Palestinians and their supporters are celebrating the ceasefire and an end to the killing in Gaza. But the Trump-Netanyahu plan still leaves Gaza as an open-air prison under effective Israeli control.
Phase one of the deal was confirmed by the Israeli cabinet on Thursday night, local time. In return for the handover by Hamas of all hostages, dead or alive, Israel will pull back its troops—but only a few kilometres.
Before the ceasefire, Israel controlled 80 per cent of Gaza. Its “withdrawal” will still leave it in command of almost 60 per cent of the Strip.
Israeli troops will remain in occupation of areas including more than half of the Khan Younis governorate and nearly all the Rafah governorate.
And Israeli forces remain poised to strike again. Al Jazeera reported on Friday that the IDF carried out heavy tank fire north of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza—after the ceasefire was agreed.
Two million Palestinians in Gaza are now being promised aid and the eventual rebuilding of their cities. But Israel will remain in control of Gaza’s borders and therefore the flow of aid.
A second phase, which would see Israeli troops pull back further but remain in a buffer zone within Gaza, depends on Hamas agreeing to disarm, something it has always refused to do.
Israel broke an earlier ceasefire in March. It could do so again if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decides Hamas are not compliant. He is already under pressure from far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are threatening to bring down his government over the deal.
Smotrich said on Thursday, “Immediately after the hostages return home, the state of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza, so that it no longer poses a threat to Israel.”
Netanyahu started the genocide to eradicate Hamas and drive the Palestinians out of Gaza. He will be keen to take any opportunity to restart the killing.
Finish the job
The continuation of the ceasefire deal is supposedly guaranteed by Donald Trump.
But this is the same man who has presided over massive arms sales to Israel all year, told Netanyahu “to finish the job” and who threatened Hamas with “hell” if it didn’t bow to his will. Trump has consistently backed Israel’s aim of completely wiping out Hamas.
Hamas has praised “the efforts of US President Donald Trump aimed at definitively stopping the war and the complete withdrawal of the occupation from the Gaza Strip”.
But Trump has no interest in the fate of the Palestinians.
He is looking to the Arab states and regimes like Turkey to carry much of the responsibility for the deal. They are all supporting his aim of forcing Hamas to disarm and giving Israel what it wants.
Because of the resistance movement in Gaza and the growing pressure from the worldwide Palestine solidarity movement Trump has been forced to retreat from his original plan of expelling the Palestinians and turning Gaza into a resort.
His 20-point plan now rules out Israel annexing Gaza and says that Palestinians can remain on their land.
But Gaza will be run as a colonialist enclave, with power exercised by a committee headed by Trump and including the former British Labour prime minister and war criminal, Tony Blair.
There is no place in this scenario for Palestinian freedom and self-determination—Netanyahu has made that clear.
Israel is the oppressor and the real threat to peace—it’s Israel that should be disarmed and demilitarised, not the Palestinian resistance.
Ray of light
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed the ceasefire, calling it “a ray of light”. But he has doubled down on his demand that Hamas disarm and still refuses to utter the word “genocide”.
Australian businesses will continue to export military equipment, including components for F-35 jets used to bomb Gaza.
Ceasefire or not, Israel continues to be an apartheid state that oppresses Palestinians inside its borders and in the West Bank, and that bombs at will, from Lebanon to Syria, from Iran to Yemen.
Israeli military operations in the West Bank this year have left 30,000 Palestinians displaced. Settlers have increased their violent raids against Palestinian villages in an effort to steal more land, demolishing 1400 buildings this year alone.
Backed by the US, Israel has extended its grip on the region, illegally occupying areas of Lebanon and Syria and continuing its domination of Palestine.
The Zionist project has always been about ethnic cleansing and this will not stop. Our solidarity cannot stop either. Palestine will not be free as long as the Israeli apartheid regime remains.
In the past week, mass strikes in support of Palestine have rocked Italy and Greece. Over the coming weeks and months, the Palestine solidarity movement here needs to continue fighting for sanctions on all trade with Israel, and for freedom for Palestine from the river to the sea.
However, the main hope for Palestine remains the possibility of mass revolt from below in the Arab world, above all Egypt.
As one Egyptian socialist said this week, “There will be a reconnection between the Egyptian mass movement against dictatorship in Egypt and the Palestinian liberation struggle.
“The Palestinian liberation movement is not going to stop. And the worldwide solidarity movement is not going to stop. It’s the very beginning.”
By David Glanz
