One month ago, on October 10th, a ceasefire was proclaimed between Israel and Hamas. This so-called ceasefire agreement is coming after more than two years of genocidal violence carried out on the Palestinians. During that time the equivalent of 13 nuclear bombs have been dropped on Gaza. At least 75,190 Palestinians have been killed. We will likely never know the final tally of how many Gazans were killed in the past two years. The infrastructure has been destroyed. Every hospital has been bombed. Every school has been bombed. Housing is in ruins. Over 2 million people are homeless.
Of course, any slowdown in the brutal carnage is welcomed by Palestinians and those who care about them, but how can anyone imagine what it is for people to rebuild their lives and Gaza after this nightmare? Sadly, the nightmare hasn’t actually ended.
Under the terms of the so-called “20-point peace plan” which Trump first announced on September 30th, Hamas would release all of the 48 remaining Israeli hostages as well as the bodies of deceased hostages. The deal also calls for the total disarmament of Hamas within 72 hours, which essentially means a total disarmament of all Palestinian resistance fighters. Whatever critiques that we may have of Hamas, demanding that they must disarm is effectively telling the Palestinian people that they have no right to defend themselves. This is an unrealistic expectation given that the Palestinians have been the victims of Israeli colonial violence and occupation, not just over the past two years of genocide, but since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Since Israel is the aggressor and possesses a will financed, high tech military machine, why is Israel not being called upon to disarm?
In addition, Gaza would be run indefinitely by a supposedly “neutral” technocratic governance by “qualified Palestinians and international experts” as well as Donald Trump, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair (a key propagandist for the War on Iraq that killed over one million people) and other unnamed heads of states. This would turn Gaza into a mandate in which the indigenous inhabitants would have no democratic sovereignty and everything around them would be privatized to meet the needs of outside forces.
In return, the Palestinians would get close to 2,000 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli prisons and access to humanitarian aid, with 600 trucks entering Gaza per day. The fact that Israel agreed to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza is an admission that they were cutting it off previously, which is a war crime.
Why Did This Deal Come About?
Over and over during the past two years, Israel has been the primary obstacle to reaching any sort of peace settlement, destroying any possibility of negotiations every time there were prospects of movement towards a ceasefire deal. Israel even killed Hamas negotiators even after Hamas accepted Israels proposals, prolonging the carnage.
So what changed this time?
Unlike Joe Biden before him who supported the Zionist project ideologically, Donald Trump is much more transactional, motivated by what will make money for himself and people close to him. This is why the two people he sent to the Middle East to negotiate a deal were billionaire real estate moguls, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, both financially connected to the Gulf States. Trump previously stated that his ultimate aim is to turn Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East. He envisions real estate riches for his cronies and family members, while Gazans endure lives as low-wage workers who serve the crypto-bros from the West and Arab emirs from the Gulf States as they lounge on the beach. Visions of real estate wealth and luxury are part of what drives Trump.
Along with money and real estate, the other major thing that drives Trump is his childish ego. He has been desperately obsessed with putting himself forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. Why shouldn’t he be able to take credit for ending this conflict, along with all of the other conflicts he imagines that he ended?
More structurally, as the second anniversary of October 7th and the brutal genocidal violence carried out against the Palestinians approached, there was also tremendous pressure on the Trump administration to bring the violence to an end, at least in terms of optics. Within the United States, public opinion has shifted dramatically, with a majority of Americans now sympathizing with the Palestinians over Israel. Support for Israel after everything that has been on display for the past two years has become more of a political liability. These shifts are even true within the Republican Party with a growing number of younger conservatives being reluctant to unconditionally support Israel. Whether motivated by an isolationist “America First” nationalism or unabashed antisemitism, the consequence is that there are growing fractures within the rightwing movement that the Trump administration needs to respond to.
In addition, the mass movements around the world for Palestinian solidarity, such as the Block Everything strike movement in Italy, pressured many governments, particularly in Europe, to at least nominally recognize a Palestinian state. While these gestures by heads of states were full of all sorts of qualifications and largely symbolic, they were nonetheless unprecedented in breaking the Western consensus about Palestine and Israel that has dominated world politics for decades. This put added pressure on the U.S. imperialism to push for some appearance of a deal.
Simultaneously, the reactionary Gulf States, who have been supportive of Hamas in the past and still have some influence with the group, put enormous amounts of pressure on Hamas to accept this deal – essentially telling them that this is the best deal they could imagine getting. At the same time, these same Gulf States have grown closer to the Trump administration through real estate deals, trade deals, tech deals, and even gifts of luxury airplanes. After Israel attempted to assassinate Hamas negotiators on Qatari soil in September, the leaders of Qatar and other wealthy Gulf States also brought pressure on Trump. Since they have helped make his family richer and richer through what are basically direct bribes, they correctly thought that they could influence him to pressure on Israel. Days later, in the Oval Office, Trump literally made Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu call Qatari leaders to apologize and this new “peace plan” was announced.
