A report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reduced expectations of progress in negotiations to reach a prisoner exchange deal between the Islamic Resistance Movement and the Israeli occupation.

The report suggested that the Israeli army would expand its attacks to other areas in the northern Gaza Strip, with the aim of systematically displacing Palestinians from there, but at the same time it doubted the success of the occupation forces in defeating the Hamas movement.

The newspaper’s senior military analyst, Amos Harel, opened his article by saying, “On the last day of 2024, it would be better, for a change, for the government to tell the public the truth. Despite the intensive contacts that have taken place in recent weeks, talks on a prisoner swap have stalled again, and the chances of reaching a settlement appear slim.”

"Only the intervention of US President-elect Donald Trump will somehow be able to get this wagon out of the mud on the eve of his inauguration on January 20," he added.

Harel painted a bleak picture of the negotiations, drawing on the sources available to him, as well as the scarce published information, and spoke of a major discrepancy between the two parties, reflecting the depth of the disagreements in the negotiations.

He explained that "Hamas is still demanding a clear commitment to the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, supported by maps and a strict timetable, and is also seeking to formulate agreements on the criteria for the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in the next rounds of the deal. Meanwhile, Israel is demanding that Hamas provide it with a complete and detailed list of the names of all the kidnapped and their status, whether alive or dead."

He pointed to information confirming the Israeli government's desire to reach only a partial deal, under which only detainees included in the "humanitarian" list (women, the elderly, the wounded and the sick) would be released, and that there is a disagreement over the definition of the sick and wounded who might enter the humanitarian phase, because after about a year and four months of captivity, the condition of all the kidnapped has become difficult, and it is possible that they will all be included in the list.

"Israel has an interest in increasing the number as much as possible, because the completion of the second stage of the deal is now in doubt. On the other hand, Hamas in the Gaza Strip... seeks to return only a limited number of the kidnapped in order to preserve the rest on the assumption that fighting will resume soon," he commented.

Despite the ongoing efforts by regional mediators, especially Qatar and Egypt, to reach a solution, Harel highlights Israeli reports indicating that the situation of the detainees in the Strip is worsening, and it appears that the negotiations are not making real progress, which raises Israeli concerns about their fate.

Can Hamas be defeated?

While the military analyst confirms that the Israeli army is intensifying pressure on the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza with the aim of pressuring the Hamas leadership to make concessions in the negotiations, he points out that “the military pressure operations have not achieved a tangible change in the political or military situation in Israel’s favor.”

“This operation, the fourth in the camp since the beginning of the war, is still ongoing. This time the results have been more devastating and deadly. The Israeli army has destroyed most of the camp’s homes, and more than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed. The heads of the security services continue to claim that military pressure – which has escalated somewhat in the past week with the expansion of the operation to the nearby town of Beit Hanoun – is effectively pushing the negotiations towards an agreement,” he says.

But he confirms, on the other hand, that the Israeli army, despite its denial of implementing the "generals' plan," is continuing the process of displacing the population step by step.

Harel concludes by asking: Will Hamas be defeated? He answers that it is “very doubtful.”

He justifies his assessment by saying, “Hamas continues to have civilian control over most of the Gaza Strip, controls humanitarian supplies, makes money from them, and imposes its authority over the majority of the population.”

It also points to the increase in rocket fire from the northern Gaza Strip, in addition to the killing of a number of Israeli soldiers and officers in successive ambushes by the Palestinian resistance, and the continued targeting of Israeli forces in the Netzarim and Philadelphi axes.

“Under these circumstances,” he concludes, “it is difficult to see how the war will end anytime soon. Israel may remain bogged down in the Gaza quagmire for years to come, without a real resolution, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs the war to continue in order to prevent the formation of an official commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7, and to continue the battle to legitimize the judicial coup.”