President Donald Trump could desperately use a foreign policy win in the Middle East. A war with Iran that was supposed to last four to six weeks is now in its sixth month with no end in sight as Tehran leverages the Strait of Hormuz for its own ends and Trump vacillates between renewed negotiations and more bombing. His peace efforts in Lebanon are spoiled by Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored militia whose leaders have made it abundantly clear that negotiations with Israel hinge on a complete Israeli troop withdrawal from Lebanese soil. Trump’s attempt to establish normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia is going nowhere, notwithstanding his obsession with expanding his first-term Abraham Accords.

Can Gaza, the devastated Palestinian territory, give Trump something to brag about? He certainly hopes so. Last week, the White House announced that Hamas agreed to demilitarize its weapons and demobilize its fighters in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. Trump giddily explained to reporters that the deal was nothing short of a breakthrough.

But sift through the happy talk, and the picture becomes far more depressing: A comprehensive peace in Gaza is as unlikely today as it was before this news.

A reality check is in order. The agreement unveiled last week is not new as much as it is an effort to get back to the old arrangement Israel and Hamas arrived at 10 months earlier. That framework, which established an interim Palestinian administration for Gaza, a phased Israeli withdrawal, the release of the remaining hostages and a ceasefire, has been severely lacking in implementation. The hostages are back with their families, but every other commitment Israel and Hamas signed on to has been violated. The ceasefire decreased the violence but didn’t eliminate it — about 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the October 2025 peace framework was solidified. Israeli forces hold more than 60% of Gaza rather than the 53% it was permitted on a temporary basis. And Hamas is refusing to hand over its guns, arguing that nothing can happen until Israel meets its own commitments.

The crux of the matter is timing. What happens first: Hamas disarming or Israel withdrawing? The latest Gaza deal fails to answer that question. In theory, Hamas would surrender its heavy arms to the interim Gaza administration, which would take custody of them. The disarmament process is supposed to be linked to a phased Israeli departure from the enclave and verified by third-party monitors, and the modalities are to be negotiated by the parties over the next 14 days. In other words, this critical stumbling block is deferred for another few weeks, if not months, as Israel and Hamas inevitably rehash the same old arguments for why the other side needs to take the initiative before they reciprocate.

Before this can even happen, the terms of the new deal require Israel and Hamas to return to the original October ceasefire. Easy, right? Wrong. Israel was striking Hamas positions in Gaza even before the ink on the October deal was dry, and senior Israeli ministers have indicated that ceasing military operations against Hamas militants in Gaza is beyond what Israel can tolerate.

Indeed, a day after Trump claimed he had Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support, Israel conducted several airstrikes in Gaza, killing 17 people. Although Netanyahu has remained silent on the latest accord, his government clearly has reservations and has communicated their doubts to the White House, which makes Trump’s claim that Israel is happy with the arrangement sound like an outright falsehood. The Israeli government wants complete freedom to strike any perceived threats in Gaza, regardless of any withdrawal, and seeks to have Hamas’ weapons destroyed rather than stored under lock and key.

Needless to say, it’s difficult to envision Hamas accepting any of this, which means Trump either has to press the issue with the Israelis or let things fester.

Israeli domestic politics will be an impediment to Trump’s Middle East dreams as well. Implementation would be tough on a good day, but it is exponentially harder during an election year in which Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is in the fight for his political life. The career Israeli politician remains under fire for being the man who missed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, the worst attack on Israel since its founding nearly 80 years ago. He’s been trying to compensate for that massive failure by laying waste to Gaza, invading southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah farther away from Israel’s northern border communities, occupying select parts of Syria and transforming Israel into an expansionist power.

The last thing Netanyahu intends to do is be the dovish option at a time when Israeli politics is drifting ever further to the right. The Israeli public is in no mood for compromise, particularly as it relates to a terrorist group that ushered in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

To underscore that point, consider that 82% of Jewish Israelis support the forceful expulsion of Gaza’s 2 million-strong population. The peace candidates who used to dominate Israeli politics in the 1990s have now effectively been cast into the political wilderness, replaced by a crop of Israeli politicians who view the perennial two-state solution as an outdated concept and the Palestinians as distrustful at best and malicious at worst. Netanyahu’s main opponent in the October elections, former Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, is hinting he will elevate Gaza as a chief campaign issue, and Netanyahu will have to keep his right flank happy if he has any chance of maintaining power through a workable governing coalition.

Trump can chirp about success. But if he’s expecting Gaza to be a positive legacy item, he had better think again.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Tribune.

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