While no small number of esteemed experts have expressed their opinion that the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s politburo, will only make matters worse for Israel, Graeme Wood is not so sure. First, he looks at the admittedly real possibility of a widening of the conflict:

Iran is naturally mortified that it could not protect its vassal even in Tehran, and it will seek revenge. But it has tried to avoid all-out war for years. To start one now would be an extreme gamble, at a time when Israel has just given Iran reason to doubt that fortune favors it.

It seems in this case that Israel found a middle way, by attacking an Iranian ally, on Iranian soil, in such a way as to prove to the other allies that Iran cannot protect them. It implies that the link between the backer and the backed might not be as reliable as either assumed. If that message is received as intended, Haniyeh’s assassination will have de-escalated regional tensions rather than ratcheted them up.

As for the hostage negotiations, he writes:

The likely effect of the death of Haniyeh on the war in Gaza is less than one might imagine. Haniyeh was a political leader, and over the course of ten months he delivered almost nothing in the way of political compromise.

To the contrary, whoever succeeds Haniyeh (likely his predecessor, Khaled Meshal) might feel much more motivated to produce a hostage deal acceptable to the Israelis. After all, the death of the last person to fail at your job can have a clarifying effect. And if it is true, as Wood asserts, that Hamas’s leaders in Doha have little leverage to force a deal on a reluctant Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, then there is all the more reason to kill the rest of them.

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.