Organizing and actions to resist the moral, environmental and financial bankrupting of the U.S. through wars against the poor, at home and abroad.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Gaza Hostage Exchanges On Hold As Israel Repeatedly Violates Ceasefire Terms
Students and community members outside the Shabab Al-Dalou encampment yesterday chanting their support for campers inside. Photo source: Brianna Soukup/Portland Press Herald
Awakening to news that Bowdoin's Shabab Al-Dalou encampment concluded yesterday evening in a deal between Students for Justice in Palestine and college administration, I don't have many details yet. While we await word of the details of the deal and next steps, you can check out the student newspaper's coverage and this article in the nearby Portland Press Herald.
Meanwhile, the Gaza ceasefire deal is unraveling and 47 is threatening to unleash "hell" there. Clearly he has only a vague understanding of what that word means. What in fact could be more hellish than the past 15 months of bombardment, starvation, and torture inflicted on Gazans?
Here is a blog post on Palestine Will Be Free on the subject of how the Zionist regime has specifically not honored the terms of the ceasefire, and what Hamas leadership have decided to do about it.
Gaza ceasefire collapse imminent? Hamas suspends prisoner release due to Israeli violations, Trump says 'let hell break out'
Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement in Gaza dozens of time since it came into effect on January 19.
Hamas has indefinitely postponed the scheduled release of Israeli prisoners in exchange for Palestinian hostages in Zionist dungeons, citing repeated ceasefire violations and “non-compliance with the terms of the agreement” by Israel. Hamas’s decision has seen the Israeli regime intensify drone surveillance over Gaza and put its military on alert, increasing the likelihood of its genocidal war resuming soon with the full backing of its primary arms dealer, the United States.
On Monday night, Abu Obeida, the spokesman of Hamas’s military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement announcing the resistance’s decision:
Over the past three weeks, the resistance leadership has monitored the enemy’s violations and non-compliance with the terms of the agreement, such as delaying the return of displaced persons to the northern Gaza Strip, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Gaza Strip and the failure to bring in relief supplies of all kinds as agreed upon, while the resistance fulfilled all its obligations.
Accordingly, the handover of the Zionist prisoners who were scheduled to be released next Saturday, February 15, 2025, will be postponed until further notice, until the occupation commits and compensates the benefit of the past weeks and retroactively, and we affirm our commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the occupation commits to them.
Later, Hamas issued a statement listing all the ways the Israeli occupation has reneged on the terms of the agreement and how no action has been taken to redress its concerns despite repeated protestations:
Hamas affirms its commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the Zionist occupation abides by them.
Hamas has fulfilled all its obligations precisely and within the agreed deadlines.
The occupation has not adhered to the terms of the agreement and has committed multiple violations, including:
Delaying the return of displaced persons to northern Gaza.
Targeting our people with bombings and gunfire, killing many across various areas of the Strip.
Obstructing the entry of essential shelter supplies, including tents, prefabricated homes, fuel, and rubble removal equipment needed to retrieve bodies.
Delaying the entry of medical supplies and necessities required to restore hospitals and the healthcare sector.
Hamas has documented the occupation’s violations and continuously provided them to mediators, yet the occupation persists in its breaches.
Hamas calls for strict adherence to the agreement and not subjecting it to selectivity, by prioritizing less critical matters while delaying and obstructing the most urgent and important ones.
The postponement of prisoner releases serves as a warning message to the occupation and a means of exerting pressure for precise compliance with the agreement’s terms.
Hamas deliberately made this announcement five full days before the scheduled prisoner exchange in order to give mediators sufficient time to pressure the occupation into fulfilling its obligations and to keep the door open for implementing the exchange on time if the occupation adheres to its obligations.
Trump, who has doubled down on his statement about ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza to turn the enclave into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” has termed the Hamas statement “terrible.” Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump gave Hamas a Saturday noon deadline to release all Israeli prisoners at once, not in “dribs and drabs” otherwise “all bets are off and let hell break out”.
“But as far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday 12 o’clock — I think it’s an appropriate time — I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said.
As Hamas outlined in its statement, it is abiding by the rules of the agreement. What Trump labelled as “dribs and drabs” is exactly how the prisoner exchange was supposed to be done in a deal brokered by none other than his incoming administration. The potential unravelling of the agreement further underlines the vacuity of the deals and promises made by the United States.
“Trump must remember that there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the prisoners,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri reminded the American president. “The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters.”
After brokering a deal between the Lebanese resistance and Israel that was meant to see the Zionists withdraw from the Lebanese territories by January 26, the Trump administration extended the withdrawal deadline by another 30 days as the usurping Zionists dragged their feet on the agreement. The Israelis continue to violate the terms of the deal with impunity, having killed dozens of Lebanese civilians and detonated private property at will.
