Falsely Blaming Hamas, Israel Breaks the Two-Month Ceasefire, Resumes Genocidal Slaughter in Gaza

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Early on Tuesday morning, from 2am, and with no warning, and absolutely no justification whatsoever, Israel violently broke the two-month ceasefire deal with Hamas, launching numerous military strikes across the Gaza Strip that killed over 400 Palestinians — mostly civilians, and including 174 children, 89 women and 32 elderly people. Overwhelmed, Gaza’s hospitals, most barely functioning, struggled to cope with the influx of the dying and the wounded. 

Dr. Abdul-Qader Weshah, a senior emergency doctor at Al-Awda Hospital, told Drop Site News, “Since the morning, we were horrified and awoke to the screams and pain of people. We’ve been treating many people, children and women in particular.” He added that medical staff had had to transfer some of the wounded to other hospitals because of a lack of medical supplies, saying, “We don’t have the means. Gaza’s hospitals are devoid of everything. Here at the hospital, we lack everything, including basic necessities like disinfectants and gauze. We don’t have enough beds for the casualties. We don’t have the capacity to treat the wounded. X-ray devices, magnetic resonance imaging, and simple things like stitches are not available. The hospital is in an unprecedented state of chaos.” 

Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera Arabic, “Every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources.”

In a chilling statement issued shortly after the airstrikes began, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, appointed in November as the replacement for the wanted war criminal Yoav Gallant by Israel’s other notorious wanted war criminal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that “the gates of hell will open in Gaza” and that Hamas would be hit with a force it has “never seen before” if it did not release all the remaining Israeli hostages.

Since the ceasefire began on January 19, after eight months in which its implementation was repeatedly scuppered by Netanyahu, Hamas, as agreed in the ceasefire deal, released 30 living hostages (25 Israelis and five Thai nationals), and also returned the bodies of eight others, while Israel, also as agreed in the deal, released 1,777 Palestinians from its brutal and widely-condemned network of prisons for Palestinians, including women, children, hostages seized in Gaza as bargaining chips after October 7, and hundreds of individuals convicted of crimes, with at least 130 of those released prisoners deported to Egypt.

All of the above took place during the first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal, when, in addition, Israeli troops withdrew from the populated areas of Gaza, only maintaining a presence close to the border, 600 lorries of humanitarian aid were meant to be allowed into Gaza on a daily basis, and Palestinians were able to return to their homes — or what remained of them.

Despite repeated violations of the ceasefire deal by Israel, including direct attacks that had killed 92 people as of mid-February, the ceasefire held throughout this initial six-week period. Palestinians triumphantly returned from exile in the south to their shattered homes in the north a week after the ceasefire began, and the resumption of significant aid deliveries helped to prevent what would otherwise have been a cataclysmic loss of life, even though, as the UN reported just before the attacks resumed, “overwhelming humanitarian needs remain.”

Israel’s refusal to implement the second phase of the ceasefire deal

However, when it came to implementing the second six-week phase, in which the remaining living hostages in Gaza — thought to consist of 24 individuals in total — would be released, in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners and hostages, and, crucially, Israel agreed that its forces would completely withdraw from Gaza, Israel blatantly refused to honor its commitment.

On March 1, as the first phase of the ceasefire deal came to an end, and after weeks of Israeli officials refusing to meet with Qatari and Egyptian negotiators regarding the implementation of the second phase of the deal, Israel suddenly announced that it was, once more, imposing a “complete siege” on Gaza, on the basis that Hamas was refusing to agree to a “temporary extension” of the first phase of the ceasefire deal, allegedly proposed by Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, which also apparently involved a demand that Hamas should immediately release half of all the remaining living and dead hostages, with the latter thought to number 35 individuals in total.

Although Witkoff, crucially, had not made his proposal public, Netanyahu’s office claimed that Israel had agreed to it, and blamed Hamas for refusing to do so, even though it clearly violated the ceasefire agreement reached in January.

According to Israel, Witkoff’s proposal was for the first phase of the ceasefire to be extended “for about six weeks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Jewish Passover periods”, as the BBC described it, adding that, “If, at the end of this period, negotiations reached a dead end, Israel would reserve the right to go back to war.” Israel also claimed that Witkoff had “proposed the temporary extension after becoming convinced that more time was needed to try to bridge the differences between Israel and Hamas on conditions for ending the war.”

In a violent and belligerent statement, Netanyahu’s office said, “With the end of Phase 1 of the hostage deal, and in light of Hamas’s refusal to accept the Witkoff outline for continuing talks — to which Israel agreed — Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease. Israel will not allow a ceasefire without the release of our hostages. If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences.”

Hamas, understandably, responded by stating that “blocking supplies to Gaza was ‘cheap blackmail’ and a ‘coup’ on the ceasefire agreement”, and they “urged mediators to intervene.”

