The Gaza war is over, will real peace ever happen?

Monday will be an emotional rollercoaster as hostages return to Israel after more than 700 days in cruel captivity, exchanged for Palestinian prisoners including 250 serving long sentences for multiple murders.

Gazans are returning to their homes to try and rebuild their lives with whole neighbourhoods in ruins. Both sides are experiencing the deep sorrow of communities destroyed, parents losing children, whole families wiped out and deep trauma that will linger in the minds of survivors.

This mutual exhaustion in Israeli and Palestinian society has in the past propelled their leaders towards historic compromises. After the first Intifada Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the 1993 agreement to establish the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank.

After the second Intifada Prime Minister Sharon withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in 2008 Prime Minister Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas made serious progress towards a deal to establish a Palestinian state.

The US role was critical, as was the wider prize of peace deals between Israel and the rest of the Arab world. But today is a different reality.

From the Israeli perspective Hamas showed its true colours when it committed a level of barbaric violence on October the 7th unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israel conflict.

The ease and pace with which its personnel invaded Israel and attacked the Nova music festival and communities in Southern Israel was the gravest national security failure in Israeli history. Almost two thirds of Israelis now want the war to end and Prime Minister Netanyahu to leave office.

Support for a two state solution is at an all time low of just 22 per cent. Even if detailed compromises could be reached to withdraw from parts of the West Bank any security architecture to reassure Israelis against future Palestinian attacks would look weak in light of what Hamas did on October the 7th.

From the Palestinian perspective this war has been the worst crisis and largest loss of life in its history, leaving many Gazans without homes or basic services and yet, three quarters of Palestinians still believe October the 7th was the right thing to do.

Satisfaction with their political leaders is low but Hamas remains more popular than the Palestinian Authority. Support for a two state solution is also around one in five, the same as in Israel.

For Hamas the dilemma is whether it can still achieve the objective to lead the Palestinian people and remain the same Islamist extremist organisation.

Its very name - Harakat Muqawameh Islamiya - means armed islamic resistance movement. The Trump plan means it must disarm, which requires a complete reinvention and repurpose. Hamas will always face tough questions as to why they attacked Israel on October 7th, whether anything was achieved and if it was worth the terrible cost.

Benjamin Netanyahu must face an election within the next 12 months. He is presenting the peace plan as the achievement of all his war objectives, notably the release of the hostages and defeating Hamas.

He can point to significant wins neutralising the sizeable threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon and inflicting devastating damage, with the US, against Iran’s missile and nuclear programme.

But for a Prime Minister who always campaigned on his tough security credentials, October the 7th was a tragic failure to protect Israelis and exposed the fallacy of his wider long term strategy to contain Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority.

President Trump has been able to bring fresh energy to get this peace plan agreed. He gathered and cajoled a substantial list of power players from the Arab and Muslim world to commit to work on its implementation and potentially to invest billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza.

The international stabilisation force, Hamas disarmament and ceasefire monitoring will also be crucial to maintain peace. The plan is only a set of principles that makes no mention of the specifics of a Palestinian state and the compromises required by each side to establish one, that could be its downfall or allow new ideas to develop as other progress is made.

Above all, this peace will survive or fail in the hearts and minds of Israelis and Palestinians. Either they see this as a period of quiet, a chance to regroup for revenge in the next phase of their forever war.

Or they consider the immense pain of the loved ones they have lost, and the losses of their friends and neighbours and decide enough is enough, no more families should suffer in this way.

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James Sorene is a commentator and writer.

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