Why any ceasefire in Gaza will not hold
The New York Times Magazine just published a comprehensive and detailed account of how Netanyahu has been prolonging the war since early 2024. By all indications, this policy trajectory continues and applies to both Gaza and to a future, second strike against Iran, as Netanyahu himself attested during his visit to Washington during the past week.
How does this affect the chances of a ceasefire? The endless talk and abundant speculation of an imminent Gaza ceasefire has become tragically tedious and predictable, with each day bringing a combination of reasons why a deal is just around the corner and the caveat that it won't last. There's an explanation for that: the deal that is being negotiated at varying pace – which includes a 60-day ceasefire, a partial exchange of 10 live Israeli hostages and 18 deceased hostages, in exchange for an undisclosed (but large) number of Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of terrorism and murder – is partial. It is supposed to lead to a bigger agreement, and thus its principles, tenets and stages are derived from that 'postwar Gaza' framework. On that framework the sides are not even close. In fact, it is safe to assume that even if a ceasefire deal is struck in the next days or weeks, its durability is highly questionable. It is almost inevitably doomed to be violated just like the almost identical truce agreement that was in place in January, lasted for 58 days and was then breached by Israel in mid-March.
The reasons for this realistic but patently pessimistic outlook are both substantive and political and are manifest in glaring inner contradictions between the two phases.
There is a series of unanswered questions underlining the current negotiations, with a short answer to each: will Hamas stay in power? De facto yes, according to the current deal. No, according to the postwar plans that Israel, the US and some Arab countries are considering.
Will Israel redeploy and gradually withdraw from the Gaza Strip? Yes, according to the agreement. No, according to Israel, which insists on large and wide buffer zones and total control over Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
Are these reconcilable? Of course not.
Then comes the question of what guarantees exactly did the US provide Hamas that Israel will not resume the war after 60 days? Unclear. How are those assurances consistent with a postwar plan that disposes of Hamas? They are not.
Who is in charge of humanitarian aid and the supply of food and medicine to Gaza? Not clear.
What is included in the so-called 'postwar Gaza' political plan and power structure? The US is favorably considering a primarily Emirati plan, which others, but not Israel, have contributed to. The plan has five main principles, all based on the successful implementation of the 60-day cessation of hostilities:
A gradual transition to governance by 'non-Hamas Palestinians״ backed by five Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
A security force will be drawn from some of those countries, backed by US private contractors and possibly a US Command and Control center, situated outside Gaza.
The plan will be launched after the Palestinian Authority invited those countries to execute the plan. That way, the Palestinian Authority is involved, but Israel could credibly claim that it is not a part of the governing structure.
The Arab partners will vet, recruit and train a new security force and raise the necessary funds (estimated in excess of $60bn) for Gaza rebuilding.
This plan will impel the Palestinian Authority to reform and become a reliable interlocutor.
Does Israel agree to such a plan? No. Does it have an alternative plan? Not really.
And that brings us to the second paradox that dooms a long-term agreement: the so-called ' humanitarian city '. The term is morally depraved Orwellian 'Newspeak' likely borrowed from some third-rate dystopian sci-fi movie and the would-be place has been described as a location for ethnic cleansing and forcible displacement.
Clearly, in order to advance this patently unviable objective (which the Israeli military opposes vehemently) Israel needs to maintain vast military presence in Gaza.
