seen during the Sword of Jerusalem operation in May 2021).

In this sense, the current Gaza war has reshaped the rules of the Hamas-Israel conflict and redefined the meaning of victory and defeat for both sides. Victory will depend on the ability to manage the conflict and continue rallying societal energies on both sides in this “existential social-political struggle.”

As the conflict enters a decisive phase, there is a growing likelihood of fundamental fissures within Israel and its international and regional supporters. Additionally, the conflict may gradually extend to the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, potentially leading to a comprehensive Palestinian uprising due to the “inevitable collision” between Israeli strategies (violence, state terrorism, genocide, and displacement) and the inspiring images of “Palestinian return” on both the symbolic and political levels.

The world has witnessed the return of the forcibly displaced people to northern Gaza (the Gaza and North Governorates) via walking along the al-Rashid Street, a journey that reinforced the “greatness of the Palestinian people, their steadfastness on their land, their victory, and the failure and defeat of the occupation and its displacement plans,” as Hamas stated in its statement on January 27, 2025.

Observation 4: The Impact of the External Environment

The external environment, both international and regional, has had an impact on Hamas’s relationship with Israel, particularly in light of U.S. pressures regarding the displacement of Gaza’s residents, international and UN opposition to it, and the emerging reservations from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposals. This has occurred alongside the erosion of Israel’s pressure tactics against Hamas and Gaza, after exhausting all available forms of pressure (whether military, through starvation and siege, through displacement, or through propaganda and psychological warfare).

These complex international and regional interactions underscore an important paradox: the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel reveals the weakening of Netanyahu’s image and government in front of the Israeli public, especially the families of the detainees, while strengthening Hamas’s image among Gaza’s residents and the Palestinian people, as well as internationally, portraying it as a “national liberation movement” working to free prisoners, the people, and the Palestinian land from the grip of the brutal occupation.

The final outcome of the Gaza war’s consequences is driving the relationship between Hamas and Israel towards “different balances,” reflecting the nature of national liberation struggles more than the military balance of power in international relations. It’s noteworthy that the “transitional phase” the international and regional systems are currently undergoing allows, at least theoretically, for international and regional actors to loosen the constraints of both the international and regional systems (as evidenced by the actions of Turkey, Iran, Qatar, and South Africa).

Moreover, the continued aggression of the occupying state against Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and the broader Middle East could lead to escalating regional conflicts, pushing events beyond control and sparking radical, jihadist, or even violent, anarchic movements, while also initiating a long-term global process of isolating and punishing Israel for its crimes, especially after multiple countries joined the genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.

Additionally, after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, these significant aspects enhance the “moral victories” of the Palestinian cause and reaffirm its political, liberatory, and humanitarian dimensions, in stark contrast to the clear failure of the “Israeli/U.S. narrative,” which will continue trying to demonize the Palestinian Arab people and criminalize the right of peoples to resist oppression and terrorism.