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Gaza Ceasefire Hangs by a Thread

John Clarke

On 2 March, with the threat hanging over the people of Gaza that full-scale military operations against them will resume, Israel blocked the passage of food and other aid into the enclave. This brutal measure was taken to try to force Hamas to agree to the extension of the first phase of the agreement which had just expired. Having refused to move to the second phase of the ceasefire, Netanyahu has threatened that, should Hamas reject Israel’s demands, there will be ‘further consequences’.

Hamas described Israel’s move as ‘cheap extortion, a war crime and a blatant attack.’ Egypt and Qatar, both mediators in the talks that led to the ceasefire, also condemned the curtailing of aid to the population. Egypt noted that ‘the actions violate the Fourth Geneva Convention,’ while Qatar called ‘on the international community to oblige Israel to ensure the safe and sustainable entry of humanitarian aid without obstacles.’ Other Arab countries issued statements deploring the move.

Al Jazeera suggested that ‘Israel is again using ‘food and water as a weapon of war for political gain.’ It added that when ‘it comes to water, for example, 80 percent of Gaza’s reservoirs have been completely destroyed along with the desalination infrastructure. So there is full reliance on the trucks that are carrying water supplies.’ The International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies noted that without ‘access to aid, people’s lives are on a knife-edge once again.’

Israeli extortion

Israel is using this form of extortion to try to avoid agreed-upon terms around the release of Israelis held captive in Gaza. It claims that a new US proposal would see half the captives released at the outset and the rest, once a permanent ceasefire had been negotiated. Hamas has rejected this ‘saying it would only release captives according to the original terms of the agreement, which stipulated that Israeli forces would permanently withdraw from Gaza and bring an end to the war.’

The US plan that Netanyahu refers to is the ‘Witkoff proposal,’ as he has described it. This is supposed to have come from Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff. The White House hasn’t actually confirmed this but, as Time strikingly puts it, it has made clear that it ‘supports whatever action Israel takes.’

Middle East Monitor confirms that this is the approach being taken by the Trump administration. It quotes National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes, who baldly asserted that ‘Israel has negotiated in good faith since the beginning of this administration to ensure the release of hostages,’ adding that: ‘We will support their decision on next steps given Hamas has indicated it’s no longer interested in a negotiated ceasefire.’

The US, as Israel’s main political sponsor and arms supplier, has now made its support unconditional when it comes to how the ceasefire is modified or revoked. It is very clear, moreover, that the Trump administration is ready to back Israel if it resumes full-scale military aggression in Gaza, even to the extent of assisting in an ethnic-cleansing project.

It was Trump himself who put forward a notorious plan to drive the people of Gaza out to neighbouring countries and turn the Strip into a luxury resort. DW In Focus reports that Trump has now issued a video that ‘featured Trump’s apparent vision for the future of the Gaza Strip. This includes a huge golden Trump statue, Elon Musk and Palestinian children throwing dollar bills into the air and Trump himself lounging bare chested, at a beach resort, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. An accompanying soundtrack contains the lyrics, “No more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here”.’

The ‘Riviera on the Mediterranean’ may be a fantasy but the readiness of the US to support Israel’s drive to complete its colonial project is all too real. Netanyahu calculates that he can force the extension of the first phase of the ceasefire and obtain the release of the rest of the captives without honouring commitments on troop withdrawal. If this succeeds, he will continue the attack on Gaza but, should Hamas refuse, he will feel that he has an adequate pretext to a return to genocidal slaughter anyway. The Trump administration will accept such a course of action and continue to provide the weapons.

Mondoweiss has argued that the ‘Trump White House has no substantive policy for Gaza or for Palestine. Israel is filling that vacuum with perpetual war.’ Unable to eradicate the armed resistance in Gaza or to transfer its population, Netanyahu is ready to continue the assault for as long as possible. As Al Jazeera has argued, ‘the inherently long-term nature of Israel’s genocidal policy in Gaza means that any ceasefire is inevitably temporary.’

Meanwhile, the drive to weaken Palestinian resistance and take more land is being ruthlessly pursued in the West Bank. The Times of Israel reported that over 40,000 residents of the West Bank have been forced to flee their homes and this represents ‘the largest displacement in the territory since the Six Day War in 1967.’ The genocide in Gaza has been temporarily halted but the pursuit of ethnic cleansing is being widened dramatically.

Even as Israel continues its onslaught on the Palestinians, it maintains its belligerent regional role. Attacks on Syria continue, with air strikes being conducted throughout the southern part of the country. The resumption of fighting in Lebanon remains a distinct possibility and, on 4 March, Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, even raised the possibility of conflict with the compliant Egyptian regime. He sternly warned that ‘we will not allow them [the Egyptians] to violate the peace agreement. We will not allow them to violate infrastructure. We are dealing with this, but the agreement exists.’

Regional threat

The Netanyahu government is enjoying a free hand to pursue its objectives but its strategy of perpetual war, as dreadful as the immediate implications are for the Palestinians, has the most disastrous regional implications. Whatever genocidal extremes are resorted to, the forced removal of millions of Palestinians is an unrealistic goal and, even if it were obtained, the results would be one of catastrophic political and social instability.

In this situation, even if they would prefer to find an accommodation with Israel, Arab leaders know that their collusion in a second Nakba would unleash such anger within the populations they rule over that their regimes would be threatened. On 4 March, an emergency Arab League summit was convened in Cairo, with the objective of advancing an alternative to Trump’s luxury resort plan for Gaza. It is unlikely that Israel or the US will agree to this but it does show that hopes for a solution in the form of mass displacement are not grounded in reality.

That Israel will break the Gaza ceasefire is unfortunately very likely indeed. That it will pursue its goal of completing its colonial project and pose a dire threat to peace in the region is inevitable. The Trump administration, full of diehard supporters of the Zionist project, sees Israel as an indispensable strategic asset and it is allowing Israel to act as it chooses. The ‘America First’ approach that led to such a sharp turn in the case of Ukraine and dealings with the European powers, isn’t likely to emerge in the foreseeable future, when it comes to support for Israel.

That being said, with the US playing the key enabling role, Israel continues to follow a course that is dangerous in the extreme. It is engaged in an ever-expanding round of military aggression with no realistic objectives in place. As the America First approach shatters long-established alliances and strains international relations to breaking point, the US’s regional enforcer in the Middle East is playing a very dangerous game indeed.

(John Clarke became an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty when it was formed in 1990 and has been involved in mobilising poor communities under attack ever since. Courtesy: Counterfire, a British socialist organisation that also runs a website.)

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UN Report Says Israel “Consistently Breached International Law” in Assault on Gaza

Andre Damon

Speaking before the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk accused Israel of an “unprecedented disregard for human rights” in waging its assault on Gaza.

“Nothing justifies the appalling manner in which Israel has conducted its military operations in Gaza, which consistently breached international law,” Türk said.

He said that “Israel’s means and methods of warfare have caused staggering levels of casualties and destruction, raising concerns over the commission of war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes.”

Türk’s remarks were an introduction to a 15-page report published this month by the UN Human Rights Office that accused Israel of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity.”

The report rooted the ongoing onslaught on Gaza in the more than half-century-long illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel. The report noted:

For more than 57 years, the Occupied Palestinian Territory—the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza—has remained under occupation by Israel, affecting all rights of Palestinians, including the right to self-determination. For over 17 years, Gaza has been subjected to blockades and closures amounting to collective punishment.

The launching of Israel’s assault on Gaza last year led to an unprecedented escalation of crimes against the Palestinian people. The report noted that “the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory worsened to an unprecedented extent, raising concerns about patterns of systematic violations of principles of international humanitarian law on the conduct of hostilities, many amounting to war crimes.”

The report declared that “the choices by Israel of methods and means of warfare have involved an unprecedented disregard for international humanitarian law and international human rights law … this raises concerns about the commission of war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes.”

The report documented, in systematic detail, multiple instances in which entire areas of Gaza were totally demolished in operations that killed hundreds of people. It noted:

The Israel Defense Forces conducted a major operation in Al Shifa medical complex in Gaza City between 18 March and 1 April 2024, including airstrikes and shelling, completely destroying the hospital facilities and severely damaging the surrounding residential area. At least 175 buildings were destroyed, and another 52 severely damaged within a 1-km radius of the medical complex between 1 and 31 March 2024.

In another massive bombardment, an “Israeli operation in Jabalya camp in North Gaza, a densely populated area of 1.4 square kilometers, between 11 and 31 May 2024, largely leveled parts of the camp and likely destroyed or damaged 460 buildings.”

The report alleges that Israel’s systematic withholding of food and other necessities of life from the population of Gaza “appear to indicate that the Israeli military is conducting mass forcible transfer with the possible goal of permanently displacing Palestinians from, at least, northern Gaza.”

The report declares that:

starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited by international law and constitutes a war crime. It may also constitute one of several crimes against humanity.

The report noted the incidence of “sexual violence in the context of detention” by the Israeli military. It noted that at least nine Israeli reservists are “accused of sexually abusing and torturing a Palestinian man detained at Sde Teiman military camp in Israel, as allegedly shown in a leaked video published by Israeli media.”

The report noted that “Palestinian journalists in Gaza continued to be killed in record numbers” and that 174 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since October 7.

The UN report comes as US and Israeli officials continue their incitement for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Last week, Nissim Vaturi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, called for the mass execution of Palestinian men. “The children and women must be separated, and the adults in Gaza must be eliminated. We are being too considerate,” he said. He subsequently called the people of Gaza “subhumans.”

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video showing Gaza turned into a Trump-branded resort called “Trump Gaza.” The video featured a golden statue of Trump on the coast of Gaza and footage of Trump and Netanyahu sunbathing on the coast next to the fictional resort.

The White House has meanwhile announced that far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the first figures in the Israeli government to openly call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, will be invited to meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington next Wednesday.

Smotrich, along with former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, had been advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza for over a year. In 2024, Smotrich told Israel’s Channel 12, “We want to encourage willful emigration, and we need to find countries willing to take them [the Palestinians] in. We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip.”

To date, 60,000 people have been killed in the Gaza genocide, and the implementation of any such plan would require a level of genocidal violence on a scale even greater than what has been carried out to date.

The plan by Smotrich and Ben-Gvir has, in fact, always been the plan of the Netanyahu government in perpetrating the Gaza genocide, despite the Biden administration’s claim to be seeking a “two-state solution.” The crimes documented by the UN Human Rights Office’s report were carried out with the weapons, money and political support provided by the Biden administration.

(Courtesy: World Socialist Web Site, the online publication of the International Committee of the Fourth International.)

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Extent of Systematic Torture, Atrocities Endured by Palestinians in Israeli Prisons is Shocking

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

The physical and mental health conditions of the Palestinian detainees and prisoners released during the seventh round of the ceasefire exchange agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip are shocking.

Israel’s release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, who arrived in the Gaza Strip recently in exceptionally poor health, illustrates its ongoing use of torture to terrorise and persecute prisoners and detainees and break their will until the very end of their detention. The effects of torture were clearly evident, with the emaciated bodies of the released individuals reflecting the severity of systematic crimes and inhumane treatment that exceed all legal and moral bounds.

The repeated release of such visibly unhealthy individuals from Israeli prisons reveals that the heinous torture and wilful medical neglect they endure have escalated to appalling levels. Euro-Med Monitor notes that the atrocities occurring in these prisons are among the worst violations recorded by human rights organisations worldwide.

In a blatant violation of the mandatory rules of international law—which forbid torture in all its forms and under all circumstances, without exception, and consider its commission an international crime that does not expire by statute of limitations—hundreds of released prisoners and detainees arrived in the Gaza Strip after midnight in exceptionally poor health. It became evident after their transfer to the Gaza European Hospital in the southern section of the Strip that dozens of them required urgent medical care because their bodies showed signs of torture and inhumane treatment, including deprivation of necessary medical care and treatment.

Along with severe weakness and exhaustion, the Euro-Med Monitor field team documented severe injuries among detainees and prisoners, including limb amputations and severe swelling brought on by torture. Some appeared incapable of walking without the assistance of friends, and others required immediate medical attention because their health was rapidly deteriorating.

Even though the majority of detainees were not charged with any specific crimes, many of them claimed that they were beaten, mistreated, and threatened right up until the very last minute before their release. Since being kidnapped from the Gaza Strip at various points following 7 October 2023, they were arrested or detained, tortured, and subjected to degrading treatment as part of a systematic policy designed to cause them severe physical and psychological harm. This policy is a part of Israel’s crime of genocide, which aims to destroy the Palestinian people in the Strip, either entirely or partially, by weakening the foundations of their survival and leading them to submission or extinction.

Furthermore, the Euro-Med Monitor team documented Israel’s ongoing use of psychological torture and humiliation against recently released prisoners through the enforcement of laws that directly incite violence and genocide. This official systematic incitement is a fundamental tool of Israel’s policies against Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip. One example of these measures is the prison authorities’ requirement that newly released inmates and detainees wear vests with official Israeli Prison Service slogans and threatening phrases in Hebrew, including religious quotations that express the principle of revenge and pursuit until liquidation. Additionally, they are forced to wear plastic wristbands with derogatory words printed on them to psychologically degrade them and highlight the fact that they are still being singled out despite being “free”.

The phrase “I will pursue my enemies and overtake them; I will not return until I have destroyed them” is printed on the vests of Palestinian detainees and prisoners who have been released, and is taken from a biblical passage (Psalm 18:37) that expressly calls for killing and genocide. This is a form of direct and public incitement to genocide, which is forbidden by Article 3 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

By depriving the Palestinians of their humanity and treating them as a legitimate target for killing and targeting, Israel’s actions go beyond psychological warfare and constitute a dangerous extension of institutional hate speech and a consolidation of the intention to commit genocide.

The violations which Palestinian prisoners and detainees are subjected to by Israel, whether while these individuals are being held or being released, gravely violate international law and represent a blatant disregard for its mandatory regulations that forbid torture and cruel or inhuman treatment without exception. The Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions provide complete protection for prisoners and detainees, and forbid torture, humiliation, or retaliation, making these crimes punishable by international law.

The death of detainee Raafat Adnan Abdul Aziz Abu Fanouneh (34), who was tortured and abused following his arrest in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, was announced yesterday (Wednesday) in Israel’s Shamir Medical Centre (formerly Assaf Harofeh). A minimum of 60 prisoners and detainees—as these are the only victims whose identities are known—have perished in Israeli occupation prisons since the beginning of the genocide, including at least 39 individuals from the Gaza Strip. This is the highest number ever.

Israel continues to commit the crime of enforced disappearance against hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, failing to disclose their whereabouts or medical conditions to their loved ones, which raises serious concerns about the safety and lives of the people being held. Israel also continues to conceal any information about them from the press, despite credible evidence that dozens of additional prisoners and detainees have been killed inside Israeli prisons and detention facilities.

In addition to being crimes against humanity and full-fledged war crimes, the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army and other Israeli security forces against Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip also amount to acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in the Strip, because they are carried out in a systematic and brutal manner. These acts include the killing of Palestinians and the infliction of severe physical and psychological harm, including torture, other forms of ill-treatment, and sexual violence, including rape, and are carried out with the goal of eradicating the Palestinian people as a whole.

All countries and pertinent international organisations must take swift and decisive action to end Israel’s widespread and systematic crimes of killing, torture, and other serious violations against Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Detainees who have been arbitrarily arrested must be released without conditions, right away. Additionally, local and international organisations must be given immediate permission to visit detainees, who must be allowed the opportunity to choose their own lawyer.

Israel’s notorious arbitrary detention practices, such as administrative detention and detention under the “Unlawful Combatants Law”, must be stopped. These practices are a blatant violation of international law and are employed as a systematic, repressive tool to weaken the Palestinian will, tear apart the social fabric that holds them together, and deny Palestinians their fundamental legal rights.

To ensure justice for Palestinian victims and that the Israeli occupation is held responsible for its violations, human rights and media organisations must step up their efforts to pressure Israel’s government to stop its ongoing crimes. In addition, these groups must work to highlight the suffering of Palestinian prisoners and detainees and to share these individuals’ testimonies about the horrific crimes they face.

The International Criminal Court must investigate the crimes, submit specialised reports regarding the crimes committed against Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, particularly after 7 October 2023, and issue arrest warrants for all perpetrators. All concerned nations must make sure the perpetrators of these crimes are prosecuted and brought before the Court to stand trial.

Israel must immediately cease its crime of enforced disappearance against Palestinian prisoners and detainees from the Gaza Strip; reveal all secret detention camps; reveal the names, whereabouts, and fates of all Palestinians it is holding from the Strip; and take full responsibility for the safety and well-being of these individuals. These demands must come from the international community.

(Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe.)