Trump appears to be dealing with the Palestinians in the same American spirit.
The first of the three-phase Gaza ceasefire deal came into effect on January 19. Over the following 42 days Hamas was supposed to release Israeli prisoners at regular intervals in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian hostages in Israeli dungeons. Hamas has released 16 Israelis in five batches so far and was scheduled to release more this Saturday before its sudden announcement. Talks for the second phase of the ceasefire deal were set to begin on February 3, but the Israelis have been dragging their feet on it. Netanyahu ultimately sent a negotiating team “without the ability to do anything,” according to one Israeli source. It is anticipated that the Israeli side instead of negotiating the terms of the second phase — which would have seen high-ranking Israeli military personnel exchanged for popular Palestinian leaders serving multiple life sentences, and complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — is eager to extend the first phase of the deal beyond the agreed 42 days in a bid to retrieve all its prisoners and resume the genocidal assault on the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.
Emboldened after a visit to the White House where he gifted Trump two replicas of pagers that were used to conduct a mass terror attack in Lebanon in September last year (was it a hint for Trump?), Netanyahu is set to make demands that would never be acceptable to Palestinians. According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Netanyahu wants the Hamas leadership to be expelled from Hamas, its military infrastructure to be dismantled, and all Israeli prisoners be released. In effect, Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to give him on a platter all the things he couldn’t achieve through 15 months of genocidal assault on Gaza. This is a surefire way to scuttle the ceasefire deal and restart the genocide.
Meanwhile, the Jewish supremacist leaders in Israel are smacking their lips at the prospect of the collapse of the deal and resumption of the genocide.
Soon after Hamas’s announcement, the Israelis, ever ready for slaughter, increased preparedness for “any possible scenario in Gaza”. “I instructed the IDF to prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza and to protect the [border] communities”, declared Israel Katz, the Zionist war minister.
“Open the gates of hell on them,” finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has proclaimed. “We need to re-arrest the terrorists who were released and announce — if anything happens to any of our hostages — we are imposing sovereignty over another 5 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip. We have international backing for this.” He went on to add: “The territory will once again be part of the state of Israel, because it is ours and because this will ensure the security of the state.”
Others in Israel see the current climate as an opportunity to annex yet more Palestinian land beyond Gaza. “It is time to impose Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank,” said education minister Yoav Kisch. “The presence of the new US administration is a historic opportunity to impose sovereignty over the West Bank.”
Meanwhile, Palestinians in Gaza have continuously highlighted the dozens of violations of the ceasefire deal since it came into effect on January 19. The influx of aid isn’t at the level agreed to in the deal. The severe shortage of tents and mobile houses (not even one mobile house has been allowed in the enclave) has left the Palestinians facing inclement weather with no protection over their heads.
Some of the Israeli violations of humanitarian clauses in the ceasefire deal.
The Government Media Office in Gaza published a summary of Israeli violations of the humanitarian clauses of the ceasefire agreement:
12,000 aid trucks should have entered the Gaza Strip by now. Only 8,500 have entered. The Zionist entity has fallen short of its end of the agreement by 3,500 trucks.
50 fuel trucks were supposed to enter the Gaza Strip daily. Only 15 have entered daily. The Zionist entity has violated the ceasefire to the tune of 35 fuel trucks every day.
60,000 temporary mobile housing units were supposed to enter the Gaza Strip. Not a single unit has entered, preventing hundreds of thousands of Gazans from obtaining temporary shelter.
200,000 tents were supposed to enter the Gaza Strip. Only 20,000 have entered. The Zionist entity has failed to implement the ceasefire agreement, as 180,000 more tents are supposed to enter the Strip.
Moreover, even the Zionist guns haven’t fallen silent. Israeli snipers have killed at least two dozen Palestinians since the ceasefire came into effect. Dozens more have perished due to denial of medical services by the genocidal occupation.
The Geneva-based Euro-Med Monitor has recorded six deaths per day due to Israeli violations. “Euro-Med Monitor has documented the killing of at least 110 Palestinians since the ceasefire, with an average of about six deaths per day,” the human rights organisation said in a report last week. “These victims include both new fatalities, killed directly by the Israeli army, and individuals who succumbed to their prior injuries after Israel denied the right to travel abroad for treatment. Additionally, 901 Palestinians have been injured since the ceasefire, averaging 47 injuries per day.”
These violations notwithstanding, the Palestinian side has been still going through with the terms of the first phase of the deal. But with no end to the Israeli-American bloodlust and bombastic rhetoric in sight, they appear to have had enough.
Everything on Palestine Will Be Free will always remain free to read. If you find value in my work, please consider a paid subscription here or on Ko-fi or Patreon. It pays the bills and will go a long way in helping me continue this project. You can make a one-time donation here:
No comments:
Post a Comment