There is no other deal to be taken. Either this or return to fight with full American support coupled with Arab and Islamic passivity and let-down,” said the source close to the negotiators. He said that while the deal is problematic, it contains some terms that Hamas and other Palestinian factions pushed for in their response to Trump, including deferring major issues that would alter the future of Gaza and Palestine itself. “No surrender, no disarming, no mass exile, but most of all a permanent end to the war to be announced by Trump.”

When Hamas offered its official response to Trump’s 20-point plan last Friday, the movement’s leadership took the position that it only had a mandate to enter into a deal on issues directly related to the Gaza war. But it asserted that negotiations on the bulk of Trump’s proposal—which contains sweeping terms that will impact the future governance of Gaza, including demilitarizing and disarming Gaza and the deployment of foreign troops—would require the involvement of all Palestinian factions, not just Hamas.

All of these issues, including Israel’s demand that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups surrender their weapons and Gaza be fully demilitarized, will be deferred to future negotiations. “The next round of negotiations will be very tricky but going back to genocide will not be easy, even though it’s probable,” said the source close to the Palestinian negotiators. The internal calculus among the lead negotiators, he said, was “the cost-benefit analysis would favor accepting it. The next negotiations must be conducted in a very smart way.”