After recovering the body of its last captive in Gaza on Sunday, Israel announced that it intends to reopen the Rafah crossing between the Strip and Egypt, closed since May 2024, under strict conditions still under discussion with Washington and the mediators, such as allowing only pedestrians to cross and ensuring that the number of those leaving is greater than the number of those entering.

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirms that recovering the body of the captive Ran Gvili means he has achieved another goal of the war, he announced that the focus will now shift to another objective, namely “disarming Hamas by the easy way or the hard way,” in a reference to the possibility of resuming the war.

Despite the circumstances surrounding the reopening of the Rafah crossing and the Israeli conditions, it theoretically completes the first phase of the US plan for Gaza. The second phase began with US President Donald Trump’s announcement at the Davos Forum last week of a “Peace Council” and its affiliated bodies, along with the formation of a Palestinian technocratic committee that will manage Gaza. This was the purpose of the visit made by US envoy Steve Witkoff, accompanied by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to Israel on Saturday.

Trump, who described the conclusion of the Israeli captives file as “amazing work,” also meant to point to “Hamas’s cooperation with Israel” in identifying the location of Gvili’s body in a cemetery in central Gaza, and he again called on the movement “to now fulfill its commitment to disarm.”

As a form of US flexibility regarding how to deal with Hamas’s weapons, a US official said that Washington believes disarmament should be accompanied by some form of amnesty for the movement. The Trump administration is counting on a key role for the mediators Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey in this matter.

Two Israeli soldiers walk past a poster of two captives who were previously held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Convincing Hamas to give up its weapons will not be the only obstacle facing the implementation of the second phase of the US plan; there is a much larger obstacle, namely persuading Israel to withdraw to a narrow strip along the Gaza border. Most likely, Netanyahu will now set the disarmament of the movement as a condition before Israel carries out any withdrawal of its own, similar to what he is doing with Hezbollah in Lebanon, by insisting on not withdrawing from the five points Israel occupies in the south before the party is disarmed.

In an election year, it is difficult to imagine Netanyahu undertaking further withdrawals from Gaza, so as not to provoke his far-right allies, whose votes are crucial to his return to forming a new government. On the contrary, Israel is pushing the “yellow line” (an informal Israeli military control line inside Gaza, not an official border) westward on a daily basis, increasing the size of the occupied area to more than 53 percent of the Strip.

Netanyahu aspires to obtain a major price from the United States in exchange for agreeing to the conditional opening of the Rafah crossing. For example, Israel is strongly pushing to conclude a new security agreement with the United States lasting ten years, which would give Netanyahu a boost in his election campaign. Likewise, the current US military pressure on Iran can be seen as meeting a regionally crucial demand for the Israeli government, which insists on the need to overthrow the current Iranian regime and complete the June war.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar.