BarcelonaOn October 10, the alleged cease-fire in Gaza that Donald Trump announced to great fanfare and that was supposed to be the first phase of his peace plan came into force. In this first phase, according to the US president’s 20-point plan, Israel was to stop its genocidal war on Gaza, withdraw troops and allow aid to flow in while completing the exchange of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners. But the reality on the ground is far from a minimal pacification: the Israeli army continues to kill the population of the Strip with bombs, hunger, cold and disease and continues to occupy two thirds of its territory, behind a line that seems more permanent with each passing day. Hamas expects to hand over the body of the last Israeli hostage it is holding in Gaza in the coming days and now the second phase should begin, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said will be launched this month.
How has this ceasefire, more declarative than real, worked in this first phase? And what are the options to advance in the second phase?
At least 386 civilians have been killed
The ceasefire exists only on paper. According to the Gaza authorities, Israel has violated it 730 times (this means an average of 12 attacks per day), including 205 bullet attacks on civilians, 37 military incursions into residential areas, 358 bombings and 138 demolitions of homes and other civilian buildings. In these 60 days, the balance is 386 civilians killed and 980 wounded, in addition to 43 arrested, according to the same count.
In a telephone conversation between the ARA and, from the center of the Strip, Samir Zaqout, co-director of the NGO Al Mezan, is pessimistic: “This ceasefire agreement is a kind of face wash. It only aims to deceive the solidarity movement with the Palestinians around the world, because the genocide continues in slow motion. Israel continues to kill and clean, erase and destroy. The whole thing is a farce.”
Israel occupies 58% of Gaza territory
The agreement envisages a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, with the disarmament of Hamas and the entry of an international force made up of Arab and Muslim countries to impose order on the Strip, a force that so far no one has offered to form. According to the plan, the Israeli army was to withdraw to the so-called yellow line, which was initially an ill-defined imaginary line, but which the army has materialized in the form of yellow-painted concrete blocks. Hamas accuses Israel of advancing that yellow line, displacing residents who remain on the other side and killing Palestinians who approach a boundary that is not clearly marked. Satellite images show that in some places the line is advanced hundreds of meters compared to the initial design.
Currently, Israeli troops occupy 58% of the territory of the Strip, which is mainly its agricultural area, in addition to the south, close to the border with Egypt. The two areas have been emptied following bombings and forced evacuation orders. The two million Palestinians who have survived the genocide are crowded into the remaining territory, along the coast: if Gaza was already one of the most densely populated areas in the world, it is now twice as dense. East of the yellow line, in the so-called “green zone,” Israel has said it will unilaterally launch its reconstruction plans.
Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said on Sunday that the army will maintain its current positions and that he considers the Yellow Line “a new border, which functions as a forward defense line for our communities and as a line of operational activity.” Trump’s plan specifies that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza,” but Tel Aviv applies fait accompli.
The Israeli army continues to occupy the 58% of Gaza
The Israeli army continues to occupy the 58% of Gaza
The Israeli army continues to occupy the 58% of Gaza
Killing of family and of fred
The ceasefire is not assuming any humanitarian respite either. Israel continues to block the entry of aid trucks through its border crossings, and also through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt. The ceasefire agreement foresees the entry of 600 trucks per day (which corresponds to the calculation made years ago by the Israeli authorities to subject the population of Gaza to a “thinning diet”), but the reality is that in these 60 days, according to UN data, only a total of 7,572 trucks have entered, far below the 36,000 committed. Counting commercial trucks, the total does not exceed 14,000.
The shortage of food, medicine, water and fuel is thus perpetuated: only 315 fuel trucks of the 3,000 planned for hospitals, bread ovens or water purification plants have entered Gaza. NGOs warn that the situation remains desperate, although cases of malnutrition are beginning to stabilize slightly. In October, UNICEF and other NGOs identified nearly 9,300 children under the age of five with severe malnutrition caused by the siege.
The situation will worsen this Wednesday with the arrival of polar storm Biron, which according to the Hamas authorities threatens to cause heavy flooding in the flimsy tents where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the Strip, with the coastal areas most affected.
At the same time, Israel, with a resolution of its Supreme Court that endorses it, continues to block the independent access of the international press to Gaza, in addition to the entry of many aid workers, and also the activities of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the only actor with real capacity for a massive distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
And the next phase?
Netanyahu has not yet declared the end of the war and the reality on the ground is not at all hopeful. But the truth is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now more dependent on the support of the Trump administration than ever to stay in power. “Israel has never had a leader in such a weak position, and the United States will never have a better opportunity to press for its agreement to go forward,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior fellow at Chatham House. Trump has supported Netanyahu’s request for a presidential pardon to free himself from the corruption cases that plague him, and Trump is also serving as a shield against his far-right partners, who continue to advocate the annihilation of Gaza and the total occupation of the Strip.
The second phase of Trump’s plan, which has the approval of European countries, including Spain, as well as Arab regimes, addresses the governance of Gaza the next day. The plan has won the support of the UN Security Council, with the abstention in the last vote by Russia and China, which until now had vetoed the resolutions against the Palestinians. It envisages a transition stage to a Palestinian technocratic government, under the supervision of a Peace Board, which was to be headed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair’s name seems to have fallen due to the opposition of the Arab countries – especially Egypt, Qatar and Jordan. Hamas and the other Palestinian factions reject any foreign tutelage over Gaza and have also opposed the Security Council resolution, which they consider “opens the door to impositions foreign to the Palestinian national will”.
The second phase should also include the disarmament of Hamas, which has been open to “freezing” the use of weapons, but not to handing them over. What is not at all clear is what negotiating capacity the Palestinian Islamist movement retains. And on the horizon it does not appear that Israel has any intention of recognizing the Palestinian state that the United States, Arab countries and Europe see as the definitive way out of the conflict.
