Finally Seeing Movement Toward A Gaza Ceasefire As Biden Moves Out Of The Way
It looks like we’re closer to a Gaza ceasefire deal than ever before. There are still a lot of things that could go wrong at numerous steps along the way, but it’s something, which is more than we’ve seen for the last 15 months.
As Antiwar’s Dave Decamp has noted, both AP and CBS News are reporting that Hamas and Israel have agreed “in principle” to the terms of a ceasefire, set to be rolled out in multiple tentative phases the details of which have yet to be fully nailed down. According to AP, the current deal would allow Israel the option of resuming its onslaught after a 42-day pause rather than moving on to the second phase of peace deals.
So it’s very, very far from perfect. But it’s something.
Though Biden and the Democrats are of course trying to take credit for these developments, according to Israeli media this sudden rush of movement after 15 months of stasis has been the result of pressures and negotiations from the incoming Trump administration.
According to the Israeli outlet Haaretz, president-elect Trump’s middle east envoy Steven Witkoff called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday to tell him he was coming to Israel to discuss ceasefire negotiations. Netanyahu’s people tried to tell Witkoff that it was the middle of the Sabbath so any meeting would need to be postponed, but Witkoff replied that the Sabbath was of no interest to him and demanded the meeting anyway. Haaretz reports that Netanyahu’s aides were taken aback by the bluntness of Witkoff’s response.
According to a report from the Israeli outlet YNet, Trump was able to persuade Netanyahu to agree to the deal by assuring him that he could back out of it at any time, along with pledging to remove sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers and the Israeli spyware firm Pegasus. So it’s not as though Trump has taken a strong position against Israel; he’s just doing something instead of nothing.
The deal that’s in the works is reportedly almost the same as the one Hamas agreed to all the way back in May of last year, which Netanyahu sabotaged with the complicity of the Biden regime. Biden could have ended this nightmare back in May, or indeed at any time since it began in October 2023.
Ever since the genocide in Gaza began it’s been an open question whether the Biden administration’s facilitation of the slaughter has just been standard US empire depravity, or an evil that would only have occurred under Biden. The fact that we’re now closer to a ceasefire than ever before, reportedly due to pressures exerted by Trump, suggests that the latter could be the case. It suggests that these 15 months of human butchery could only have occurred under a dementia-addled lifelong Zionist surrounded by Zionist puppeteers.
Trita Parsi wrote months ago that Biden’s completely unconditional facilitation of every Israeli demand is historically the exception rather than the norm under US presidencies. If Trump does in fact wind up presiding over a de-escalation in the genocidal atrocities in Gaza, this will have been officially confirmed. It will be a proven fact that a Biden presidency was the worst thing that could possibly have happened for the Palestinian people. That for 15 months a psychopathic apartheid state was essentially left unsupervised to do what it has always wanted to do to the Palestinians in ways it never could have under any other circumstances, resulting in unfathomable horrors we’ll still be learning details of for years to come.
I am still not sold on the idea that Trump will bring even a relative amount of peace to Gaza. I will need to see this reflected by the facts on the ground throughout his term. But if those facts prove what it seems they might prove, it means that Biden was an even bigger monster than anyone realized, and that anyone who supported his election was indisputably wrong to do so.
Just something to be aware of.
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/finally-seeing-movement-toward-a
Adrian Moza
“It suggests that these 15 months of human butchery could only have occurred under a dementia-addled lifelong Zionist surrounded by Zionist puppeteers.”
That’s a fact. It doesn’t mean the zionist criminals won’t start again under Trump but Biden, who stole the election in 2020, has been by far the worst “president” of all times and not only on Palestine.
He is a criminal and should pay for his crimes that include the genocide in Palestine and high treason by organizing the invasion of the US. I demand the death penalty.
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We have the terms of Gaza ceasefire deal:
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/al-mayadeen-obtains-terms-of-gaza-ceasefire-deal
Key terms of the agreement
1. Israeli forces are required to fully withdraw from all areas of the Gaza Strip and return to the pre-war borders.
2. The Rafah crossing must be reopened, with Israeli forces withdrawing entirely from the area.
3. “Israel” is mandated to ease the travel of injured individuals for treatment abroad.
4. “Israel” must permit the daily entry of 600 aid trucks, as per a humanitarian protocol backed by Qatar.
5. “Israel” must facilitate the entry of 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans for immediate shelter.
6. A large-scale prisoner exchange will occur, including the release of 1,000 prisoners from Gaza and hundreds of detainees serving lengthy sentences.
7. “Israel” is to release all women and children under the age of 19 from its prisons.
8. Israeli forces must gradually withdraw from the Netzarim corridor and the Philadelphi Route.
9. Displaced residents must be allowed to return to their homes, with guaranteed freedom of movement throughout the Gaza Strip.
10. Hostile aircraft must vacate Gaza’s airspace FOR 8 TO 10 HOURS DAILY (WHY NOT CONPLETELY?).
11. All hospitals in Gaza must be rehabilitated. Field hospitals, medical equipment, and surgical teams must be permitted entry.
Implementation phases
The first phase of the agreement, lasting six weeks, will involve the release of 33 Israeli captives, both living and deceased. This phase also includes the immediate return of displaced persons from southern Gaza to the north, facilitated by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from al-Rashid Street to the depths of the Netzarim corridor.
Subsequent phases will address the release of the remaining 66 captives held by Palestinian resistance factions.
If the deal succeeds, the gradual ceasefire could mark the end of more than a year of sporadic negotiations and result in the largest release of Israeli captives since the early stages of the war, when Hamas released roughly half of its captives in exchange for 240 Palestinian detainees.
In further detail, an Israeli official stated that negotiations were in advanced stages for the release of 33 of the remaining 98 Israeli captives, marking the first phase of the deal. In exchange, “Israel” will release 1,000 Palestinian detainees, according to a Palestinian source close to the talks, who added that the first phase would last for 60 days.
Meanwhile, Hamas fighters allegedly involved in Operation al-Aqsa Flood would not be released.
The Israeli official mentioned that the first stage of the agreement would involve the release of 33 captives, including “children, women, female soldiers, men above 50, and the wounded and sick,” as well as a GRADUAL, PARTIAL WITHDRAWAL OF INVADING ISRAELI UNITS (WHY GRADUAL AND PARTIAL?).
Commenting on the number of detainees, The Times of Israel considered, citing a copy of the agreement obtained by The Associated Press, that “Israel” will pay a steep price to secure the release of female soldiers being held captive.
Among the 33 would be five female Israeli soldiers, each of whom would be released in exchange for 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 convicted security prisoners who are serving life sentences.
OK.
WE KNOW THAT NOBODY CAN TRUST THE ZIONISTS, THE PROOF IS WHAT THEY ARE DOING IN LEBANON AFTER THE CEASEFIRE WAS SIGNED.
WE KNOW THEY WILL VIOLATE THE CEASEFIRE.
HOWEVER, IF GAZANS CAN USE THIS RELAPSE TO REBUILD, GET AID, SHELTER AND BRING BACK THE POPULATION WHILE THE RESISTANCE GET PREPARED FOR THE FUTURE, THIS IS GOOD.
TheAltWorld
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