Israel is collapsing the ceasefire. Ignore the lies.

The Gaza ceasefire faces collapse because of deliberate multiple violations by Israel, despite its cheerleaders claiming the opposite

The so-called “ceasefire” in Gaza is on the brink of collapse. And the reason it’s going to collapse is indicated by the choice of language here - that this is a so-called “ceasefire”, because Israel has systematically violated the terms of that agreement.

US President Donald Trump has declared that if all Israeli hostages aren’t released this Saturday then “let hell break out”.

If you want to understand how Israel interprets this threat, we can simply listen to Benjamin Netanyahu’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, who is also a member of his ruling Likud party. He has posted the following on Twitter/X:

Here is an unambiguous commitment to war crimes and crimes against humanity - of the gravest possible kind. Cutting off all the essentials of life to the people of Gaza. Using “brutal and disproportionate force”. Ethnically cleansing the whole of Gaza. Adding “this time, without any restrictions on our heroic fighters”, as if Israel’s soldiers have somehow been restrained during 16 months of genocidal mayhem. In other words - a massive escalation of what was already a policy of annihilation.

It comes in the context of Netanyahu - who is an international fugitive sought by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity - making it repeatedly clear in the clearest possible terms that he wishes to resume his murderous onslaught against Gaza. In a broadcast on 18th January, Netanyahu said Trump “emphasised” the truce was “temporary”, that Israel will have “full backing” to resume the war in Gaza, and that Trump had decided to “lift all the remaining restrictions” on US weapons, allowing him to resume the onslaught with “tremendous force”.

It comes in the additional context of President Trump making it clear he did not believe the ceasefire would last, and repeatedly endorsing the illegal annexation of Gaza by the United States, and the forcible permanent removal of its entire population, an act of ethnic cleansing which would constitute a crime against humanity, and be innately genocidal in method and outcome.

Let’s discuss what’s happened. Hamas has announced it is delaying the release of Israeli hostages indefinitely, because of alleged Israeli violations of the ceasefire, which has held for 3 weeks and which was greeted with jubilation and exhilaration by a traumatised Palestinian population.

We were in the first phase of the ceasefire deal, due to last 42 days, with a second phase in which the remaining Israeli hostages are released, as well as Palestinian detainees, many of them in practise hostages seized without trial or charge by the Israeli state, many of them suffering torture, rape and death in captivity, all in exchange for a lasting ceasefire.

The Israeli state has now cancelled leave for its soldiers and is preparing to renew its genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza.

As Mustafa Barghouti, the Secretary State of the centre-left Palestinian National Initiative, puts it, the ceasefire has been violated in three different ways by the Israeli army.

Number one, 25 Palestinians have been killed, and dozens wounded, since the so-called ceasefire began.

Does this sound like a ceasefire to you? Call me old fashioned, but my definition of ceasefire is when armed forces cease firing.

Secondly, Barghouti notes that the Israeli army are obstructing humanitarian aid.

That includes 8,500 of 12,000 aid trucks promised entering Gaza; 15 fuel trucks, instead of 50, allowed into Gaza each day; none of the 60,000 promised temporary housing units have been delivered to Gaza; and just 20,000 of the 200,000 promised tents have been delivered.

According to Trey Yingst - and bear in mind he’s the chief foreign correspondent of Fox News:

“One of the four key ceasefire issues right now is that of ‘caravans.’ Temporary homes for Palestinians in Gaza.

An official with knowledge of the talks tells me a number of countries and international organizations, including the United Nations and Qatar, have requested to send caravans to Gaza in accordance with the agreement.

All the requests have so far been rejected without explanation, according to this official. Israel must approve for the caravans to enter.”

Third, Barghouti notes Netanyahu and Trump provoking Palestinians with repeated statements of their intentions of total ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Imagine Hamas militants had killed multiple Israeli soldiers, let alone Israeli civilians. Nobody would be talking about a ceasefire, let alone a parallel universe where there was a serious proposal backed by the US to ethnically cleanse the whole of Israel.

