Why even with Trump pressure there still might not be a hostage deal

Fundamentally, despite Trump becoming the single most powerful individual in the world, he has very little power over Hamas.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB JANUARY 12, 2025 16:35 Updated: JANUARY 12, 2025 16:45

US President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, US, November 14, 2024. (photo credit: REUTERS/CARLOS BARRIA/FILE PHOTO)

Countless times during this 15-month-long war, it seemed a hostage deal was close, but none so close as in recent weeks when Hamas released the names of the 34 hostages being discussed with Israel for a deal.

There were many reasons why this time might finally be the time: all of Hamas’s 24 organized battalions are long gone, the IDF long ago took the Philadelphi Corridor, the military has started cutting off half of northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip, Hezbollah, and Syria are out of the war, Iran has been weakened substantially by Israeli strikes, and Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar is dead.

Yet, the most significant recent development is the threat of incoming US president Donald Trump that there would be hell to pay if a deal was not done before he is inaugurated on January 20.

While the above list is pressure points on Hamas, Trump coming into office is a pressure point both for Hamas and also for Israel.

Other pressure points on Israel are: The IDF has already undertaken nearly all available military actions against Hamas, including intensified operations in parts of northern Gaza.

IDF troops operate in the Gaza Strip. January 4, 2025. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Strategically, not much has changed, and for the first time since mid-2024, Hamas seems to be recruiting new fighters faster than the IDF can kill or arrest old ones. Additionally, there isn’t much more the IDF can do to weaken Hamas’s proxy allies that hasn’t already been attempted. In recent months, the IDF has experienced daily and weekly losses in Gaza, which, along with the ongoing damage to Israel’s legitimacy and economy due to the war, and the gradual loss of Israeli hostages over time, continues to create pressure on the country.

Mossad Director David Barnea has been personally sent back to Qatar to try to conclude negotiations in place of lower-level staffers.

Hostage deal not guaranteed

So why might a deal before Trump enters office still fall through?

Fundamentally, despite Trump becoming the single most powerful individual in the world, he has very little power over Hamas. How much power he has over Israel is also debatable.

Regarding Hamas, given that no one expects the US to use military force directly against the Gaza terror group and America has never been part of its financial support, there are few levers of serious pressure.

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Also, Hamas may be watching his recent public statements about threatening to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada and may conclude that he sometimes has lots of bluster with little follow-through (see Trump’s North Korea policy from his first term.)

Some believe that if there is no deal when he enters office, he will give Israel a deadline for ending the war – a hostage deal or no deal – because he is against forever wars and the US under him, being blamed even indirectly for promoting one by unending arms shipments.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may also gamble that Trump will not want a public fight with a figure who was given an unusual number of standing ovations in the US Congress, mostly by Republicans, when he came to speak there last year.

A whole evangelical segment of the party may appreciate and support Israel and Netanyahu as much as Trump out of various religious beliefs.

This is a mixed political-security background.

At a negotiation level, it is just not clear that there is an overlap between Netanyahu’s minimal deal idea and Hamas’s minimal deal idea.

In the May-August negotiations, Hamas dropped its requirement that Israel withdraw from Gaza before negotiations would restart or before a Phase 1 transfer of some hostages.

Since then, based on reports, Hamas has also moved from a willingness to give around 18 hostages in Phase 1, to a larger number, maybe as many as 34 during Phase 1.

Hamas has also since then agreed reportedly to Israel maintaining some kind of small presence in the Philadelphi Corridor during Phase 1.

Hamas insists on an end to the war

But Hamas still insists that part of the deal must include a guarantee to the end of the war as part of Israel receiving the remaining hostages and that this commitment must be made upfront, even if it is only carried out later.

Saying that he wants to be sure Hamas cannot return to control Gaza and that finding a political replacement for Hamas is not possible as long as the group maintains even disorganized military cells, Netanyahu has said he will not commit to ending the war even at this stage after so many Israeli  military achievements.

There are also smaller disputes about how the deal starts, given that Hamas, seemingly led now by Yahya Sinwar’s brother Mohammed, says it has lost contact with some of its various groups holding hostages.

Recent negotiations have focused on some short period of days of a ceasefire at the start in which Hamas can freely move around to establish which hostages on the list of 34 are still alive (some are expected to be dead.)

There have been reports that Israel has demanded some kind of small downpayment of a few hostages in return even for this period of days of a ceasefire.

There are also some smaller debates about whether certain male Israeli soldiers can be part of the Phase 1 “humanitarian release,” along with women, children, and elderly, if they are known to be wounded and which Palestinian security prisoners being released will get deported to one or another countries outside of Palestinian areas..

What the sides seem to be grasping at is the possibility of an extended Phase 1, longer than the originally discussed 42 or 60 days, long enough for Hamas to claim it achieved an end to the war, and short enough for Netanyahu to claim he did not end the war.

If the sides do cut a deal in the next eight days, it may be because Trump’s threats may finally get more specific.

If not, then without more specific threats by Trump that he may only issue once he comes into office, this ambiguous, longer Phase 1 deal may not get sealed before January 20. His vague “there will be hell to pay” may be too vague.

Because at the end of the day, all of the smaller debates about the deal are about Hamas trying to position itself to survive and regain control of Gaza someday as soon as possible and Netanyahu trying to cut off this potential rebirth before it can start.

Trump may need to put concrete and specific pressure on one or both sides to get them to concede on what seem like smaller issues, given that the sides are viewing every concession as part of the much broader framing of the post-Gaza war era.

Until then, the hostage negotiations ,which might have concluded in early 2024 during the Khan Yunis invasion, just before and just after the Rafah invasion in May and July 2024, and just before Yahya Sinwar was killed in mid-October 2024, may continue to drag on without any new obvious game-changing date or event on the horizon.