On the Eve of Two Years: A Desert Resort Becomes Ground Zero for a Fragile Hope
Sharm El-Sheikh is not where one usually imagines the calculus of war will be rewritten. The Egyptian resort, famous for coral reefs and conference halls that once hosted vacationing delegations, now hums with armored cars, tinted-window SUVs and the murmured urgency of negotiators who brought with them not bouquets, but lists—of names, of conditions, of lives counted and recounted.
For the delegations arriving in the Sinai this week—envoys from Hamas, Israel and the United States—the mood is a brittle mix of weary resolve and brittle optimism. The meeting coincides with the eve of the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack that ignited a conflict that has scarred Gaza, reshaped Israeli domestic politics, and refocused global diplomacy. “We are here because the human ledger must be balanced,” said an Egyptian foreign ministry official who asked not to be named, speaking in a hallway lined with potted palms. “Negotiations will be hard. But we cannot let the calendar turn without trying.”
A roadmap on a tightrope
The catalyst for the talks is a plan circulated by former US President Donald Trump that promises a phased pathway out of war: an immediate halt to major hostilities tied to a hostage-prisoner exchange, followed by a phased Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza and an international, technocratic transitional authority tasked with administering the territory in the interim.
According to the framework being discussed, the first phase would demand the release of hostages—both living and deceased—within 72 hours of an agreed ceasefire. In return, Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian detainees, including those serving life sentences, and thousands of those arrested during the conflict. The hard numbers being talked about are stark and cold: Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages on October 7; of those, 47 remain in Gaza, with Israeli authorities reporting that 25 are already dead. The deal on the table would see Israel release roughly 250 prisoners serving life terms, and more than 1,700 detainees taken from Gaza during the war.
“This is a rescue operation for the living, and a reckoning for the dead,” said Miriam Cohen, a Jerusalem-based activist who has worked for years on families’ cases. “But numbers don’t fully capture the grief. Each person is a name, a face, a story.”
Voices in the room—and beyond
Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, led his delegation into Egypt with a statement that, according to the group, stressed a readiness “to reach an agreement to end the war and immediately begin the prisoner exchange process in accordance with the field conditions.” In a private corridor interview, a senior Hamas official told a reporter the group was “very keen to secure the release of Palestinians from Israeli jails as a reciprocal gesture.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to reporters before the delegation departed, said he hoped hostages could be freed within days. “Every Israeli heart aches for those taken in October,” he said, his voice taut. “We are prepared to make painful compromises for their return.”
Meanwhile, former US President Trump urged negotiators to “move fast,” posting on his social platform that the discussions were “proceeding rapidly” and that the first phase should be completed this week. He has dispatched two of his confidants—real estate figure Steve Witkoff and his former adviser Jared Kushner—to help steer the last-mile talks.
Not everyone is buying the momentum. On the morning before the talks convened, Senator Marco Rubio urged Israel to halt strikes in Gaza ahead of negotiations. “You can’t release hostages in the middle of bombardment,” he said, a sentiment echoed by diplomats who fear that active military operations will undermine the fragile trust needed for an exchange.
The human ledger: stories that anchor diplomacy
Outside the negotiation rooms, the human landscape is unmistakable. In Gaza City, where a pall of dust and the smell of diesel hangs in the air, families mark anniversaries by making lists—names of the missing, names of the dead, names of those who still wait. “I have been waiting for my son’s name to appear on a list that means he is coming home,” said Fatima al-Saleh, 42, her hands curled around a photograph. “For two years my life has been a calendar of prayers.”
Across the border, in a modest apartment in central Israel, David Levy, 58, keeps a shrine of postcards, a map with pins and the memory of a granddaughter taken on October 7. “We don’t need promises. We need people,” he said. “Let them come back. That’s the only thing that will stop the nights from being unbearable.”
Practicalities and poison pills
The devil, as always, is in the details. Hamas has historically been adamant about keeping its military wings and influence intact—disarmament is a red line. The Trump proposal stipulates that Hamas and other factions would have no formal role in post-war governance of Gaza, which would instead be led by a technocratic body overseen by a transitional authority that, controversially, lists high-profile international figures among its potential leaders.
“No one wants to sign on to an agreement that simply freezes one type of violence and incubates another,” said Dr. Leila Mansour, a Middle East analyst at the International Peace Institute. “Reconstruction, governance, security guarantees—these must be addressed in tandem. Otherwise, ceasefires become merely pauses between wars.”
Critics also point out the political oddities: a former US president architecting a plan that envisions himself or his associates shepherding Gaza’s post-war future raises questions about impartiality and long-term viability. “Who builds the institutions? Who ensures accountability?” asked Mansour. “These are not administrative quibbles. They determine whether Gaza will be rebuilt as a place of dignity—or as a controlled zone of dependency.”
Numbers on paper, lives in the balance
- Hostages seized on October 7, 2023: 251
- Hostages reportedly still in Gaza: 47 (Israeli military reported 25 of these as dead)
- Palestinian prisoners expected to be released by Israel under the proposal: ~250 with life sentences, plus 1,700+ detainees from Gaza
- Reported deaths from one day of Israeli strikes prior to talks: at least 20 across Gaza, per Gaza civil defence
These statistics feel both clinical and catastrophic. They are meant to be the scaffolding of a deal, but they are also the tally of grief, and the basis of bargaining chips that govern whether a child returns to a waiting mother.
What comes after the contract
If a deal holds, the plan envisions an initial exchange followed by a phased Israeli withdrawal and an international effort to rebuild Gaza. Yet the proposal’s insistence that Hamas not play a role in civilian governance clashes with Gaza’s social reality: the group has entrenched political and social networks after years of rule. Trying to surgically remove those networks without a viable alternative risks leaving a vacuum—one that could be filled by criminality, foreign proxies, or renewed armed struggle.
“Reconstruction without political reconciliation is like building a house on sand,” said Jamal Hassan, a Gaza-based engineer who has overseen post-conflict repair projects. “You can rebuild walls, but you cannot rebuild trust with concrete alone.”
Why this moment matters—globally
What unfolds in Sharm El-Sheikh will ripple far beyond the Sinai. A successful exchange could offer a template for rapid de-escalation in a region littered with protracted conflicts; a failure could harden positions, deepen suffering and further entrench a cycle of revenge diplomacy. The talks also underscore a broader trend: personalized diplomacy led by senior political figures and unconventional envoys, sometimes outside established multilateral channels.
So ask yourself: what kind of peace do we want to see? One stitched together by expedient deals that paper over deeper divisions, or one built slowly on justice, accountability and the recognition of human dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians?
For now, the rooms in Sharm El-Sheikh remain closed to the press. Negotiators step out into fleeting sunlight to call relatives, to smoke a cigarette, to fold their hands and pray. They carry with them not just proposals but the weight of family photographs, of memories of schoolyards emptied, of the kind of grief that refuses to be numbered.
Whether the paper exchanged this week will become a bridge—or merely a piece of paper to be burned in the next round of fighting—depends on choices no single diplomat can make. It depends on whether the world is willing to sustain attention beyond headlines and whether societies, in Gaza and Israel alike, are willing to envision a future in which the ledger of loss finally begins to balance toward life.
