What Really Happened

You can read all the different accounts for the hostage deal that was reached this week between Hamas and Israel. And you can hear from pundits large and small how it went down, but one man who I believe has his fingers on the very pulse of Israel is Bible teacher, author, and former Israel Defense soldier Amir Tsafarti weighed in with his view and I’m going to examine it with you now. He starts with a summary of the events by stating that Hamas ran out of options:

… basically, the mediators told Hamas, "That's it. You have to agree. This is the best deal you can get or else you will be destroyed, and we will not be there to help you." And so the agreement basically is only on the first phase.

That’s a big point. This is only the start of the deal. The IDF will move back a little to a yellow line and all the living hostages will be released along with the remains of those killed which will happen within 72 hours. And Israel will turn over 2,000 terrorists including 250 who are what he calls “heavy terrorists.” Israel isn’t leaving Gaza totally even at the end of the deal and until Hamas surrenders they will surround Gaza City. He then addresses a common question:

Now, what is the difference between this agreement and everything else that Hamas ever demanded before? Some people say, "Why didn’t you reach this agreement a year ago?"

Well, because Hamas, up until today, insisted that first, the IDF will fully withdraw from Gaza.

And then they will release prisoners. Well, Hamas was shown today by the mediators that there is no such a thing. Israel will not withdraw fully from Gaza. And unless they give all the hostages at once, there is no deal.

The Qataris Were The Problem

Tsarfati then digs into why he thinks we got to this point starting with a brief history:

So if you remember when Trump was elected, it was, I think, January that he entered the White House. And the first thing he said is, "All hell will, you know, the gates of hell will break loose. And Gaza is going to be destroyed if they don't release everybody and all of that."

If you remember that. Netanyahu basically received the green light and a carte blanche, I mean, go and destroy Gaza. Well, Netanyahu said to President Trump, "I cannot just destroy Gaza. We have hostages there. We need to get them back."

The Qataris were the problem:

And for the next few months, basically, Trump realized that Hamas is saying no to every deal.

And there were so many of them on the table with Steve Witkoff trying to broker another ceasefire and another ceasefire and another ceasefire. But again, Trump realized that the Qataris are the problem. They are the ones that are telling Hamas, "Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up." In fact, the Qataris were the engine behind Hamas.

They were hosting them. They were funding them. But they also used Hamas to stand against Israel.

Tsarfati then details why:

The Qataris will have one day to pay for things that they did not only to Israel, but also to America. All the poisoning in the U.S. universities. Everything we see today, all the terrorists that you see in the streets of New York and in other cities around America. This is all Qatar money.

Trump realized this and to deal with them he finished a trip to the Middle East, secured some deals and got the region back on his side. Then he believes that he and Netanyahu had parts to play which they did. They needed to rattle some cages with Qatar but Hamas, but not the ones living in Gaza but the ones in Qatar who are living high on the hog as billionaires. A message needed to be sent and rest assured it was when Israel launched missiles right at a meeting of those leaders a month ago almost to the day when the deal was reached. It was no accident and it was a coordinated effort between the US and Israel regardless of how US President Trump denied it and made Netanyahu look like the bad guy. He posits that the US had to know about the attack and Israel wouldn’t have done it alone since America has a strong military presence there.

All Part Of The Plan

The IDF targeted and took out terrorist leaders in Gaza, Lebanon, and even Iran with such precision so do you think they really missed killing those Hamas leaders? Tsarfati doesn’t think so:

Now, do you really think that we missed the target and all of the Hamas negotiating team in Qatar were alive just like that? We so successfully eliminated people in the heart of Tehran, in the heart of Beirut, in a much more secured areas than Doha. We pinpointed bedrooms and beds. We know exactly where they are. So let me tell you this. Israel basically struck Doha, mostly to shock the Qataris, but to keep the Hamas negotiating team alive. So once the Qataris are shaken and they come to Trump to beg for his defense, he will tell them, "Now it's time that you talk to Hamas and force them to accept the deal." And that is exactly what happened.

It does make sense not killing all of them was part of the plan since these Hamas leaders needed to be part of the current deal

You know, if we would have killed all of Hamas leaders, there would be no one to make deal with…And immediately, a day after, the Emir of Qatar made it to D.C. begging for an agreement with America. Because he realized if a friendly country like Israel can strike so easily Doha, can you imagine what Iran can do?

Message sent. Message received:

And so what we're witnessing right now is the art of the deal, basically. We went all the way to Doha a month ago today, exactly a month ago, October 9th. We managed to go all the way to Doha to rattle the cage. And the cage has been rattled. And Hamas now is forced to accept the deal. Trump twisted the arm of the Qataris. The Turks understood also the message. The message was clear. Israel will strike anywhere Hamas is, whether it's Cairo, Istanbul or Doha.

Everybody understood the rules of the game have changed. Trump is backing Israel. He understands who the real troublemaker is. And everybody understood it's probably for now better for us to be on Trump's side. With the power of the American economy and American military and the alliance that they have with Israel and the amazing Israeli military achievements so far, it's better for now to be on their side. And that is exactly what happened, folks.

