On January 15, the war Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, was declared over. After 467 days, 1,700 casualties, and over 100 hostages still in the tunnels of Gaza, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire.

The ceasefire is scheduled to begin on Sunday, January 19—though Israel’s cabinet has yet to sign off on the deal. The deal has three phases:

• Phase 1 will last 42 days. Hamas will release 33 hostages, and according to Reuters, “Israel will release 30 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli civilian and 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier that Hamas releases.” The Israel Defense Forces (idf) will withdraw from central Gaza to an 800-meter-deep buffer zone to Gaza’s east and north; 600 trucks’ worth of humanitarian aid will enter Gaza.
• Israel will release hundreds of prisoners including hundreds of convicted terrorists.
• Negotiations for phase 2 will start February 5. The goal for this phase is to release the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for a full idf withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.
• According to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, the language of the ceasefire “presumably means that if negotiations for the second phase of the ceasefire fail, the fighting would resume.”
• If phase 2 is successful, phase 3 would include organizing reconstruction of Gaza as supervised by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations.

Teams from United States President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were involved in negotiations via Qatari mediation. Biden claimed credit in a statement: “I laid out the precise contours of this plan on May 31, 2024, after which it was endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council. It is the result not only of the extreme pressure that Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and weakening of Iran—but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy. My diplomacy never ceased in their efforts to get this done.”

Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, reportedly pressured Netanyahu to accept this deal on an impromptu visit January 11.

What does this mean for Israel going forward? Is it a good deal? Will it actually end the war?

Hamas

Hamas has not surrendered. The agreement implies Hamas will remain in Gaza. The ceasefire deal is then the best news Hamas could have hoped to hear, with the possible exception of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaving power.

With Hezbollah decapitated, Syria’s regime overthrown, and Iran backing away, Hamas has lost most of its major allies. Its leader, Yahya Sinwar, died in an Israeli strike. While Hamas is still recruiting, most of its organized military units no longer exist. It no longer functionally governs any part of Gaza except for its subterranean tunnel network. The only hope it had to survive the war was for the international community to twist Israel’s arm and let Hamas live.

It looks like this strategy has paid off. For over a year, Netanyahu has staved off pressure from the Biden administration and the world at large to stand down. While campaigning, Trump hinted he would take a tougher line on Hamas than Biden has. Perhaps not receiving the go-ahead from Trump to finish off Hamas was the straw that broke Netanyahu’s back.

Releasing so many convicted terrorists puts Israel’s security at risk. October 7 mastermind Sinwar was released from an Israeli prison in a similar hostage deal.

But there is a silver lining for Netanyahu.

Israel

The hostages are the last bargaining chip Hamas has. It’s unknown how many are still alive. But the biggest pressure Netanyahu has had domestically to end the war is to get the hostages back. A poll published by Israel’s Channel 12 last month suggested a majority of Israelis preferred the nation dropping its arms if it meant getting all the hostages back.

The nation has been at war for over a year. Families have lived with knowing that their loved ones are trapped in Gaza’s tunnels. Bringing all or at least some of the hostages home gives the Israeli people a much-needed boost of morale and sense of closure.

Hamas will almost certainly break the ceasefire in some form immediately. Netanyahu knows this. After bringing home as many hostages as he can, he could use any violation to resume hostilities and then finish the job—with the hostages safe.

The next several weeks will reveal whether the ceasefire will hold.

America

What does the United States get out of this? Biden gets a major foreign-policy win days before his term expires. Trump, for his part, previously called for Netanyahu to finish his war before the presidential inauguration. He also threatened that Hamas would pay dearly if it didn’t release its American hostages before the inauguration.

“According to senior Israeli officials, Trump’s rigid expectation for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to finalize a deal before his presidential inauguration is what compelled Netanyahu to accept the current framework,” Israel Hayom stated. “The absence of strategic acumen in this deal is glaring, making it perplexing why the author of The Art of the Deal is pushing Israel toward what essentially amounts to a pact with its sworn enemy.”

Trump’s inauguration is on January 20. It’s probably not a coincidence the ceasefire takes effect the day before. Some analysts suspect Trump may be looking for good optics around his inauguration. Releasing the hostages a day before his inauguration parallels the 1981 presidential inauguration. For about two years, President Jimmy Carter was unable to retrieve 53 American hostages from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis. While campaigning, Ronald Reagan suggested heavy retribution against Iran if it didn’t release the hostages. Iran released the Americans hours before Reagan’s inauguration. Trump may be trying to force circumstances to make him look like “the new Ronald Reagan.”

Or Trump could be anticipating a temporary ceasefire and may let Netanyahu go back into Gaza later.

There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the events of January 15. But through the lens of the Bible, we can see the general trajectory Gaza is headed for.

Prophesied Alliance

A passage in Psalm 83 describes an alliance formed by various Middle Eastern peoples for a nefarious purpose: “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (verses 1-4).

“Many Iranian leaders have vowed to wipe the Jewish nation off the map,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in The King of the South. “But the latter’s enemies listed in Psalm 83 have what appears to be an even deeper hatred. They want to obliterate even the name of Israel—forever!”

The prophecy details who these people are: “the tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them …” (verses 6-8).

Mr. Flurry continues:

You must know who the modern descendants of these peoples are to understand just how timely and relevant this prophecy is. Here are the modern names of these nations, as taught at Ambassador College under Herbert W. Armstrong: The Ishmaelites are Saudi Arabia; Moab and Ammon both refer to Jordan; the Hagarenes anciently dwelled in the land known as Syria today; the Philistines are the modern Palestinian Arabs; Gebal and Tyre are Lebanon.

One people listed here that lies outside the region is Assur. At one time, this was the capital of Assyria, which is the term that biblical prophecy uses for modern-day Germany. Germany is part of this alliance and is, in fact, the power behind it!

Biblical and secular history records no such alliance, either in composition or purpose. Because of this, Mr. Flurry labels this passage as a prophecy for our day.

Gazans’ hatred of Israel hasn’t gone away. But to this point, they have been isolated and at the mercy of the idf. One way or another, this ceasefire will lead to a change.

“The Philistines—the Palestinians of Gaza and even those in the West Bank—will shift their alliance to Germany as well,” Mr. Flurry writes. “There may soon be some significant power shifts in Gaza.”

We published the latest version of The King of the South a few months before the October 7 war started. Time has vindicated these words. Gaza may be down now, but it is not out of the fight. Prophecy is clear: With or without Hamas, Gaza will join a new, stronger alliance against Israel—and have far more success. And it will happen very soon.

To learn more, request a free copy of The King of the South.