So yes, a temporary ceasefire agreement is possible and should be welcomed given the alternative. But no, this does not portend any permanent agreement as long as Mr Netanyahu believes the war must continue.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Humanitarian city' would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM
The 'humanitarian city' Israel's defence minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, Israel's former prime minister Ehud Olmert has told the Guardian. Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert said, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation. 'It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,' he said, when asked about the plans laid out by Israel Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said. Katz has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the 'humanitarian city' on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population. 'If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new 'humanitarian city', then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn't yet happened,' Olmert said. That would be 'the inevitable interpretation' of any attempt to create a camp for hundreds of thousands of people, he said. Olmert did not consider Israel's current campaign was ethnic cleansing because, he said, evacuating civilians to protect them from fighting was legal under international law, and Palestinians had returned to areas where military operations had finished. The 'humanitarian city' project is backed by Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel's refusal to withdraw from the area Katz envisages for the camp is a sticking point in the faltering negotiations for a ceasefire deal, Israeli media have reported. Olmert said that after months of violent rhetoric, including calls from ministers to 'cleanse' Gaza and projects to build Israeli settlements there, government claims that the 'humanitarian city' aimed to protect Palestinians were not credible. 'When they build a camp where they [plan to] 'clean' more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save [Palestinians]. It is to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have, at least.' Israeli human rights lawyers and scholars have described the plan as a blueprint for crimes against humanity and some have warned that if implemented, 'under certain conditions it could amount to the crime of genocide'. Other Israelis who have described the planned 'humanitarian city' as a concentration camp have been attacked for invoking comparisons to Nazi Germany, when the government says it is designed to protect Palestinians. Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial centre, accused one journalist of 'a serious and inappropriate distortion of the meaning of the Holocaust'. Olmert, who led Israel from 2006 to 2009, spoke to the Guardian on the day funerals were held in the occupied West Bank for two Palestinian men, one an American citizen, who had been killed by Israeli settlers. The latest deaths came after a campaign of violent intimidation that has forced the residents of several villages to flee their homes over the past two years. The attacks were war crimes, Olmert said. '[It is] unforgivable. Unacceptable. There are continuous operations organised, orchestrated in the most brutal, criminal manner by a large group.' The attackers are often called 'hilltop youth' in Israel and described as fringe extremists. Olmert said he preferred the term 'hilltop atrocities' to describe the young men whose campaign of spiralling violence was carried out with near-total impunity. 'There is no way that they can operate in such a consistent, massive and widespread manner without a framework of support and protection which is provided by the [Israeli] authorities in the [occupied Palestinian] territories,' he said. Olmert described extremist cabinet ministers who backed violence in Gaza and the West Bank – where they have authorised major settlement expansions and control law enforcement with a view to expanding the borders of Israel – as a greater threat to the country's long-term security than any external foe. 'These guys are the enemy from within,' he said. Extreme suffering in Gaza and settler atrocities in the West Bank were fuelling growing anger against Israel that cannot all be written off as antisemitism, Olmert said. 'In the United States there is more and more and more expanding expressions of hatred to Israel,' he said. 'We make a discount to ourselves saying: 'They are antisemites.' I don't think that they are only antisemites, I think many of them are anti-Israel because of what they watch on television, what they watch on social networks. 'This is a painful but normal reaction of people who say: 'Hey, you guys have crossed every possible line.'' Attitudes inside Israel might start to shift only when Israelis started to feel the burden of international pressure, he said, calling for stronger international intervention in the absence of serious political opposition at home. He also criticised the Israeli media for its failure to report on violence against Palestinians. Olmert backed the initial campaign against Hamas after the 7 October 2023 attacks. But he said that, by this spring, when the Israeli government 'publicly and in a brutal manner' abandoned negotiations for a permanent end to fighting, he had reached the conclusion his country was committing war crimes. 'Ashamed and heartbroken' that a war of self-defence had become something else, he decided to speak out. 'What can I do to change the attitude, except for number one, recognising these evils, and number two, to criticise them and to make sure the international public opinion knows there are [other] voices, many voices in Israel?' he asked. He attributed what he called war crimes to negligence and a willingness to tolerate unconscionable levels of death and devastation, rather than an organised campaign of brutality. '[Did commanders] give an order? Never,' Olmert said. Instead, he believes the military looked away when things were done that would inevitably 'cause the killing of a large number of non-involved people'. He said: 'That is why I cannot refrain from accusing this government of being responsible for war crimes committed.' Despite the devastation in Gaza, as the last Israeli premier to seriously attempt to reach a negotiated solution with Palestinians, Olmert still hopes that a two-state solution is possible. He is working with the former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa to push for one internationally, and even believes that a historic settlement could be in reach – an end to the war in Gaza in exchange for normalisation of ties with Saudi Arabia – if only Netanyahu was able or willing to take it. Instead Olmert was stunned to see Netanyahu, a man who has an arrest warrant for war crimes from the international criminal court, nominating Donald Trump for a Nobel peace prize. Additional reporting by Quique Kierszenbaum
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Why is Putin pushing Tehran towards Trump's nuclear deal?
