Crypto News: An Israel-Hamas deal with dilemmas

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Israel and Hamas appear close to a ceasefire deal that will put an end to 15 months of fighting in Gaza, at least temporarily.

As in previous negotiation rounds, there are last-minute delays, but all sides are cautiously optimistic that this time an agreement will be reached.

That's mostly due to the Donald Trump effect, an X factor seen as pushing it over the line with his threats to unleash "hell" otherwise.

The basic framework, mostly unchanged since May, talks of a 42-day ceasefire during which 33 hostages will be released from Gaza, most, if not all, thought to be alive. In turn, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners would be freed and the Israel military will partially withdraw from some of its positions.

WATCH: Bloomberg's Paul Wallace discusses a possible Gaza ceasefire.

Things will get more complicated on day 16, when Israel and Hamas are meant to start discussing a second stage involving a permanent ceasefire, and the release of remaining hostages for more prisoners.

This would de facto mean the end of a war that's killed some 50,000 people in Gaza and around 1,600 Israelis. Yet to get there, mediators will have to square Israel's insistence on maintaining a military presence in the battered enclave — with Hamas no longer the ruling entity — against opposing demands from Hamas.

This makes life near-impossible for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two of his cabinet allies — Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — are nationalist hardliners who've pushed back even against the deal's first stage, let alone a second.

For now they won't collapse Netanyahu's government, but that could change if Israel is forced to abandon its goal of destroying Hamas.

Netanyahu, under trial on corruption charges, hopes that a Gaza deal with Trump in office could lead to breakthroughs like normalization of Saudi Arabia ties or preventing a nuclear Iran, shifting his legacy from the Oct. 7 horrors to effecting statesmanlike change in the Middle East.

Netanyahu has no time to waste. — Galit Altstein

An Israeli soldier looks at homes destroyed during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Photographer: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg

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An anti-government demonstration in Maputo, Mozambique, last month. Photographer: Amilton Neves/AFP/Getty Images

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Chart of the Day

UK inflation unexpectedly cooled for the first time in three months in December, soothing market jitters around the British economy that pushed benchmark government bond yields to a 17-year high and threatened to derail Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves' entire economic agenda. Reeves did not mention the recent market selloff in her response to the data — which showed the annual inflation rate slowed to 2.5% — but said there was "still work to be done" to contain price gains.

And Finally

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