Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.

At the moment, Hizballah’s superiors in Tehran probably aren’t giving much thought to the militia’s next move. More likely, they are focused on the fact that their country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, along with the foreign minister, may have been killed in a helicopter crash near the Iran-Azerbaijan border. Iranians set off fireworks to celebrate the possible death of this man known as “butcher of Tehran” for his role in executing dissidents. Shay Khatiri explains what will happen next:

If the president is dead or unable to perform his duties for longer than two months, the first vice-president, the speaker of the parliament, and the chief justice, with the consent of the supreme leader, form a council to choose the succession mechanism. In effect, this means that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will decide [how to proceed]. Either a new election is called, or Khamenei will dictate that the council chooses a single person to avoid an election in time of crisis.

Whatever happens next, however, Raisi’s “hard landing” will mark the first chapter in a game of musical chairs that will consume the Islamic Republic for months and will set the stage not only for the post-Raisi era, but the post-Khamenei one as well.

As for the inevitable speculation that Raisi’s death wasn’t an accident: everything I have read so far suggests that it was. Still, that its foremost enemy will be distracted by a succession struggle is good news for Israel. And it wouldn’t be terrible if Iran’s leaders suspect that the Mossad just might have taken out Raisi. For all their rhetoric about martyrdom, I doubt they relish the prospect of becoming martyrs themselves.