Ceasefire in Gaza?

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington next week for a meeting with US President Donald Trump on a possible ceasefire deal with Hamas to free the remaining fifty hostages, Israel’s killing spree in Gaza continues unabated.

Israel mulls Gaza ceasefire

Trump, in his usual style has already announced in his social media account that Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and warned Hamas that if they do not agree ``IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” he added in capital letters. Qatar and Egypt have been working with the US to get the ceasefire deal through. Hamas has so far not responded.

Netanyahu met with his Cabinet over Sunday and Monday to discuss an end to the Gaza war, according to reports in the Israeli press. Expectedly there was no unanimity on ending the war. Israel’s army chief Eyal Zamir is said to have briefed the security cabinet and said that the condition of the hostages were deteriorating and felt it was time to stop the fighting. But he was opposed by hardline ministers like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who felt that IDF should not leave before Hamas was totally eliminated, as hostages could be rescued without ending the war. No clear decision was taken at the meeting, but considering that Trump wants to end the war, it may be difficult for Netanyahu to resist US pressure.

Killing the hungry

Perhaps aware that the Gaza war cannot go on indefinitely, the IDF action on the enclave will accelerate in a bid to get as kill as many Hamas fighters as possible. In the process if civilians get killed, including children that if part of collateral damage. Israeli soldiers have fired indiscriminately including on those waiting in food lines, these include young children. Since Israel with the backing of the US began tricking in food through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) a month ago to deflect outrage at cutting off supplies to the two million inhabitants of Gaza, the trigger happy IDF that oversees and controls food distribution have killed unarmed civilians.

According to the BBC more than 170 charities and NGO’s, including the UK’s well respected Oxfam and Save the Children have called for shutting down the GHF centres.

In the first eight days of the ``humanitarian’’ operation, soldiers killed a 100 civilians. On Monday an attack on a popular café, the only place where people had access to the internet, led 90-deaths in and around the port areas where the café is located. The numbers are growing by the day and likely to escalate as talks of a ceasefire gains ground. Israel’s oldest newspaper Haaretz, alleged that Israel has killed 17,000 children in Gaza since the start of the war in 2023. After around 500 Palestinians were slaughtered in the last month alone.

Rule-Based International Order

The leading world powers have watched in silence as Israel flouts every rule in the book with the mantra that ``Israel has the right to defend itself.’’

Unlike other countries Israel can kill civilians, including women and children, attack hospitals, UN workers, journalists and get away with it. Except for the Global South and nations like South Africa and Brazil, the liberal democracies of the West have not

by and large called out Israel. Ocassional feeble attempts by leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer fizzles out and is quite meaningless. The world has lost its moral fibre.

`` I will be surprised if anybody can argue that what Israel has done is not a breach of international law. This marks the complete breakdown of the ruled-based international order ’’ Chris Patten, conservative member of the Upper House, a well known British bureaucrat and the last governor of Hong Kong overseeing the return of the city state to China He also adds that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians will ultimately endanger the country’s security.

Patten says that the tendency to equate criticism of Netanyahu as anti-sematic frightens many liberals from criticizing Israel’s action. Patten admitted he himself is very careful to comment on Israeli action for being dubbed anti-Jew.