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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Hamas Announced Postponing
Prisoner Exchange: Why and Why Now?- Analysis</h1>
February 11, 2025</div>
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Al-Qassam
spokesperson Abu Obeida. (Image: Palestine Chronicle)
<p><strong>By <a
href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/robert-inlakesh"
title="Display all articles for Robert Inlakesh"
moz-do-not-send="true">Robert Inlakesh</a></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>Hamas is currently in a position where it
must try its best to negotiate the entry of
sufficient aid into Gaza, while also ensuring the
war ends and a post-war administration is formed
so that the territory can be revived and rebuilt.</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>On Monday, Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman,
Abu Obeida, issued a statement asserting that in
light of Israeli ceasefire violations, it will be
postponing the prisoner exchange planned for the
coming weekend. While this is now being framed as
the potential reason for the agreement’s collapse,
it is instead a negotiating tactic at a crucial
juncture.</span></p>
<p><span>“The handover of the Zionist prisoners who were
scheduled to be released next Saturday…will be
postponed until further notice,” announced the
military spokesperson of Hamas. This message was
also accompanied by “we affirm our commitment to the
terms of the agreement as long as the occupation
commits to them”. </span></p>
<p><span>While Israeli politicians instantly began
claiming that Hamas had violated the ceasefire
agreement, with the infamous partner in Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, Itamar
Ben-Gvir, calling for an immediate bombing campaign,
nothing has materially changed on the ground yet.
However, provocative statements like Ben-Gvir’s are
predictable and also important in this equation.</span></p>
<p><span>Following Abu Obeida’s statement, in which he
accused Israel of violating the ceasefire terms, the
Hamas movement decided to publish a list of multiple
Israeli violations of the deal, including: </span></p>
<ul>
<li><span>“Delaying the return of displaced persons to
northern Gaza.” </span></li>
<li><span>“Targeting civilians with shelling and
gunfire, resulting in numerous casualties across
the Strip.” </span></li>
<li><span>“Obstructing the entry of essential shelter
supplies, such as tents, prefabricated houses,
fuel, and equipment needed for rubble removal and
body retrieval.”</span></li>
<li><span>“Delaying the delivery of critical medical
supplies and resources necessary for restoring
hospitals and the health sector.”</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span>While Hamas stated that it had itself recorded
the above-mentioned ceasefire violations, these have
been well documented by rights groups, journalists
and have been mentioned by United Nations officials.
Yet, Israel’s violations began some 15 minutes after
the planned implementation of the deal – on January
19 at 8:30 AM (local time). </span></p>
<p><span>Killings of civilians through airstrikes and
sniper fire continued throughout the following
weeks, amongst the other ceasefire violations,
however, Hamas had chosen not to open fire; or even
release threatening statements in retaliation such
as what occurred today.</span></p>
<p><b>Why is Hamas Doing This Now?</b></p>
<p><span>The knee jerk analyses that are being offered
by most analysts in the immediate aftermath of the
Hamas statement are almost entirely centered on a
kind of he-said-she-said approach to the issue. As
these disputes rage on about who violated the
ceasefire and which side seeks the collapse of the
deal, it is important to look deeper into the
context.</span></p>
<p><span>As noted above, Hamas had chosen to not fire a
single bullet or rocket, nor threaten to postpone
the release of Israeli captives, through weeks of
daily Israeli ceasefire violations. There were
moments when Israeli forces were executing children,
delaying the return of displaced Palestinians to
their homes for 24 hours and restricting essential
items from reaching the Gaza Strip, all of which
would have given Hamas the moral imperative to
obstruct the deal in order to end such violations of
the agreement.</span></p>
<p><span>If Hamas held off from retaliation for
emotional, legal and moral reasons, then it
indicates that their statements from today were
strategically calculated and not simply reactionary.
