2024 is over. The window of opportunity is not

2024 in Numbers:

Over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza killed since the start of the war (UN OCHA, citing Gazan MoH figures)
Over 700 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the start of the war (UN OCHA)
Over 1,800 Israelis killed since start of the war (INSS, “Swords of Iron: An Overview”)
100 hostages remaining in Gaza (Hostages and Missing Family Forum)
Over 1400 documented cases of violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2024 (UN OCHA)
52 settlement outposts established in the West Bank (Peace Now)
40% Israeli support for opening negotiations towards a two-state solution (Geneva Initiative, December)
61% Palestinian support for a two-state solution (AWRAD, December)

The Two-State Index drops from 4.92 to 4.91 or 0.9% this month. This is the lowest point of the Index since its launch in 2018.

Deciding Not to Decide 

The end of this month brought another warning from IDF officials that the Israeli government must make a decision between Israeli and third-party (with the involvement of the Palestinian Authority) control of the Gaza Strip. The continuation of the current situation, in which the government has consistently failed to clarify a formal policy vision regarding control of the Strip in the future, is leading to the consolidation of Hamas administrative control on the ground.

This warning has not changed substantively from IDF concerns during the early months of the war. The news cycle in recent weeks regarding Gaza provides another layer of déjà vu: there are reports of progress made but significant gaps remaining in hostage-ceasefire negotiations; rounds of successive and intensified fighting in areas that have already undergone similar operations; and a disastrous humanitarian situation on the ground, exacerbated by winter conditions, show a new kind of deleterious status quo taking hold.

The ceasefire in Lebanon and the recent fall of the Assad regime, followed by clear, public signals of disinterest from the new ruling forces in Syria to engage in active confrontation with Israel, have isolated Hamas further on the regional front. Iran’s proxy groups have largely withdrawn from direct escalation, with the notable exception of regular missile attacks on Israel by the Houthis.

Palestinian analyst Mohammad Daraghmeh notes that ”the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria affected Hamas's position in Gaza. The movement realized that the supportive axis of Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Syria had ended, and that the fall of Assad meant a blockage of the lifeline for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Consequently, Hamas was left almost alone in the Gaza Strip, which affected its stance in the prisoner exchange negotiations, leading it to make significant concessions in the first phase of the exchange process. This included the number of Palestinian prisoners being released, their categories, and the locations of their release. In this phase, Hamas agreed to exclude several important prisoners from the deal, such as Marwan Barghouti, and also agreed to deport a large number of them abroad. However, it is clear that Netanyahu has other calculations."

A potentially significant date that could create a shift in the cyclical fighting in Gaza, as well as the related possibility of a hostage deal, is January 20th, when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in the United States (see “Annexation” section below).

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No parameters in the relevant categories change this month.

Palestinian Authority Testing Control and Cooperation

Palestinian Authority security forces carried out operations in Jenin throughout December, taking its efforts to reestablish control over the northern West Bank to a new level of confrontation with local militants. 

Former Minister of Justice and Geneva Initiative Founder Yossi Beilin emphasizes the significance of the operations: “It is long overdue. It is very important that the security forces in the West Bank are trying to face the phenomenon. Those who dismissed the importance of the Palestinian Authority and its police would say, you see what is happening in Jenin, in Tulkarem and other places. The PA had to prove themselves.”

Journalist Ameed Shahada, who works from Jenin refugee camp, notes that the PA has placed itself in a difficult position in terms of local public opinion: “The Palestinian Authority made a mistake by only using force, which led public opinion to turn against it as soon as the first casualty fell.As a result, the Palestinian Authority is now in a dilemma. It is neither able to control the camp without a bloodbath nor can it withdraw from the camp without being considered defeated by the militants."

Shahada claims that the impetus for the operations is rooted in PA-US relations: “The PA wants to reassert its control over the camp and subsequently over other areas of the West Bank to prove to the Americans that it is capable of managing the Gaza Strip, and therefore capable of representing the Palestinians in any future political process.”

Beilin emphasizes the role of regional actors over that of American pressure or influence: “They had to prove their capacity to the Arab countries that are weighing the idea that it will be possible to involve the Palestinians in the ‘day after’ plan for Gaza. It is a local and regional issue, more than trying to impress the Americans.”

In the wake of these operations, the Israeli army requested and reportedly received approval to increase security coordination with PA security forces.

Israeli news sources also reported renewed cooperation between Israel and the PA on desalination efforts in Gaza this month. Palestinian sources, however, assert that the Palestinian Authority has been cooperating consistently behind the scenes with Israel on issues related to water and sewage since January 2024. Analyst Mohammad Daraghmeh points out that “otherwise Israel would itself be harmed by the sewage, if they don’t treat it - so it’s not political, it’s environmental.”