The Have No Leverage

Once the hostages are back home, Hamas has no control over Israel and they know it which is why they insisted on the negotiators to guarantee the deal. Between now and when the captives return home they still have them if they want to cause trouble which is concerning for me. We’ve seen this story play out in every previous deal and it could happen again. The main difference is that their supporters are on the side of the US now so that is one hope we have and it’s a big one. And this is phase one of a much bigger deal. While leaders in Hamas are still seeing the end of the war with them surviving, the deal isn’t constructed that way. And Israel is never leaving Gaza totally again. Period. So how long will it take to complete the process? No one knows for sure. Tsarfati still sees the supporters of Hamas wanting them to survive and Israel to be defeated:

And I have to be very clear about this. No one in Israel nor in the White House believe really truly believes that Qatar, Egypt and Turkey want Hamas to be destroyed or wants Israel to live in peace. Make no mistake. Erdogan wants the Zionist entity to be destroyed. Erdogan believes Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Egypt is the one that armed Hamas from Sinai and Qatar is the one that funded Hamas. Iran will continue and still continues to send weapons and try to smuggle weapons through Jordan and through Egypt also. So basically, it's not like the Middle East overnight becomes a paradise. But I think that what we see now, the nuances of the agreement, the implementation of the agreement will set the stage for a broader Abraham Accord agreement.

Qatar wants a defense deal from the US according to Tsarfati:

But Qatar knows one thing. Iran will try to destroy Qatar. If Qatar is going to be there when Iran might be attacked by America again. So the defense agreement between Qatar and America is now mostly because of all America is planning and what the situation is now in the Persian Gulf. That is very interesting.

The Fighting Isn’t Over

Tsarfati reminds us that with Israel not needing to fight Hamas it frees them up to focus on the Houthis:

The last thing I will tell you, keep your eyes on Sana’a in Yemen. Now that Israel is no longer going to be actively fighting within Gaza, all of our assets are going to be diverted to eliminating the Houthi threat. And trust me that the Saudis wants us to do that. The Qataris wants us to do that. The Egyptians suffered billions of dollars of losses because ships were not coming through the Suez Canal and provided much needed revenues to the Egyptian failing economy.

Everybody wants the Houthis to be dismantled. Only Iran wants them still alive and Hamas, of course. So Israel will have to go and strike the Houthis as well very, very soon. So, war is not over. It's just that we're going to shift the attention to other places.

Rebuilding Gaza is also not going to happen overnight. Tsarfati addresses that as well:

Everybody understands that 90% of Gaza is uninhabitable…Basically, the rest of Gaza is being dismantled and destroyed as we speak…The Gazans really, truly don't have much to look forward to when it comes to staying in the Gaza Strip, many of them. And that's part of the agreement, by the way. Part of the 20 points is to allow anyone who wants to leave to leave. This whole keeping them in just to press on Israel. It's over. That's it.

He then calls on other nations to host them while the area is being restored:

Now, if you really care about them, if you really want them to have dignity and future, let them leave wherever they go, wherever they want to go. And now, let's see all the countries that supported the Palestinians and said that we commit genocide. By the way, if you're a country and you say that there is an active genocide, then you are obliged to open your gates to allow people to come in, to save them from that genocide. Let's see if France and UK and Spain and Ireland, let's see if they open their gates to allow the Gazans in. Let's see. Interesting.

He Doesn’t Like It

Tsarfati tells his is opinion of the deal and agree with him:

But again, and now if you ask me, Amir, do you like this agreement? I will tell you this.

I don't. If it was up to me, we were supposed to destroy Gaza completely, cause everyone to leave and resettle Gaza with Israeli settlements. That is the only language our enemy understands.

I'm not running the country. I am not the leader. Therefore, my opinion matters not. That's my opinion.

He does see how it fits into Bible prophecy, though:

But in reality, if you truly read the Bible and understand what's coming next, you know there has to be a temporary peace and prosperity and safety and security era, which will precede the next big war, which is the one that Ezekiel describes. And that's the one that Iran and Turkey and Russia are going to take part of. So, biblically, in a sense, taking care of business in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, in Syria, and all of our immediate area, including Yemen even, I think makes sense. Because none of them will join the next war. All of them will be defeated. The next war is with the second tier. Countries do not share a border with Israel. This war is with everybody around us.

He doesn’t ascribe to the Psalm 83 war as I and others still do, but he’s correct about the current terrorists being taken out. He sees the Israeli goals for this war being met even though dangerous terrorists will be released, but he believes if they turn back to their old ways they will be hunted down, returned to prison or eliminated without the fear of hostages to stop them. He points to how Israel dealt with Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran who had no hostages to explain his logic.

Tsarfati recaps his view this way:

So again, a month, exactly a month to the Doha strike, and there is a deal with Hamas, and all the hostages will be free in the next 72 hours. That could only happen because of the amazing trick that Netanyahu and Trump crafted to rattle the cage, caused the Qataris to change completely. The Qataris, not only that they change every bit of their rhetoric right now, they are even changing Al Jazeera's rhetoric. It's quite fascinating to see it.

He then says what I’m still thinking about the release of the hostages:

Do I trust them? No. I think they are snakes. But it seems like they're much more afraid of Trump and Israel right now than they are from not standing with Hamas. And this symbolic thing is not only that today the deal is going to be signed, which is a month after the Doha strike, but the hostages will be back on exactly on the second anniversary to the last day of Sukkot or Tabernacles.

Coincidence? I think not.