Israel and Hamas have officially signed a three-phase deal beginning with a ceasefire and hostage exchange. The deal requires Israeli forces to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and free dozens of captured terrorists for each hostage Hamas releases. Israel apparently agreed to the disadvantageous deal under heavy pressure from the U.S.

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire will proceed in three phases. In the first phase, Hamas will free 33 hostages over the course a six-week ceasefire, while Israel will release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners — 50 terrorists for each freed hostage — and allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where Hamas will have access to it. Israeli forces will begin to withdraw from Gaza and continue withdrawing during the second phase, which will include more prisoner exchanges and a permanent end to the war. In the third phase, the remaining hostages would be exchanged, and Hamas would get a “major reconstruction plan for Gaza,” as President Joe Biden announced Wednesday night.

Almost immediately after Biden’s announcement, Hamas threw the whole deal into crisis by demanding the right to choose which prisoners Israel released. In response, the Israeli cabinet indefinitely postponed its vote to approve the deal.

“This goes to some internal Palestinian politics,” explained Regent University Professor A.J. Nolte on “Washington Watch.” “One of the prisoners Hamas wants released is a guy named Marwan Barghouti. He’s a terrorist, but he was actually affiliated with Fatah. The reason they want to do this is because then they can claim, ‘Oh, we got Barghouti out, and you Fatah couldn’t. And how did we get them out? By this horrible attack on October 7th.’”

“So Israel recognizes this would be a huge strategic failure to allow Hamas to claim credit for that,” added Nolte. “Israel’s absolutely never going to agree to that.”

Hamas soon backed down from its last-minute demand — at least for now — and the parties moved forward with signing the agreement.

Unfortunately, the deal is “not great” for Israel, said Nolte, and Israel seems to have been pressured into the deal by both the Biden administration and a special envoy chosen by President-elect Donald Trump. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also recognized this fact, telling the Islamist regime’s terrorist proxies, “We congratulate you on this victory and the occupation’s submission to the ceasefire.”

“I think Biden was trying to get a deal so he could claim something,” suggested Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “Everybody wants … to say they’ve solved the issue in the Middle East. And you see Biden trying to do that before he goes out of office.”

One reason the deal is disadvantageous to Israel is that it is based on negotiations that began in March 2024, when Hamas had a much better position on the ground, argued Nolte. “Very little has changed in the deal, but the facts on the ground have changed significantly,” he said. “From Hamas’s perspective, their support has been crippled. They are now much more isolated than they were last year when something similar to this deal was initially proposed.”

However, he suggested that “the driving factor for Netanyahu, and why he’s considering this,” is that “the Israeli population has just been absolutely traumatized by the hostage situation, and an increasingly loud, vocal percentage of that population just wants to see the hostages come home. And I think we can sympathize with that on an emotional level.” This deal, though poor, offers an opportunity to do just that.

Nolte also hypothesized that Israelis have calculated, “because of the recent military successes, that, whatever happens in the short term … they can just go back in regardless, when Hamas inevitably reneges, and pick up right where they left off.”

Therefore, “if you’re somebody who is concerned about Israel’s freedom to operate under this deal, let’s just always remember that, every time there’s been a negotiation or a deal in the past, it has been Hamas that has reneged and Hamas that has broken the deal,” Nolte noted. “And so, to a certain extent, I think Netanyahu recognizes that reality and recognizes Hamas is going to break the deal. And then he can go back to Trump and say, ‘See, I told you this was going to happen.’”

In Nolte’s opinion, although there might be “legitimate concern” that the deal would preclude Israel from reentering Gaza after the six-week ceasefire to eliminate Hamas, he thinks that concern is rather small. In fact, the Israel government intends to keep its military inside the Gaza Strip until the last hostage is returned home.

“Given past performance, and given the ideology of Hamas, they are going to do something provocative that will be directed at Israeli soil. And after 10/7, I think the Israeli population recognizes that Hamas has got to go,” he suggested. “Right now, that recognition is just in tension for the population with this desperate desire to just get the hostage situation resolved and get their loved ones home.”

One remaining question is the domestic political fate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Thursday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if the ceasefire deal went through, removing his right-wing party from Netanyahu’s governing coalition. If Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also leads a small, right-wing party in Netanyahu’s coalition, follows suit, Netanyahu would lose his governing majority, prompting new elections.

On Friday, Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved the deal and recommended it to the full Cabinet, which passed it after six hours of deliberation.

“My money is that he [Netanyahu] will find a way to survive this, and that Hamas ultimately will end up breaking the deal, and then Israel will hammer them,” predicted Nolte, “and that the Trump administration will end up supporting that because their national security team — whatever the envoys may see — the national security team gets that” Israel must destroy Hamas.