At the same time, Israeli society has faced turmoil. While much of the Israeli population has not had major reservations about the genocidal violence against Gaza, a growing majority have also been motivated by the hope of returning the Israeli hostages by any means necessary, even if it means negotiating with Hamas. This has put more and more people at odds with Netanyahu, who they correctly see as particularly obstructionist in trying to bring about a ceasefire deal. Israeli society correctly recognizes that so long as there is a permanent state of war, Netanyahu can avoid facing any legal consequences for the longstanding corruption charges he faces, making him an obstacle to actually freeing the hostages.
Lastly, for the Palestinians who have suffered unimaginable carnage over the past two years, people are understandably desperate. Not surprisingly, there was enormous amounts of pressure put on Hamas negotiators to accept something to bring about some reprieve, even if it included major concessions, including the virtual neoliberal colonization of Gaza. After everything that the Palestinians have been through, how could they not want any opportunity to catch their breath.
Fire Continues During Their So-Called “Ceasefire”
Sadly, for many Palestinians on the ground in Gaza little has actually changed. In less than a month since the proclamation of the ceasefire, over 200 Palestinians have been killed, including many children.
At the same time, supplies continue to be limited from entering Gaza. While the ceasefire agreement included that 600 aid trucks would enter into Gaza per day, only around 300 aid trucks enter each day. Israel has recently declared the Egyptian border region a closed military zone, cutting off aid and flows of traffic. Meanwhile Israel has decided to expand its so-called “yellow line,” expanding the territory that the Israeli military occupies within Gaza, shooting anyone who gets too close to their arbitrarily moving boundaries. Adding insult to injury, on their way out of areas that they previously occupied in Gaza, Israeli soldiers blew up homes and buildings while boasting of their deeds on social media.
Israel’s excuse to continue its attacks? Israel claims that Hamas hasn’t completely fulfilled its obligation to return all of the bodies of the dead Israeli hostages, that Hamas is choosing to withhold these bodies.
The reality? Many of the dead bodies of Israeli hostages are likely buried under the rubble left from the unimaginable amount of destruction of infrastructure in Gaza, as are untold numbers of Palestinian dead bodies. What makes things even more insane is that Israel is blocking the entrance of large of machinery that could dig through the rubble. As of November 7th, there are 5 bodies of Israeli hostages that have not been returned. Meanwhile, Israel continues to hold onto the bodies of hundreds of dead Palestinian captives.
Another excuse by Israel for the continuing violence on Palestinians is that Hamas conducted an ambush on Israeli Defense Forces in Rafah. It was later reported by Palestinian and American journalists that an Israeli bulldozer ran over an unexploded ordinance. But Israel has used it nonetheless to defend their continued attacks.
More and more information has also come out about Israel’s connection to several anti-Hamas militias within Gaza. For example, while people in Gaza were starving, Israel and the United States made the claim that Hamas was looting the food trucks. But many humanitarian workers have refuted this claim and argued that the looting was done by the Popular Forces militia. The Popular Forces militia is an armed group inside Gaza that collaborated with the IDF over the past year in its fight against Hamas. The Popular Forces militia is headed by a man named Yasser Abu Shabab, who is a convicted drug smuggler who also has ties to ISIS. Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly admitted to supporting the Popular Forces, saying, “…What’s wrong with this? It only saves the lives of Israeli soldiers.” The support for a gang linked to ISIS hasn’t been a problem for Netanyahu, so long as their victims are people in Gaza.
All of this is not to mention that during this so-called ceasefire, far-right settlers continue to attack Palestinians in the West Bank with the support of the Israeli military and that Israel continues its attacks in southern Lebanon.
At the core, what we are currently watching in Gaza and the region is not at all a ceasefire. Israel has far from ceased firing at Palestinians. What is currently taking place is simply a small course correction for managing the optics of the same genocidal project.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Israel is terrified that the truth about what has happened and what continues to happen in Gaza gets out any further. This is why they have targeted Palestinian journalists, haven’t allowed western journalists into Gaza and pressured YouTube to remove videos. And why shouldn’t Israel be terrified? People around the world have watched with horror and see with their eyes the level of genocidal naked aggression and can clearly see which side is truly the aggressor. Not only has this exposed Israel’s crimes but it has also exposed for many the criminal nature of this entire system that treats entire populations as disposable.
Movements around the world have developed, often facing harsh repression and censorship, in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s right to live dignified lives. In countries like the United States, this has created political divisions within both major capitalist parties, and where people go to is yet to be determined. In countries like Italy, Greece and Spain, workers have taken some first steps to put their bodies on the lines to shut down the war machine.
Israel’s barbarism in Gaza is a vivid illustration of how, all around the world, this system offers us no viable future. We don’t have to live this way. From Morrocco to Madagascar, Nepal to Peru, there is a new generation that is today going into the streets and refusing to collapse under the oppressive weight of poverty, corruption, war and hopelessness. We all need to raise our voices! We can and we must take a stand against this capitalist system that makes genocides like this inevitable!
