Gaza Ceasefire Deal: role of regional and international partners

CGTN Europe speaks to Dr. Samuel Ramani from the University of Oxford.

Transcript

00:00Dr. Samuel Rahmani is a tutor of politics and international relations at the University

00:05of Oxford and I'm pleased to say that he joins us now. Dr. Rahmani, Joe Biden has been taking

00:12credit from the US side of this deal and Donald Trump is about to be sworn in as president

00:17tomorrow. He'll certainly have something to say. What is your assessment of which global

00:22leaders as well as others got this deal across the line?

00:26Well, I mean the most tenacious of all the regional actors who was involved in this deal

00:30was Qatar. Basically, from the very beginning, the Qataris facilitated the release of a large

00:36number of hostages back in November of 2023. They consistently continued their mediation

00:42efforts even though there was pressure coming from both sides of Congress about the Qatari

00:47financial contributions to Hamas' Gaza Strip in the past and they, along with the Egyptians,

00:52were also quite important in facilitating the ceasefire deal too.

00:57Yeah, Donald Trump's Middle East convoy though, Steve Witkoff, is expected to be a regular

01:02presence in the region. So, noted what you say about Qatar being such a strong influence there

01:08but what do you expect from the US in their policy in 2025 considering what we have going

01:14on tomorrow? Well, typically, when you've seen major grand bargain agreements, whether

01:19it be normalization deals or whether it be any kind of agreement on a ceasefire, the heavy

01:24lifting is often done by regional actors and then a larger great power finishes it off and adds

01:32weight and adds gravitas to it. That's very similar to what we saw with the Saudi Arabia-Iran

01:36normalization where Iraq and Oman did a lot of the initial contacts and then China was the

01:41country that brought it over the line. The same thing we're seeing here with the Qataris and

01:44Egyptians taking the lead and then the Americans bringing it on. Steve Witkoff is an interesting

01:49character because he's somebody who can engage with both the Israelis and the Arabs because of

01:53his deep business relationships in the Arab world as well as we've seen an ability to convince

01:58Netanyahu towards moderation, towards accepting some kind of a ceasefire even above the wishes

02:04of some of his more extreme coalition partners. Yes, and a ceasefire being a crucial much-wasted

02:11step of course is still miles away from any kind of peace it seems now. Do you think this will hold?

02:19I think it's very fragile. I think it will probably hold for the duration of the six weeks.

02:23I've been engaging with numerous diplomats from across the region over the past several days

02:27and there seems to be a quiet optimism that it will last the six weeks and Hamas will abide

02:32by the release of 33 hostages but after that all bets are off. Netanyahu's coalition is fracturing

02:38as we've seen with the withdrawal of Ben-Gavir and there are rumors that the Israeli cabinet

02:42approval of this deal was because Smotrik was resistant to it. Also there's talk in Israel

02:47that there's actually 60 hostages who are alive and the 33 is only part of them. There's 100

02:52hostages in total who are unaccounted for. So I think that there's plenty of frustration in Israel

02:57with the terms of this deal. Netanyahu rejected this deal back in May and now it's coming back

03:02on the table. I wouldn't be surprised if this war did reheat. Okay, Dr Samuel Rahmani, Tutor of

03:09Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, we appreciate your time

03:14and your expertise. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.