As the ceasefire brings some relief to Gaza, the future for Palestinians remains entirely unsettled and bleak
The rare and in this case perverse coupling of Dr. Martin Luther King Day with the inauguration of a President whose administration is studded with billionaires and dedicated to the reversal of many of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement follows an emotion-laded day in Israel-Palestine, during which three Israeli women, 69 Palestinian women and 21 Palestinian teenagers were released from captivity. The Palestinian women freed in the West Bank include the prominent human rights activist and legislator Khalida Jarrar, who had been held without charge and was prevented in 2021 from attending the funeral of her daughter; Shatha Jarabaa, who had been arrested for writing about “the brutality” of Israel’s war in Gaza in a social media post; and journalist Rula Hassanein, imprisoned for forwarding social media posts about the war.
The ceasefire agreement that became operational on Sunday, Jan. 19 after a tense three-hour delay, brought a pause to the ferocious Israeli bombardments that leveled those residential blocks in northern Gaza that were still standing and slaughtered as many as 140 people during the handful of days since the Prime Minister of Qatar announced on January 15 that a deal had been reached.
While now former President Biden in his farewell remarks to a church congregation in South Carolina declared that it was “our intensive efforts that led to the release of hostages and a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and an end to the war between Israel and Hamas,” it appears more likely that it was the pressure by Trump’s Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, that forced Netanyahu to accept essentially the same deal that Biden stated Israel itself had proposed in May 2024 (see text here). That deal was reportedly accepted by Hamas on May 6 – only to be finally rejected by Israel in July 2024. Since it was first put on the table, 11,000 Palestinians have been killed. The text of the new details added to the May agreement can be read here.
During the six-week-long first phase of what is intended to be a three-phase agreement, there will be a “temporary ceasefire” by both sides, and the release of 33 of the 100 or so Israeli hostages. About a thousand Palestinian prisoners are supposed to be freed, including 110 with life sentences, as well as many of the more than a thousand Palestinian hostages detained during the war and held as bargaining chips. (The next releases are scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 25). Six hundred trucks of humanitarian aid and fuel are supposed to enter the Gaza Strip each day, along with machinery for clearing rubble. (Some 630 trucksentered when the bombing finally stopped). The displaced are already returning to what remains of their homes in the north, and the Israeli army is supposed to gradually withdraw its forces from the center of Gaza (including, by the 22nd day, from the Netzarim Crossing) and station them in a 700 meter buffer zone along the entire border, which can be enlarged by 400 meters in five unspecified places. The army is supposed to “redeploy around the Rafah Crossing according to the attached maps” (which have not been made public).
The loopholes in the agreement are yawning. Unstated is exactly how, if at all, phase 1 is supposed to be monitored and kept on track. The example of the ceasefire in Lebanon – which Israel has been accused of violating more than 800 times – is hardly reassuring. Crucially, during phase 1 the parties are supposed to be negotiating details for phases 2 and 3, each of which is planned to last for additional 42-day periods. According to the Hebrew Broadcasting Authority, during that time the remaining hostages or their bodies should be returned, more Palestinian prisoners should be released, the Israeli army should fully withdraw from Gaza and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip should begin.
Israel’s far right is determined to undermine the first phase and ensure there is no second one. National Security minister Ben-Gvir and his Jewish Power party have already left Netanyahu’s coalition to protest its endorsement of what Ben-Gvir called “the reckless deal” that would leave Hamas “undefeated,” and Finance Minister Smotrich has said he would quit too if there was a move to implement a second phase. According to some reports, he has demanded assurances in advance that Israel would resume military action after the first phase or he and his party would leave the coalition. With his government hanging by a thread, Netanyahu declared on Jan. 18 that if negotiations for phase 2 do not go well and "If we need to resume fighting, we will do that in new ways and we will do it with great force."
So at this point it is wholly uncertain if this temporary pause will usher in a release of all Israeli hostages and a permanent end to the war. But some things do seem clear: the military might of Israel, reinforced by the unstinting supply of military and diplomatic support from the Biden Administration and weapons from other NATO countries, has succeeded in damaging or destroying 90 percent of the homes of the Gaza Strip and more than 60 percent of its buildings, including most of its hospitals and clinics. It seems likely that the loss of life is much larger than has been reported. A peer-reviewed statistical analysis in The Lancet medical journal found that more than 64,000 people are estimated to have been killed during just the first nine months of the war, well over half being women, children and the elderly. But despite the carnage, Israel has not, as Ben-Gvir complained, succeeded in defeating Hamas and other armed groups. Indeed, before he left office, Secretary of State Blinken warned that Hamas “has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.” Once the ceasefire took effect, masked and armed Hamas members paraded in Gaza’s streetsand others oversaw the delivery of humanitarian aid. In the words of former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy, “In blunt terms, Hamas are not only still standing, but they remain the most significant force in Gaza.”
