Truce deal phases could be skipped for resuming war

After months of sabotaging Gaza ceasefire proposals, Netanyahu manufactured melodrama when compelled to accept the plan announced by outgoing US President Joe Biden at the end of May last year. Before agreeing, Netanyahu created confusion and consternation by accusing Hamas of undermining the deal by seeking alterations. When his claims were not accepted and did not negate the deal, Netanyahu resorted to delaying tactics.

He postponed formal confirmation by shifting the meeting of his security cabinet and full cabinet from Thursday to Friday. The full cabinet debated the deal for hours in violation of the prescription to cease work on the Jewish weekly religious holiday, the Shabbat, which begins at sundown on Friday and extends until sundown on Saturday. Netanyahu did precisely what Israeli commentators predicted: he pledged to resume fighting after the first phase of the three-phase deal is implemented.

Since May, 10,000 Palestinians have been killed, Israel’s systematic devastation of Gaza has escalated and Israel has been accused of the war crimes of genocide, democide and citycide. Having continued the war until now for personal political reasons, Netanyahu has had to admit he has not achieved his primary war aims through military means: total victory through the elimination of Hamas and the retrieval of 98 Hamas captives.

The first phase of the negotiated ceasefire will at least suspend the war and return 33 Israelis held by Hamas. While Gaza’s Hamas’ administration has been largely uprooted, the movement’s paramilitary wing has recruited thousands of fighters to maintain its strength, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who is no friend of Hamas and Palestine.

Why did Netanyahu capitulate now to the same deal US President Joe Biden proposed six and a half months ago? US President-to-be Donald Trump claims his direct intervention convinced Netanyahu to agree. Trump — who is set to be inaugurated today — made it clear that he wanted the ceasefire in place before he moves into the White House. Since Trump is going to be in office for four more years, Netanyahu did not want to challenge him. Trump is transactional, vindictive, and vain.

During his first term in office, Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, closed the East Jerusalem US consulate which served Palestinians, shuttered the Palestinian mission in Washington, and defunded UNRWA, the UN agency serving Palestinian refugees. Trump also recognised Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights which Israel occupied along with East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967.

Netanyahu has a long list of favours he wants Trump to grant. Netanyahu seeks to dictate post-war plans for Gaza, including buffer zones, and management of Palestinian freedom of movement within the narrow coastal strip. He rejects any roles for Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and has suggested co-opting tribal elders to assume the administration although they have rejected this idea.

Arab governments have also refused to contribute troops to an international force to restore law and order to anarchic Gaza or provide reconstruction funds if Israel is directly involved.

Netanyahu seeks to shut down UNRWA at the end of this month, thereby depriving refugees of protection, shelter, food, education, health care, vocational training, and welfare services. Israel regards UNRWA as a quasi-state which preserves Palestinian identity and the Palestinian quest for self-determination in an independent state. Netanyahu rejects the “two-state solution,” which is backed by the international community.

Netanyahu also wants Trump to continue the provision of $3.8 billion a year in US military aid to Israel and Trump’s support for or acquiescence in Israel’s annexation of the main illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. What’s in the deal which benefits 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza? During the first phase 1,000 Palestinians detained by Israel since October 2023 will be freed and 600 lorry loads of food, water, fuel and medicine are meant to enter Israel daily. Israeli forces will pull back from population centres and unarmed Palestinians will be able to return to northern Gaza. Ill and wounded Palestinian civilians and combatants will be allowed to evacuate to Egypt for medical treatment.

During phase two all Israeli captives are to be released and Israel will withdraw totally from Gaza. During phase three there will be negotiations about governance of Gaza, the bodies of dead Israel captives will return to their families, and reconstruction will begin. However, as mentioned earlier, Netanyahu might skip the second and third phases and resume war on some pretext or the other. This would leave the people of Gaza, the UN, and international relief bodies only a brief window to improve the desperate situation of most Gazans. They could revert to inhuman pre-ceasefire conditions. These began to deteriorate two days after the October 7th, 2023, attack on southern Israel where Hamas killed 1,200 and abducted 251. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

This is exactly what has happened despite global pressure on Israel to provide Gazans with the necessities of life and avert war crimes and arrest warrants issued against Gallant and Netanyahu. Human Rights Watch, Al-Jazeera, and BBC Verify have drawn up separate reports which give an overall view of horrific conditions in Gaza. Ninety per cent of Gazans (1.9 million) have been displaced by Israeli bombing, shelling, and evacuation orders. More than 46,700 have been killed, 10,450 wounded, and 11,000 are missing, many under the rubble of their homes and shelters. Seventy per cent of fatalities are women and children,

A study by experts published this month in Britain’s medical journal The Lancet found fatalities could be 41 per cent higher than reported by the Gaza health ministry. Israel has deliberately obstructed Gazans’ access to potable water, food, and medicine. Ninety-one per cent have faced high levels of food insecurity and are at risk of famine. Half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals function only partially, and 1,060 medical personnel have been killed. Nearly 69 per cent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, 90 per cent of schools damaged and 83 per cent of mosques damaged or destroyed. Sixty-eight per cent of Gaza’s farmland has been ruined and agricultural infrastructure damaged or destroyed. In its 2025 world report HRW stated, “Israeli attacks and demolitions by combat engineers and military bulldozers (have rendered) much of the Strip uninhabitable, clearly constituting ethnic cleansing in some areas and violating Palestinians’ right to return.”