There's no normal sense of the word in which Hamas' experience at the hands of Israel since 10/7 could be called a win. On the ground, Hamas has lost thousands of fighters since Israel invaded Gaza. The exact number is unknown but Israel claimed several months ago that the total number of Hamas fighters killed was over 10,000. The IDF recently upgraded that claim to 15,000. Hamas has denied both claims but last month Politico reported that US estimates were that 30-35 percent of Hamas' initial force of 35,000 had been killed. That puts the number of fighters killed in the 10-12,000 range.

That doesn't sound like victory to me but for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader believed to be the mastermind behind the 10/7 attack, he still seems to believe his side is winning. Sinwar is hiding in the tunnels somewhere deep beneath Rafah, though his exact location is unknown. According to recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal, he wants to drag the fighting out as long as possible because he thinks Israel is losing.

“Time, tunnels and hostages [are] giving Sinwar the feeling that he doesn’t have to [do a deal],” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to the military advantage that the large underground network of tunnels has been for Hamas and its ability to fight an insurgency.

According to Arab mediators dealing with Hamas, Sinwar believes that he has already won the war, whether or not he survives it, by opening the world’s eyes to the suffering of Palestinians and bringing the conflict to the forefront of global affairs.

Sinwar’s aim in the long run, the mediators say, is to lift the siege of the strip, end Israeli military pressure on Hamas and ensure the group’s survival. The group is seeking international “guarantees” for any cease-fire, another gambit to ensure its survival after the war. The U.S., Qatar and Egypt would be the guarantors of the proposed deal, but Hamas has said this isn’t enough, according to the mediators.

In some of the communications relayed by the military wing to Arab mediators, Sinwar indicated that time was on his side and that the longer he waits, the more international pressure builds on Israel and its activities in Gaza. He is also banking on conflict within the Israeli government to eventually force Netanyahu from power.

So he's not in a hurry to end the war because what he really cares about isn't the death toll of his fighters or of Palestinian civilians. What he cares about is ramping up the pressure on Israel internationally. That said, he does want to end the war in time to ensure that Hamas will remain in power in Gaza. He wants them to live to fight another day.

If any of that sounds hard to believe, consider what the former head of Israel's prison intelligence division has said about Sinwar. Yuval Bitton got to know Sinwar before he was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011.

Look, during all those years they would tell me, "We will be freed," and I would say, "There's no way," in order to suppress their motivation. And yet now they were finally being freed, as they had believed. They think differently from us. When Gilad Shalit was abducted, Israel entered the Gaza Strip, eliminated a few hundred terrorists and destroyed buildings; of course, another few thousand civilians paid the price.

I said to Sinwar, "Tell me, is it worth it for 10,000 innocent people to die, in order to free 100 prisoners?" The reply was, "Even 100,000 is worth it." Their notion of time is different, and the price in blood they are ready to pay in order to achieve their goal is different. Because each person who dies is a shahid [martyr]. It's warfare in the name of God...

Today he feels like Saladin, because he succeeded in doing what no Arab leader before him did. He sees himself as playing a central role in the realization of the Islamist ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood. He thinks he has entered the annals of history. And he really doesn't care if 200,000 people are killed and not a single house remains complete in Gaza. The main thing is the goal, the greater idea.

The greater goal Sinwar is fighting for is an Islamist state where no Jews are allowed:

The thing with Hamas is that they have always been a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood. They set themselves Islamist goals: to annihilate the State of Israel, to liberate sacred Muslim lands...

To me, the Hamas inmates would say, "There's neither 1967 nor 1948. There are no borders and there is nothing to talk about. You are on Waqf land, Muslim sacred ground, and you have no place here."

All of this is relevant now because President Biden has put forward a ceasefire plan, attributed to Israel, in which Hamas would release the remaining hostages (both living and dead) and in exchange, the war would end and Hamas would survive to fight another day. But Israel has made clear that they will continue to fight Hamas until they are no longer in power in Gaza.

Biden appealed publicly to both sides on Friday to reach an agreement, outlining a path to ending the war that he described as an Israeli proposal, which U.S. officials said was also close to Hamas’s demands...

[Netanyahu's] office said over the weekend that Biden’s statement reflected an Israeli proposal, but suggested that the U.S. leader hadn’t fully reflected Israel’s position. Netanyahu’s office insisted Israel would continue to pursue both the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza and the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing force...

The latest Israeli proposal states that no later than 16 days into the first stage of the deal—during which hostages would be released—Israel and Hamas would enter into indirect negotiations about a second stage, which would be an end to hostilities, according to a version of the proposal viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

That detail is at odds with the language used on Friday by Biden, whose bid for re-election has been complicated by divisions within the Democratic Party over the war in Gaza. Biden indicated Israel was open to a more permanent deal and described “a road map to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages.”

This deal Biden is trying to pressure Netanyahu into accepting makes no sense for Israel but it would be a win as Yahya Sinwar defines a win. He would survive the 10/7 attack and get to start planning his next attack. It would also be a win for Joe Biden who can claim he brought peace to the Middle East knowing the next major attack from Hamas won't happen until well after the election.