Will Lebanon Deal Break Gaza Deadlock? Experts Doubt It

Buoyant after helping to forge a cease-fire in Lebanon, President Biden has declared that the deal could build momentum toward a similar breakthrough in Gaza.

That assessment is premature, analysts said on Wednesday, because Israel and Hamas are much further from a deal in Gaza than Israel and Hezbollah were in Lebanon.

The truce in Lebanon was possible in part because Hezbollah — weakened by months of assassinations and battlefield losses — had lost its leverage at the negotiating table. On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could afford to compromise because a deal in Lebanon would not significantly weaken his grip on power at home.

A breakthrough in Gaza is harder to achieve because Hamas still holds roughly 100 hostages, a significant trump card that allows the group’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, to maintain a hard-line negotiating position. In Israel, Mr. Netanyahu cannot compromise with Hamas because doing so might collapse his ruling coalition, forcing early elections.

Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies, many of whom hope to settle Gaza with Jewish civilians after the war, have threatened to abandon his alliance if the conflict there ends without Hamas’s complete defeat. When it came to Lebanon, Mr. Netanyahu was under less domestic pressure to deliver a knockout blow to Hezbollah, even if many Israelis — including much of his base — remained deeply concerned about the long-term threat posed by the group.

“The Lebanon deal happened because Netanyahu wanted it and Hezbollah needed it — and because it wasn’t a deal breaker for Netanyahu’s coalition,” said Aaron David Miller, an American analyst and former negotiator in previous Mideast peace talks. “The Gaza deal is different,” he said.