Hurdles to ceasefire prolonging Gaza conflict

Israeli internal dissonance has halted Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo after three days. The Israeli negotiators would agree to provisions one day, go home to confer with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and return with unacceptable proposals.

Israel’s behaviour contrasted with Hamas’ positive approach to discussing details on implementation of the framework which Hamas has accepted, and Netanyahu seeks to amend. He has been accused by Israelis, mediators, and Palestinians of putting obstacles in the way of a ceasefire.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Detroit in the battleground state of Michigan, US President Joe Biden falsely claimed that Netanyahu has “accepted” the deal. After using the US veto three times in the UN Security Council to block a ceasefire demand, Biden hijacked an existing three-phase framework on May 31st. He called it his “detailed plan that the United Nations accepted that the Israelis accepted that the Palestinians have accepted to end this war. This war must end, must end.”

Not so fast, Biden, Netanyahu has not accepted the deal and you have just given up your leverage on him. Instead, you have enabled him to prolong the war by ending the pause in the flow of US 500-pound (227-kilogramme) bombs to Israel so it can continue using them to erase Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The first phase mandates a six-week ceasefire. During this period, Hamas would release 33 Israeli hostages, including all female prisoners, all men over 50 and all wounded. Israel would free hundreds of more 9,300 Palestinian prisoners and withdraw its troops eastward from densely populated areas of Gaza. Civilians would return to their home locations throughout Gaza and 600 lorry-loads of humanitarian aid would flow into Gaza. Hospitals would be repaired, and rubble cleared.

During the second phase, talks would take place on a permanent end to the war. The ceasefire would continue as long as these negotiations proceed. Meanwhile, all living hostages, including male soldiers, would be exchanged for more Palestinian prisoners and Israeli forces would withdraw from all of Gaza.

Once there is agreement on a permanent ceasefire, the sides would proceed to the third phase when bodies of deceased hostages would be returned, and the US and the international community would begin reconstruction of 60 per cent of clinics, schools, universities and religious buildings damaged or destroyed by Israel. (Why 60 per cent? you might ask. And why the international community? This usually means the Arab Gulf states. Israel should pay.) The stumbling block has been transition from phase 1 to phase 2.

Netanyahu insists there will be no end to the war until Israel achieves its aim of eliminating Hamas’ armed wing and finishing off Hamas’ rule in Gaza. He contends that Israel will not withdraw from the Gaza side of the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow buffer zone on both sides of Egypt’s border with Gaza. He argues Israel’s forces must remain to prevent weapons smuggling. He will not permit the return of Hamas fighters to northern Gaza and Israel will “maximise” the number of hostages to be returned. (What does this mean? That some will remain in Gaza?) Netanyahu also argues that Israel will not free certain Palestinian security prisoners. Popular Fatah West Bank leader Marwan Barghouti is among those demanded by Hamas but, for Israel, he is a permanent lifer.

Netanyahu has flatly refused to make plans for the governance of post-war Gaza but, according to The Washington Post, he and Hamas have approved an interim security arrangement involving a US-trained force of Authority supporters. This would not be popular with Gazans.

Following the 1993 Oslo accords, US Lieutenant General Keith Dayton supervised the creation and training of Palestinian Authority security forces which became known as “Dayton’s forces.” They cooperated with Israeli intelligence and armed forces while failing to protect Palestinians from Israeli troops and settlers.

An independent Palestinian police force is essential as law and order has totally broken down in Gaza. While Israel’s blockade has restricted existential supplies, looting of aid lorries by desperate Palestinians and criminals and fighting have prevented the delivery of water, food, and medicine to thirsty, hungry, sick and wounded Gazans and fuel for surviving hospitals, water and sewage plants, bakeries, and communal kitchens which feel hundreds of thousands daily.

Unlike Netanyahu, Hamas has a plan for governing post-war Gaza. Hamas’ politburo member Hossam Badran told Agence France-Presse, “We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war.” He argued, “The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter [which should be without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties.”

A second, unnamed Hamas official said this proposal was put to the Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediators. This government would “manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections.”

While Netanyahu has demanded conditions for acceptance, Hamas has dropped its demand for a written guarantee for a “permanent end to hostilities” with “a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza” and to accept UN Security Council reassurances. These amount to nothing since the US and its Western allies refuse to exert pressure on Netanyahu.

To boost Hamas’ standing in the staggering talks, Lebanon’s Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last week declared that Hamas is conducting negotiations on behalf of the Axis of Resistance and said its members would cease operations without separate talks. “Should there be a ceasefire agreement, which we hope for, our front will undoubtedly cease fire, as happened during the previous truce,” he stated.

In addition to Hamas and Hizbollah, his announcement involves Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank; Iraq’s Shia militias which have, sporadically, targeted US forces in Iraq; and Yemen’s Houthis who have been striking at Red Sea shipping, which accounts for 11 per cent of the global total. This would, presumably, include the Axis of Resistance’s sponsor, Iran which, after warning Israel and its allies, fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in April. Most were intercepted en route, as Iran intended, but there would be no forewarning of subsequent attacks.

Nasrallah was responding to Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant’s July 8th demand for a separate agreement with Hizbollah. Nasrallah also warned that heavily armed Hizbollah would “not tolerate any attack on Lebanon should there be a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Since Hamas’ deadly raid into southern Israel on October 7th, Hizbollah and Israel have exchanged daily cross-border fire which has killed nearly 400 fighters and 95 civilians in Lebanon and 20 soldiers and 12 civilians in Israel. Around 90,000 civilians on each side of the Lebanese-Israeli border have been driven from their homes.