“The people of Gaza can finally recover and rebuild.”

So said Joe Biden on Wednesday, after Israel and Hamas tentatively agreed to a 42-day ceasefire.

The terms of what’ll likely prove to be a very tenuous truce call for the release of nearly three-dozen Israeli hostages in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The IDF will pull back from populated areas in what’s now an uninhabitable moonscape, giving Gazans an opportunity to — I don’t know — dig the remains of entombed relatives from beneath piles of charred concrete, and otherwise scavenge for what’s left of their lives after more than a year of unrelenting, at times indiscriminate, bombardment.

The deal appeared mostly indistinguishable from a proposal floated more than six months ago, a tragic testament to the futility of all the lives lost since then. Convoys of humanitarian aid will be rushed in once the ceasefire goes into effect, giving locals an opportunity to access desperately-needed supplies amid near famine conditions across the coastal enclave.

According to the arrangement, three female hostages will be freed by Hamas on the first day of implementation, followed by four additional captives six days later. The remaining 26 of the 33 hostages specifically mentioned in the agreement (all women, children, older men and the injured or sick) will be released over a period of weeks. In every case, Israel will free as many as 50 jailed Palestinians for every hostage released by Hamas.

Remember: Yahya Sinwar was himself released in a similarly lopsided swap that saw Israel release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a single Israeli soldier. Now, as then, Israel’s undoubtedly freeing dozens of current and future Hamas leaders to secure the release of its own citizens, some of whom aren’t even alive. That is: Quite a few of the hostages Hamas still holds, including a few of those set to be released as part of the “phase one” deal announced on Wednesday, are dead.

A week into implementation, Israel will move its troops such that Palestinians who fled northern Gaza for the south will be able to make the trip back to Gaza City and Jabaliya, where most will find nothing but desolation. The arrangement includes a plan to provide for tens of thousands of temporary homes and a huge number of tents. (“Sorry about all this. Here’s a nice Coleman.”)

Assuming the first phase goes as planned (hardly a sure bet), the two sides would announce a permanent ceasefire in a second phase, at which point Israeli troops would leave Gaza altogether and Hamas would swap whoever’s still alive among the rest of the hostages it still holds for more jailed Palestinians.

Sinwar achieved two of the goals implicit in the October 7, 2023 attacks: He shattered Israel’s sense of security and he pushed the Palestinian question to the fore when it was poised to fade into obscurity. But he miscalculated badly in believing Hezbollah and Iran would engage Israel in an all-out war.

Militarily, Hezbollah got the shortest end of this particular stick. (For Hamas, it was always a suicide mission). Hassan Nasrallah didn’t want a full-on war with Israel, but he got one anyway, and he lost. Badly. He’s dead, his heir (and cousin) is too, as are all of the group’s senior military commanders. In Hezbollah’s de facto demise, Iran lost its most powerful proxy and, under pressure, was forced to abandon its ally in Damascus, which fell to the Turkey-backed successor organization to al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm.

As for Hamas itself, the movement (the idea) will never die, but I doubt the veracity of reports suggesting it’s replenished its military ranks. The Al-Qassam Brigades might’ve recruited new fighters, but it’s not the same outfit Mohammed Deif built. It’ll be years before Hamas’s military capabilities look anything like they looked on the eve of the October 7 attacks, if they ever approach that sort of operational aptitude again.

At some point, an effort will presumably be made to rebuild Gaza, likely with considerable financial commitments from Qatar, but if I had to guess, it’ll remain a largely ungoverned wasteland for the foreseeable future. Armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, will represent an ongoing (if low-level) security threat to Israel, and it’s just as likely as not that the IDF ends up maintaining a permanent presence in the enclave, which Knesset hardliners will insist on resettling.

As one Gazan told The New York Times on Wednesday, “It’s good to hear about the ceasefire, but when I think about life after the war, I think about the suffering that will continue. The scale of destruction and loss is enormous.”