According to the New York Times, which has routinely deferred to pro-Israel narratives:

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, three Israeli officials and two mediators said that Hamas’s claims were accurate.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv also reports that Israel’s army and “security establishment” agree that Hamas has not violated the ceasefire deal.

Indeed it’s not just Gaza. Palestinians feel themselves strongly to be part of Palestine - the clue really is in the name. The West Bank and Gaza are both equally part of Palestine. And in the West Bank, the Israeli state has been on the rampage. In January alone, Israel killed nearly 70 Palestinians, with a 14% increase in violent incidents.

As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz note, the Israeli army expanded their open fire orders in the West Bank, resulting in a high number of deaths of Palestinian civilians.

Here is one particular atrocity this month, detailed by Haaretz:

Soldiers shot to death a man and a woman in the eighth month of pregnancy.

According tot he IDf preliminary investigation, the man was shot and killed inside his car ‘without trying to breach the checkpoint or threaten the soldiers. His pregnant wife, Sundus Shalabi, 23, was able to get out of the car and was shot three times in the chest. The Palestinian Health Ministry said rescue teams were unable to save the life of the fetus.

According to the investigation, the pregnant woman "looked suspiciously at the ground." She was unarmed, and no weapons were found near her that might have served as evidence she was trying to place an explosive device”.

“Looked suspiciously at the ground”. This was the justification given for butchering a pregnant woman.

It should be noted that the Israeli army prevented medical staff being able to get to the pregnant woman in order to save her life and that of her unborn foetus.

Imagine for a moment this had been a pregnant Israeli woman shot and killed by Hamas militants. Just imagine what would happen in those circumstances. It would be at the top of news bulletins, it would be splashed all over the front of newspapers, it would trigger howls of outrage from politicians - it would be widely denounced as proof of the total evil of Hamas.

Not here though, because Palestinian life is deemed to be completely worthless and the Israeli state has been granted total impunity.

Note too how Israel has launched so-called Operation Iron Wall in the West Bank on 21st January, the longest operation there since the second intifada, so far driving 40,000 Palestinians from their homes - an act of ethnic cleansing which has received almost zero attention from the Western media.

On what planet are we even discussing a ceasefire here. And yet pro-Israel commentators are out there claiming it is Hamas rather than Israel which is destroying the ceasefire,. The level of gaslighting - of turning the world on its head - involved in absolving Israel of guilt for trashing this so-called ceasefire is simply astronomical.

And then there’s Trump’s latest intervention in support of his plan to forcibly deport - that is ethnically cleanse - the entire Palestinian population of Gaza

He makes clear this will mass deportation will be permanent, that they will be driven from their homes forever with no right of return. He seeks to dress up this criminal act as a humanitarian gesture, and promises “a beautiful real estate development” - but for the people who actually live there, who will be deported.

Crucially, he declares Gaza is “not habitable”. So he is there admitting that Israel has made Gaza uninhabitable.

This is from Article II of the Genocide Convention, which defines genocide:

“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Trump here is admitting literally by definition that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

It’s very clear what has happened here. The so-called deal struck between Netanyahu and Trump was a sham, in which Israel would get some hostages out and then resume its genocidal onslaught.

Indeed the Israeli media a month ago reported that in the deal, if Netanyahu agreed to a deal, Trump would support Israel retroactively if it decided to return to fighting and violate the ceasefire.

As an analyst in Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it at the time, the staged ceasefire agreement was a ruse because the Israeli government never had any intention of progressing to the second stage of a ceasefire.

Well, what does this mean? As Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians puts it:

“If the ceasefire is allowed to collapse I really worry that Israel's violence will be even more wildly brutal and destructive than before. They will try to destroy the 30% of infrastructure that has so far been spared, and make human life impossible so Trump's plan can come true.”

Well, I’m afraid that he’s correct. It is likely a resumption of Israel’s onslaught, with the active support of Trump, will mean a dramatic escalation of the genocidal violence, to even more obscene levels than we’ve currently seen.

That genocidal mayhem will be calculated to empty Gaza through mass slaughter and expulsion. You may have studied genocides in the past, and wondered how they could ever have been possible, to have been tolerated, to have been facilitated, at the time in which they happened.

Well, now you know. Now you know.