Despite the claim that the coordination is non-political, it points to another level of de facto trust and cooperation that is publicly minimized by all parties: the Palestinian Authority is eager to avoid accusations of cooperation with Israel, and the Israeli government tries to avoid legitimation of the PA as a functioning and reliable partner for practical issues of common interest. In practice, however, mutually beneficial cooperation and reliance continue to characterize the relationship that is minimized or denied to Palestinian and Israeli constituencies in public discourse.

The PA also suspended Al Jazeera from broadcasting in the West Bank, apparently in response to criticism of its Jenin operations. In June, the Israeli government banned Al Jazeera from operating within Israel.

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Security Coordination rises from 7.0 to 8.0. Integrity of Palestinian governance rises from 2.0 to 3.0.

Annexation in 2024 – and 2025?

In 2024, seven new outposts were established in Area B of the West Bank for the first time since the Oslo Accords, according to a Peace Now report this month. Alongside 45 additional outposts, this brings the annual total to 52: double the number reported by Settlement Watch in 2023. The number and location of the outposts, alongside minimal government attempts to control the expansion despite the outposts’ illegal status under Israeli law, are part of the deepening trend of de facto annexation in the West Bank. Whether or not this translates into de jure annexation in 2025 remains to be seen, and is in many ways dependent on American policy.

While analysts of all political persuasions and nationalities agree on a certain degree of unpredictability in the next Trump administration’s Middle East policy, there are some messages from the President elect that have been consistent for the last year and were repeated this month in his Time Magazine interview: a desire to see the war end (“I want everything to end. I don’t want people killed”) and a persistent belief that it is possible to achieve a sustainable peaceful resolution to the conflict (“The Middle East is going to get solved”). Trump skirted around any commitment to a specific policy solution in the interview, saying, “You can do it two state, but there are numerous ways it can be done.” He also refused to state a clear position regarding annexation. Still, it is worth recalling that during Trump's first term, the “Deal of the Century” was essentially designed along the lines of a two-state solution, albeit one heavily biased towards right-wing Israeli interests.

Beilin calls the mixed messaging and contradictory interests “the riddle of Trump,” noting that the upcoming US president would have several motivations to move towards a political process: “Saudi Arabia is very important for him. The idea of the Nobel Prize may play a role. He may surprise us with an American Initiative, like he did in 2020. He’s the big question mark for the whole world, and especially for the Middle East.”

If Trump decides to seriously pursue the foreign policy legacy of Middle East peace that has evaded all previous American presidents, the necessary step before any comprehensive plan or deal can be proposed will be an end to the fighting in Gaza. Because of the Israeli government’s ‘decision not to decide’ regarding the future administration of the Strip, an end of the war in the coming months effectively means leaving Hamas in control.

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The settlement expansion parameter moves from 1.88 to 1.63.

Windows Forward in the New Year

With the bloody deadlock in Gaza, the deteriorating situation in the West Bank, and the lack of clarity about Middle East policy in the upcoming Trump administration, Israelis and Palestinians – now joined by many internationals – face the New Year with a combination of pessimism and despair regarding the possibility of breakthroughs towards lasting peace. Beyond the media headlines and continued empowerment of extremist, maximalist actors, however, there are some key trends and opportunities to track in 2025 that may lead to a very different kind of year:

1 – Saudi normalization with Israel. This has become a more and more realistic option since the Abraham Accords, with some significant strides made in the months before the outbreak of the current war. There is a high likelihood that the Trump administration will pursue this as a foreign policy achievement to complement the Abraham Accords. While the current Israeli government has resisted paying even the slightest lip service to Palestinian statehood, which the Saudis have set as a condition for normalization, pressure from the Trump administration could have significant weight with both parties.

2 – Arab regional pressure. Beilin notes that countries like the United Arab Emirates, which are expected to play a key role in reconstruction efforts and potentially even in security arrangements for a post-war Gaza, will require some progress on the political track to justify their involvement: “The UAE will not act without something substantial towards a Palestinian state. Even if there is no normalization with the Saudis, which is another story, those who will play a major role in Gaza after the war need to see something on the Palestinian track which is much more than a joke.”

3 – Public opinion. On the one hand, the narratives, perspectives, and feelings of Palestinians and Israelis in the wake of October 7th and the ongoing war have never been more polarized. There is widespread justification on both sides for their own violence, and rampant vilification to the point of dehumanization of the other side. That said, there is currently 40% support among Israelis for negotiations towards a two-state solution, which remains the preferred option for ending the conflict (Midgam/Geneva Initiative poll, December), and 61% support for a two-state solution among Palestinians (AWRAD poll, December). According to the December Geneva Initiative poll, 59% of Israelis want to see a Trump initiative for solving the conflict.

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The Two-State Index (TSI) is part of the Two-State Coalition (TSC) that is brought to you by the Geneva Initiative, a Palestinian-Israeli organization working to promote a negotiated peace agreement in the spirit of the two-state vision. The TSI is part of the Two-State Coalition project, produced by an Israeli-Palestinian team, and reflects a unique bilateral perspective.

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