Hamas allowed Israel to destroy Gaza in order to precipitate a wider war. They failed.
From the beginning of the war, Hamas had no chance of defeating Israel. Their only hope was to resist Israel as long as possible. Indeed, their network of tunnels and supply of missiles made it possible to hold out indefinitely, even if above-ground Gaza is reduced to a depopulated wasteland.
I have argued that the over-arching objective of Hamas was to anger surrounding anti-Israel countries into finally eliminating Israel. Using hospitals as military bases was a strategy designed to enrage the world over Israel’s killing of civilians. Hamas was willing to invite Israel to destroy Gaza, along with over 40,000 people, in order to precipitate Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and others, to gang up on Israel.
For a while, it looked as though this strategy was working. Iran launched hundreds of missiles at Israel, as did Hezbollah. It looked as though an all-out war was inevitable, much to the delight of Hamas.
But then Israel more or less destroyed Hezbollah with its remote-controlled cell-phone bombs and its targeted assassination of Hezbollah leaders. At the same time, Iran showed itself to be a paper tiger when its hundreds of missiles were intercepted and had no effect.
The last straw was the fall of Assad in Syria, followed by Israeli bombing of strategic targets in Syria. Syria was no longer a threat, and Russia was no longer a front-line player, as Putin withdrew resources from Syria in order to fortify his Ukraine actions.
So now, Hamas has nothing to show for its more-than-one-year war with Israel, other than piles of rubble, thousands of dead and civilian casualties, and an economy on the verge of starvation. It is time for Hamas to negotiate. In fact, they had better reach a deal right now, while the Biden administration is at least outwardly sympathetic to the civilian devastation. When Trump becomes President, he will no doubt embolden Israel to pursue their destruction of Gaza to total ruin and genocide.
One possible counter-scenario is that Trump would like to claim credit for ending the war. Details are being worked out now, so that when Trump enters office in January, the deal will be ready to sign, and Trump will portray himself as the great peace-maker. Of course, the month-long delay until the Trump reign will cause a few more thousands of civilian deaths and more destruction and starvation.