If Israel appears to have no ‘day after’ plan or even a solid idea when the ‘day after’ will be, Smotrich does have such a plan: Israel must take over Gaza’s entire civil administration, reduce humanitarian aid to a bare minimum, fragment the Strip and remain in Gaza “for a very long time.”
Much depends on whether the Trump Administration gives a green light to the resumption of the war. Was Netanyahu persuaded to accept phase 1 because the war was becoming increasingly unpopular in Israel and his army was exhausted and even, as a piece in Haaretz claims, “in crisis”, or because he was assured in advance that there would be no phase 2? Did the US signal that it would acquiesce if Israel keeps its troops in southern Lebanon beyond the withdrawal date of January 26 stipulated by the Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement? Or was the Gaza temporary ceasefire sweetened by a promise that there would be no interference with Israel’s desired annexation of the West Bank or current occupation of land in Syria?
If Trump’s nominees are confirmed, Israel will have diehard supporters in key roles, including the next US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist minister who supports a Greater Israel from the river to the sea; the next US Ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik who is a leader in the domestic fight to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism; Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. In his Senate hearing to be Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth stated that he was for “Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas….I’m a Christian and I will robustly support the state of Israel in its existential war in Gaza.”
It is difficult to see either the current Israeli government or the new US Administration buying into Blinken’s ‘day after’ plan that sees rule in Gaza being handed over to a “reformed” Palestinian Authority (PA), trained by the US and acting in concert with the UN and international partners as it embarks on a pathway to an eventual Palestinian state. "Israelis must decide what relationship they want with the Palestinians. That cannot be the illusion that Palestinians will accept being a non-people without national rights," Blinken told the Atlantic Council on Jan. 14. Two days later, his farewell appearance before the State Department’s press corps was disrupted by Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal who yelled: “Why did you allow the Holocaust of our time to happen? How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?”
To demonstrate that it is ready to take on the militants in the Gaza Strip, the PA has played the role of Israel’s enforcer in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp. Beginning in early December, it has reportedlyused Israel’s tactics of placing the camp under siege and depriving residents of electricity and water in its effort to root out what it calls “outlaw elements.” By Jan. 8, 14 Palestinians had been killed in the battle between the PA security forces and armed resistance groups, including children and a journalist. The PA has suspended Al Jazeera and reportedly arrested and tortured journalist Jarrah Khalaf for filming Jenin Brigade press conferences. Israeli forces meanwhile continue hitting the West Bank with lethal drone strikes, with one killing two children near Nablus on Jan. 8.
At the same time, the US Congress is doing its best to ensure that Israel will not be held accountable by UN agencies. On Jan. 9, the House passed the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act placing sanctions on officials within the International Criminal Court (ICC) because of the arrest warrants it ordered for Netanyahu and Gallant. It was strongly opposed by human rights organizations but overwhelmingly supported by Republicans and 45 Democrats. The Republican-controlled Senate is expected to pass it soon.
In another blow to the effort to rein in Israel’s impunity, Ugandan jurist Julia Sebutinde, the sole International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge to rule against all the provisional measures - two of which were supported by the Israeli judge - passed to protect Palestinians in Gaza from acts of plausible genocide, has become the President of the ICJ. She ascended to that position after Judge Nawaf Salam became Lebanon’s new Prime Minister.
The failure of UN member states to protect Palestinian refugees now looms large, as two Knesset lawspreventing UNRWA from having contact with Israeli officials or operating anywhere in the sovereign territory of Israel (which in Israel’s view includes all of Jerusalem) and closing down its East Jerusalem office are due to take effect on Jan. 28. What will this mean for UNRWA-run schools, health care and humanitarian assistance in the 27 refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, as well the implementation of the ceasefire agreement?
Former UNRWA Communications Director Chris Guinnes has spelled out the implications not just for refugees, but for the status of East Jerusalem, where there are plans to turn the massive UNRWA headquarters into 1440 housing units for Jewish settlers. Writing that what is at stake is the further erosion of the international rule of law, he urges Secretary General Guterres to resist “huge pressure from Israel’s powerful allies” and “mobilise the UN system” to “stand up on behalf of a people the UN is mandated to protect and double down on those who are complicit in genocide.”
Will the UN be up to the task?
Nancy Murray, Allliance for Water Justice in Palestine