As an old ally of Iran, the Kremlin's position has long been that the regime has the right to develop nuclear energy, while acknowledging that Tehran's race for a bomb should be curtailed. So reports this weekend that Russia is leaning on Iran to accept a deal that denies it the right to enrich uranium for any purpose have provoked a typically caustic response from Moscow. Any suggestion that President Putin hoped to pressure Tehran into such a nuclear deal with the United States, said Russia's foreign ministry on Sunday, was part of a 'dirty, politicised campaign, which is being hatched with the aim of escalating tension around the Iranian nuclear programme'. Moscow's protests, however, may hide a more subtle approach than it wants to admit. Sources familiar with the discussions told Axios that Putin had informed President Trump and Iranian officials that he supported the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium. Moscow had encouraged the Iranians to agree to this 'zero enrichment' condition, according to four officials — three European and one Israeli — with knowledge of the matter. • Trump says Putin 'just wants to kill people' — is their bromance over? Two sources told Axios that the Russians had also briefed the Israeli government about Putin's position on Iran's uranium enrichment. 'We know that this is what Putin told the Iranians,' a senior Israeli official said. A European official told Axios: 'Putin would support zero enrichment. He encouraged the Iranians to work towards that in order to make negotiations with the Americans more favourable.' Putin was also said to have expressed that position in calls last week with Trump and President Macron of France. So far, the Iranians appear to have rejected Putin's overture, but the claims suggest that the Kremlin's strategy on any nuclear deal is more nuanced than it is prepared to let on. Russia and Iran have a long-standing bond, and their forces cooperated for years in Syria in support of President Assad, before his regime collapsed in December. Ties strengthened after Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Russia joined Iran as one of the most heavily sanctioned states in the world. Iran exported thousands of Shahed drones to Moscow for use in its attacks on Ukrainian cities, although the reliance has since diminished after Russia increased production of its own attack drones. The Kremlin's challenge over Israeli and American airstrikes on Iran last month and Trump's push for a nuclear deal is intended to balance several competing interests. Conflict in the region holds the promise of rising oil prices — advantageous to Russia as a major producer — and a distraction from continued attacks on Ukraine, condemned in the West. But the Kremlin shied away from providing explicit security guarantees to Iran when they agreed on a strategic partnership in January. After Israel launched its strikes, Russia disappointed Tehran by providing only verbal support. The dangers posed by the potential for further Israeli strikes were underlined on Sunday when it emerged that Iran's President Pezeshkian was wounded in the leg and forced to escape through an emergency hatch when Israel struck a meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council with six missiles during the 12-day war. Experts said that Moscow was probably pushing for a deal because it is wary of Iran disintegrating under renewed assault, which could threaten Russia's economic interests. Russia was Iran's biggest foreign investor last year, and its specialists are deeply involved at Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran, which was built by Russia's atomic energy agency, Rosatom. Iranian nuclear scientists have also been trained in Russia. There are plans to build a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Iran via Azerbaijan, and an albeit faltering project for Moscow to help construct a gas hub for exporting supplies to third countries. 'The main problem faced by Russia in the current circumstances is the threat to all the projects in Iran in which it has been actively investing since 2022,' said Nikita Smagin, an expert on Iranian affairs and Russian policy in the Middle East, in a recent analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'If Iran becomes permanently unstable as a result of the current attacks, then both the gas hub and other more realistic projects will go up in smoke, along with the investments already made.' Iranian sources claimed on Sunday that Putin had not urged Tehran to accept a 'no enrichment deal'. The Washington Post reported that, amid a power struggle among Iranian elites, those advocating negotiation with the US over the nuclear programme may increasingly have the upper hand over those favouring confrontation. Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran and energy at Eurasia Group, predicted Iran would remain intransigent, but noted its position now looked starker. 'Russia pushing zero enrichment won't be enough to move Tehran, but it does underscore Iran's growing isolation, especially with the E3 threatening snapback,' he said, referring to Britain, France and Germany, the three signatories to the original deal with Iran in 2015, and the fact they could reimpose previously-lifted UN sanctions.
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Six children among the dead after Israeli missile 'error' sees strike hit crowds of people queueing for water in Gaza
At least six children have been killed after an Israeli missile strike malfunctioned and landed on a crowd of people queuing for water, it has been claimed. The strike, which killed a total of ten people and injured 17 others, hit a water distribution point in the Nuseirat refugee camp according to Gazan officials. Witnesses said a drone fired a missile at people who were filling up their jerry cans next to a water tanker. However, Israel said the missile had been intended for an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but a malfunction caused it to fall 'dozens of metres from the target'. 'The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians,' it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review. It also insisted that it works to mitigate civilian harm 'as much as possible'. Water shortages in Gaza have worsened in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close. As a result people, have become dependent on collection centres to fill up their plastic containers. Hours after the water tanker incident, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike in a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Palestinian media reported. And early on Sunday morning a missile hit a house in Gaza City where a family had moved to after receiving an evacuation order from their home. Anas Matar, whose family members were killed, said: 'My aunt, her husband and the children, are gone. 'What is the fault of the children who died in an ugly, bloody massacre at dawn? 'They came here, and they were hit. There is no safe place in Gaza.' Khaled Rayyan said he was woken by the sound of two large explosions after a house was hit in Nuseirat. 'Our neighbour and his children were under the rubble,' he said. Another resident, Mahmud al-Shami, called on the negotiators to secure a deal. 'What happened to us has never happened in the entire history of humanity,' he said. 'Enough.' The Hamas-backed Gaza health ministry said on Sunday more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war, with 139 added to the death toll in the past 24 hours. The conflict began when Hamas militants stormed into Israel in October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Of the 251 people taken hostage by militants that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