The timing of the Qassam Brigades spokesman’s
statement happened to coincide with the return of
the Israeli negotiating team from Doha, which also
appears to be connected.</span></p>
<p><span>Within the past week, Israeli PM Benjamin
Netanyahu has changed the composition of his
negotiating team, reportedly floating the idea of an
extension to the first phase of the ceasefire
agreement. These amendments to the course of the
negotiating process have been compounded by US
President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the
Gaza Strip, in addition to ethnically cleansing the
territory’s population.</span></p>
<p><span>Israel has also now withdrawn its forces from
the Netzarim Corridor that intersects northern and
central Gaza, deserting what would be a key military
position should they seek to return to the
territory, while most of the displaced refugees from
the north of the territory have also returned to
their destroyed neighborhoods.</span></p>
<p><span>Another factor to consider is that the Israeli
PM has managed to keep his far-right coalition
together so far, yet, key lawmakers from within the
Religious Zionism bloc have threatened to collapse
the government should it approve phase two of the
three-phase ceasefire agreement. Interestingly
enough, Donald Trump’s rather outlandish and highly
illegal proposals have managed to persuade
Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners that the
ceasefire is a good deal, quite possibly helping to
save it.</span></p>
<p><span>Emboldened by the American President’s hardline
rhetoric, Netanyahu has since gone on a number of
tirades in which he has not only endorsed the idea
of ethnically cleansing the people of Gaza to
neighboring nations, but has even said that Saudi
Arabia should carve out part of its territory to
make a Palestinian State.</span></p>
<p><span>These extreme threats have now managed to
ironically unite West Asia, not with Israel but
against it. Contrary to the claims of Netanyahu and
Trump, about Riyadh abandoning its position on
requiring a viable path to a Palestinian State in
exchange for a normalisation agreement with Tel
Aviv, it has only doubled down. In fact, the
condemnatory rhetoric of Israel, coming from Saudi
Arabia, is the strongest in decades. </span></p>
<p><span>Hamas has been center stage in this sudden,
seemingly overnight regional shift, which has
certainly factored into their decision to begin
applying pressure on the Israeli negotiating team. </span></p>
<p><span>The Hashemite ruler of Jordan, King Abdullah
II, has been publicly starkly opposed to the
US-Israeli proposal to transfer hundreds of
thousands, if not close to a million Palestinians,
out of Gaza and into his territory. While the
Egyptian military has reportedly been mobilizing to
deal with any major destabilizing development. Both
Cairo and Amman fear the potential repercussions for
the survival of their leadership should a mass
displacement from Gaza occur.</span></p>
<p><span>Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has also been placed
in a difficult position. Like Jordan and Egypt, it
is friendly to not only the US, but also Israel.
Yet, taking into consideration the fall of Bashar
al-Assad’s government in Syria, in addition to the
popular moods of the Saudi people in support of the
Palestinian cause, normalizing with Israel right now
and enabling a major regionally destabilizing event
that could even cause the collapse of the Jordanian
Monarchy, is a risk they are not willing to
currently take.</span></p>
<p><span>Another major factor here is both the warming
of relations between Riyadh and Tehran, combined
with the recent weakening of the Iranian-led Axis of
Resistance. This essentially means that there is
little to gain from joining an anti-Iran alliance,
likely re-igniting its frozen conflict in Yemen,
with little role for it to actually play. In such a
scenario, Saudi Arabia would be fully subordinate to
the US, which limits future opportunities in the
emerging multipolar world. Saying this, the threat
of destabilization inside Saudi Arabia goes both
ways, if they go too far in opposition to the
Americans and Israelis, they could also incur their
wrath.</span></p>
<p><span>Hamas decided to release its statement, doing
so with a region that is now united against the
Israeli-US invasion/ethnic cleansing plan. The Arab
and Islamic nations will soon likely adopt a joint
platform and help in putting forth urgent proposals
to see the Gaza ceasefire’s implementation through
the second and third phases. This includes throwing
their weight behind the success of a post-war
administration in the Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>Israel on the other hand has little leverage in
this situation, other than to implement plans that
will inflict mass regional destabilisation and
return to carrying out its catastrophic genocide in
Gaza. This is why, so far, the Israeli threats
against Gaza have been centered around what their
response will be if there is a failure to exchange
prisoners on Saturday, which is five days away.</span></p>
<p><span>If Israel carries out airstrikes in the coming
days, it has two options, to completely collapse the
ceasefire or to just carry out random raids that
will kill civilians, but not in a way that would
lead to the ceasefire’s dissolution. However, there
is also a trap in the Israelis deciding to carry out
any significant raids on Gaza, because this will
then give Hamas – and perhaps its ally Ansarallah –
the excuse to respond in kind.</span></p>
<p><span>If Hamas fires volleys of rockets toward
Israeli settlements, possibly even Tel Aviv, it will
serve as a great embarrassment to Israeli Premier
Benjamin Netanyahu and could even encourage his
extremist allies to threaten the collapse of his
coalition. In the minds of Netanyahu’s partners like
Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, they believe
that Hamas must be crushed and the entirety of the
Palestinian population be driven out. Therefore,
Hamas’ rocket fire could trigger emotional reactions
from them that put Netanyahu in a difficult
political position.</span></p>
<p><span>Meanwhile, the families of Israeli captives who
are still held in Gaza have already taken it upon
themselves to blockade main roads in Tel Aviv,
demanding the implementation of the ceasefire
agreement.</span></p>
<p><span>Hamas is currently in a position where it must
try its best to negotiate the entry of sufficient
aid into Gaza, while also ensuring the war ends and
a post-war administration is formed so that the
territory can be revived and rebuilt. Although it
may be a dangerous gamble on their behalf, it
appears to be an attempt to use the current climate
to pressure the Israelis to allow the passage of
sufficient aid, while also paving the way to the
success of the next phases of the ceasefire deal. </span></p>
<p><span>The wildcard here is a potential US-Israeli
plot to use insane levels of violence that will sink
the entire region into chaos. </span></p>
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<p><br>
</p>
<p><span><em>– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist,
writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on
the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He
contributed this article to The Palestine
Chronicle. </em></span></p>
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