The ceasefire in Gaza between fears and hopes

The truce, which should come into force in Gaza next Sunday, undoubtedly represents excellent news for the populations of Gaza who faced a genocidal war which lasted fifteen long months and officially killed more than 46,000 people. dead, around ten thousand missing and more than 100,000 injured. But this truce remains fragile to the extent that several contentious issues are still pending.

Three phases are planned in this truce. The first, which should last 42 days, will see the release of 33 hostages against a thousand Palestinian prisoners. During this phase, the Israeli army will begin its withdrawal while retaining control of a buffer zone 800 meters deep inside the Palestinian exclave.

Palestinian civilians will be able to move around and those who have been forced to leave their homes will be able to return. Humanitarian aid will resume immediately after the ceasefire comes into effect. The Rafah border crossing will be reopened and will allow the transport of injured and sick people to Egyptian and foreign hospitals.

“A monitoring mechanism will be set up, managed by Egypt, Qatar and the United States. Based in Cairo, this mechanism will involve a joint team from the three countries to monitor the implementation of the agreement.declared the Qatari Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.

On the sixteenth day of the ceasefire, a resumption of negotiations around the second and third phases is planned. These provide for the release of the remaining hostages and a withdrawal of the Israeli occupying army from the Gaza Strip with arrangements guaranteeing the security of the State of Israel, somewhat like what was negotiated with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Why a ceasefire only now?

All those who campaigned around the world for an end to the genocidal war in Gaza are now relieved and say that it could have happened sooner. But the political question is about the reasons that led to a ceasefire now. What has changed since the last failed attempts in May and August 2024?

By emphasizing the geopolitical factors that have occurred recently since the ceasefire in Lebanon, the weakening of Iran and the fall of the regime of Bashar Al Assad in Syria without forgetting the weakening of Hamas, the Mainstream media seek to support the false idea that Hamas is at least as responsible as the Netanyahu government for the continuation of the war and the suffering of the people of Gaza.

This is what the daily newspaper claimed, for example The World. In his enumeration of the factors having favored the ceasefire agreement, he does not hesitate to note “the unprecedented isolation of Hamas, whose leadership has been decimated and the military means largely amputated” before treacherously adding that ” the most desperate truth for the hostages, who experienced a long ordeal, is the following: it could have ended much earlier, if Hamas had been concerned about its population and if Benjamin Netanyahu had not held on to preserve its coalition with Jewish supremacists and the messianic far right, opposed to any ceasefire agreement » (Le Monde 01/16/2025)

This version is denied by the Israeli daily, The Times of Israel which revealed: “ Hours after announcing a deal to release the hostages, a senior Biden administration official confirmed publicly, for the first time, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had added conditions to previously negotiated proposals , conditions which had hampered the talks » (The Times of Israel, 05/16/2025)

The Israeli daily adds that “ Israeli, Arab and American officials all told The Times of Israel, on condition of anonymity, that Netanyahu had at times been primarily responsible for the breakdown of negotiations, including in July, when he added conditions to his proposal earlier regarding the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, which torpedoed the negotiations at the time »

By putting the Netanyahu government and Hamas back to back to explain the repeated failures to achieve a ceasefire in recent months, the French daily Le Monde has only relayed American propaganda and this did the Israeli daily dare to acknowledge: “For months, the Biden administration had publicly insisted that Hamas was the main obstacle to an agreement and, while it sometimes declared that “the two sides” would not were not sufficiently cooperative, she had avoided directly pointing the finger at Netanyahu.”

The Times of Israel clarified in this regard: “ US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a press briefing: “It happened that Israel introduced new conditions and new proposals that made it more difficult to reach an agreement.”

It emerges from these important revelations that it was the Netanyahu government which prevented the conclusion of a ceasefire agreement as long as it was sure that the Biden Administration, hostage to pro-Israeli lobbies, would not dare not impose anything on Israel.

The change that helps explain the Israeli government’s about-face lies elsewhere. Even if he did everything to favor the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, Netanyahu apparently misjudged his versatility and his obsession for immediate peace which would favor his plan to reconfigure the Middle East , a plan focused on business and the desire to counter China’s growing presence in the region.

This explains the increasing pressure exerted by Trump on the Netanyahu government in recent days to reach a ceasefire agreement. The Times of Israel echoed these pressures which proved decisive: “ Senior Arab diplomats and two other sources close to the negotiations told The Times of Israel on Tuesday, saying that a “tense” meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President-elect Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff, led to a breakthrough in the talks after he pressured the Prime Minister (Netanyahu) to make the compromises necessary to reach a deal » (The Times of Israel, 05/16/2025)

The Israeli daily added in this regard that “ the two Arab diplomats had said the level of pressure put on Netanyahu by Trump’s envoy in that single meeting was unmatched in the countless conversations Biden administration officials have had with the prime minister throughout war “.

The stranger of the next day

But in any case, the protagonists have finally reached a ceasefire agreement. An agreement which remains fragile and whose main issue, beyond the vague “details” whose divergent interpretation could lead to a resumption of hostilities, is what will happen after the second stage which will be marked by the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army of the Gaza Strip.

No one knows today what exactly the next day will look like in Gaza. The outgoing American Administration hopes, as a first step, for the administration of the territory by the Palestinian Authority, initially aided by “international” forces, the origins of which it does not mention or the prerogatives of. This step followed by a second which will see the establishment of a Palestinian state bringing together the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without further clarification apart from the fact that it does not want the presence of Hamas in a Palestinian government. This is what Secretary of State Antony Blinken just recalled on January 14 in a speech to the Atlantic Council think tank.

But the position of the new Trump Administration on the subject constitutes the great unknown. Yet it is on this position that the immediate future of peace in the region will depend.

One thing is certain. Whatever the options of the new American Administration, the latter will not be able to ignore the three factors on which Blinken insisted in his testament speech, namely the Israeli attempt to strangle the Palestinian Authority through the retention of tax revenues which are Totaling Half a Billion Dollars, Attacks by Violent West Bank Settlers Threaten Any Possibility of Achieving Peace and finally the fact that Hamas continues to be an unavoidable force in any future equation.

By recalling this last fact, Blinken recognized in fact that there cannot be an exclusively military solution to the Palestinian question. We estimate that Hamas recruited almost as many new militants as it lost. This is the recipe for lasting insurgency and perpetual war,” he said. (Le Monde 01/16/2025)

This observation is shared by Israeli analysts who do not take their wish for reality, like Michael Milstein, a former Israeli intelligence officer and Hamas specialist who affirmed that “The Israeli public is asking: what is the goal? In this operation in northern Gaza, Hamas did not raise a white flag. No hostages have been released. And more and more soldiers are being killed. Those who believe in total victory are increasingly rare” before adding: “This is very difficult for most Israelis to admit, but it is the reality. Hamas, fifteen months after the start of this war, after having suffered unprecedented damage, remains the dominant actor in Gaza” (Le Monde 01/16/2025)

The ceasefire agreement, which is already being called into question by far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government even before it comes into force, is not only fragile due to continuing cyclical factors to obey the contradictions of the moment.

Peace will always be fragile as long as international and regional actors have not agreed on a consensual option which finally guarantees the recovery of the Palestinian people of their legitimate national rights, starting with their right to the establishment of a State. independent, it being understood that the so-called security of the State of Israel (A State equipped with the atomic bomb and protected by nuclear powers) that the Western powers hypocritically agitate to justify their unconditional support for the colonialist State of Israel does not arise and has never really arisen.