By ISL Coordination
Israel finally reached an agreement with Hamas on the first ceasefire since it launched its genocidal offensive in Gaza, and an exchange of prisoners has begun. The Palestinian people celebrated in the streets the end of the bombings and an agreement that they consider a victory of their heroic resistance. Netanyahu faces protests and a political crisis with his more extreme right-wing allies that reject the agreement. We will have to wait to see if Zionism complies with everything that was agreed.
After 15 months of constant bombings that have killed between 50 and 100 thousand Palestinians, most of them children and women, destroyed practically the entire Gaza Strip, leaving its 4 million inhabitants homeless and starving, terrorizing and humiliating them, the ceasefire was celebrated with euphoria. The respite to try to reunite, mourn loved ones and recover what can be recovered from the rubble is welcome. And the fact of having survived and still standing tall is an invaluable achievement.
There were no celebrations in Israel. Many interpret the agreement as a defeat and there were demonstrations against it. Several ministers resigned from the government. For Netanyahu, it is a step back, not having achieved the “total victory” nor the annihilation of Hamas and the Palestinian resistance that he had promised. It is the relatives of the Israeli hostages who have the greatest expectations of being reunited with their loved ones.
But the ceasefire is still precarious. On January 19, the first of the three announced phases came into effect. It involves a six-week halt in hostilities during which Hamas will release 33 hostages and Israel several hundred Palestinian prisoners. Israel should partially withdraw its forces to the east and allow the return of refugees from the south to the north of Gaza and the entry of 600 trucks of humanitarian aid per day.
However, Israel’s habit of systematically violating the agreements it signs is notorious. On the same day that the agreement was announced, it intensified its bombings, killing at least 113 people. The agreement provides Israel the right to resume actions in certain cases that are not clear. The agreement is also ambiguous on the partial withdrawal of Zionist forces and everything indicates that they would maintain control of the Netzarim Corridor, which divides southern and northern Gaza, and the border with Egypt. This would make it difficult for refugees to move from the north to the south and for humanitarian aid to enter.
The second and third phases, which would involve the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Strip and the release of all hostages, were left subject to subsequent negotiations that would be carried out during the course of the first phase.
It remains to be seen how the ceasefire will develop over the next six weeks, but the struggle to make it effective, to try all those responsible for the genocide, to stop the Zionist settlers in the West Bank and to completely defeat the Zionist enclave remains on the agenda.
The role of imperialism
Sponsored by the US, Qatar and Egypt, the agreement reflects the ultimatum that Israel received from Trump, who wants to begin his term by fulfilling his promise to end the conflict in Gaza. His goal is to prevent the crisis in the Middle East, which has opened a new chapter with the rebellion in Syria, from spiraling out of control and to allow the path of understandings with Qatar that were shattered on October 7 to be reestablished.
The imperialists are also aware of the erosion that Zionism has suffered in the last 15 months. The State of Israel has been unmasked and discredited among huge sections of the world’s population like we have not seen in the 76 years of its occupation. This weakens it in its role of gendarme for which it was created and was another factor in forcing Netanyahu to end the genocidal madness.
The mass movement against Israel’s crimes against humanity has developed around the world, with epicenters in the United States, Europe and Australia, where massive layers of the population have shifted their sympathy towards Palestine for the first time. For many governments, the support they provide to Israel began to have an annoying cost.
The pressure has been such that the International Criminal Court ordered the arrest of Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for war crimes. It has led dozens of countries to condemn the genocide. The Spanish government declared that it will recognize the Palestinian State, as did Norway and Ireland, and has asked Europe to stop sending weapons to Israel. Brazilian President Lula compared the current genocide to Hitler’s and withdrew his ambassador from Israel. Even the Pope condemned Israel’s “cruelty” with “characteristics of genocide” in Gaza.
On the other hand, it has become clear that, despite the tons of bombs, the bloody occupation of Gaza and the financial and military support of the US, Netanyahu did not achieve the central objective that he promised to Israeli society of ending Hamas once and for all. He was not even capable of freeing the hostages and if he continued there was no better outlook.
Although noticeably weakened, Hamas is who Israel had to negotiate this ceasefire and exchange of hostages, demonstrating that it continues to control the Gaza Strip.
In addition to the fact that Natanyahu has not achieved his stated objectives in over a year of brutal offensive, and the international pressure, the fact that large sectors within Israel believe that the government sacrifices the hostages in pursuit of other objectives has also added pressure.
All this has weakened Netanyahu to the point of having to accept an agreement that he never wanted and has put him on the verge of losing the parliamentary majority that keeps him in power.
The fact that Zionism’s main sponsor’s demand lies behind the agreement can also be seen in the date chosen to implement it, one day before Trump’s inauguration. The United States needs to prevent the spread of instability in the region and try to “normalize” the Middle East with the help of Qatar and the rest of the Arab bourgeoisie, who demand that Netanyahu be stopped and the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians be ended, without which any serious understanding is impossible.
Washington seems determined to maintain the ceasefire and end the open, visible and large-scale “war”, which does not imply prohibiting Israel from continuing with its colonial plan of ethnic cleansing, just on a less obvious scale and pace.
But the pressure from the ultra-right sectors within Israel is pulling in the opposite direction. Amidst right-wing mobilizations and street blockades against the agreement, the cabinet approved it, but with strong opposition from its most fascist sectors. National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and the ministers of his party withdrew from the cabinet, leaving the government only two deputies away from losing its parliamentary majority and having to resign. There are also reports that Netanyahu promised to resume the intense war in Gaza at the end of the first phase of the agreement in order to prevent Finance Minister Smotrich from resigning.
The Palestinian resistance
Hamas presents the agreement as a great triumph. Evidently, resisting the Zionist siege for 15 months demonstrates the heroism of the Palestinian masses and the ties that bind them to the organizations that have carried out the resistance. However, this cannot make us lose sight of the fact that Hamas has been greatly weakened, having lost its main leaders and a significant part of its structure in Gaza.
Its confidence in Iran’s support to confront Israel turned out to be utopian and, for the first time, it has lost a part of its social support in Gaza. In the best case scenario, if this agreement leads to the complete withdrawal of Zionist forces, the situation will return to what it was before October 7. But with 50 to 100 thousand killed, a devastating destruction and, very likely, a government controlled by foreign forces hostile to Palestinian self-determination.
The balance sheet of these months also includes the enormous blows that Zionism has inflicted on Hezbollah, Hamas’s only concrete support in the region. And the enormous weakening that losing the friendly government of Al Assad in Syria meant for Iran.
All this raises the need to open a debate with Palestinian fighters and throughout the Middle East on the strategy to follow in the coming period to confront the Zionist monster, which will try to regain the initiative and continue its colonization.
Redouble the resistance
While Qatar and other Arab regimes in the region support the strategy of the US and are anxious for a certain calm to allow them to return to their capitalist businesses. The situation among the working masses that they oppress with authoritarianism is quite different. It is they who hold the fundamental key to opening the path towards peace, which is only possible with the defeat of the genocidal State of Israel. Because only a revolution of the Arab masses would have the necessary strength to defeat that monster.
We call for the regrouping of the socialist and left forces in the region and for fighting behind the only program that can liberate the Arab masses once and for all: that of the socialist revolution to achieve a single, secular, democratic and socialist Palestine, within a voluntary federation of socialist republics of the Middle East.
In short, the genocidal strategy of the State of Israel has been dealt a blow and the Palestinian masses have gained a much-needed respite with this ceasefire. But the precariousness of the agreement makes the future very uncertain.
While this becomes clearer, we must redouble the mobilization in support of the Palestinian people throughout the world.
Courtesy International Socialist League