Condemnation of Israel’s renewed siege was swift, and surprisingly robust — not only from UN agencies and NGOs, but also, as I described it two days ago, “from two of Israel’s staunchest supporters, Germany and the UK, whose foreign ministers joined with France ‘to warn that Israel could be in breach of international law by halting the entry of aid into Gaza.’”

The ministers added that Gaza was “facing a ‘catastrophic’ humanitarian crisis”, and also stated, “Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool. We reiterate that the civilians of Gaza who have suffered so much must be allowed to return to their homes and rebuild their lives.”

Two days ago, David Lammy, the UK’s foreign minister, stated that the Israeli government had committed “a breach of international law” by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, as Middle East Eye noted, adding that, when asked about the blockade and its consequences in Parliament, Lammy said, “This is a breach of international law. Israel quite rightly must defend its own security. But we find the lack of aid — it’s now been 15 days since aid got into Gaza — unacceptable, hugely alarming and very worrying.”

This was the first time that the British government had accused Israel of breaking international law, although words mean nothing without actions, and yesterday, as both Keir Starmer and the Foreign Office obeyed the edicts of their masters in Tel Aviv, and tried to walk back from Lammy’s rare acknowledgment of the truth, the world leaders queuing up to condemn the overnight airstrikes and the shredding of the ceasefire agreement looked as impotent as they have generally been for the last 17 months.

The only other country Israel really cares about is the US, and, after the “iron-clad” support of Joe Biden during the first 15 months of the genocide, Donald Trump — though obviously unreliable, prone to flights of fancy like his “Riviera” plan, and always at risk of changing his mind or simultaneously holding mutually incompatible points of view — was apparently informed in advance of last night’s attacks, and approved them. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News, “Hamas, the Houthis, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose.”

Internal Israeli politics – and the persistent problems with defining Hamas as terrorists

Even more significant than the US, however, is the internal politics of Israel itself, and on this front Jason Burke, the Guardian’s International security correspondent, managed to provide a decent outline of the various elements at play yesterday, even though he prefaced it with what might as well have been an advert for the resumption of hostilities by the IDF. “Israel now has capabilities it lacked six weeks ago”, he gushed, adding, “Ammunition stocks have been replenished — partly due to US deliveries — and new potential targets among Hamas’ leaders identified. Planes and other equipment have been repaired. Troops have been rested.”

What Burke neglected to mention was what was meant by “Hamas’ leaders”, as western countries’ cynical endorsement of Israel’s insistence that Hamas is a “terrorist organization” has always failed to recognize that, like resistance movements in occupied territories throughout history, it has both an administrative, governmental role, and a military wing.

This refusal to distinguish between administrative and military roles not only led to a disturbingly high number of targeted killings in Gaza of civilian officials and workers (and, in many cases, their entire families) throughout the first sustained 15-month phase of the genocide; it also, recently, led to the BBC’s cowardly decision to capitulate to Israeli pressure and remove from its website a commendable documentary about the suffering of children in Gaza, “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone” (available here), because the narrator, 13-year old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, is the son of Hamas’ deputy agriculture minister, a role that clearly has no connection whatsoever with any kind of militancy or terrorism, and which also ignores Abdullah’s eloquence, and his potential to be a future, and significant Palestinian political figure.

Similarly, yesterday, as Israel once more returned to lying about hitting “terror targets” as it slaughtered civilians, its claims should not be taken at face value. As the government media office in Gaza reported, the five “Hamas leaders” killed — with their families — were touted as terrorists by Israel, but were primarily responsible for maintaining order within Gaza itself.

They were: Issam al-Daalis, a former assistant director, union leader and teacher at UNRWA, and also a member of Hamas’s political bureau and the head of the Government Follow-up Committee in Gaza, described in media reports as having been Hamas’ leader, akin to a Prime Minister; Ahmed Omar al-Hatta, the deputy minister of the justice ministry; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the deputy interior minister, who “oversaw the maintenance of security and order” within Gaza; Bahjat Hassan Abu Sultan, the director-general of the internal security service; and Abu Obeida al-Jamasi, a political bureau member and the head of the emergency committee in Gaza.

While Burke glossed over the details of Israel’s “targeting”, he did at least provide some context for the resumption of Israeli aggression within Israel itself, noting that, while it seems reasonable to assume that Netanyahu “never had any intention of moving to the second phase of the ceasefire”, and relinquishing Israel’s military presence in Gaza, the timing of the renewed assault may well involve the fact that he “needs support from rightwing allies to win crucial votes in Israel’s parliament in coming days and weeks, and to maintain his grip on power.”

Netanyahu’s coalition government was weakened when the ceasefire began, and the vile far-right settler minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, notoriously put in charge of Israel’s prisons and the police, resigned, and withdrew the support of his Jewish Power party, and it is undoubtedly significant that, just hours after last night’s deadly airstrikes, Ben-Gvir and his party rejoined the government.

Also of significance, as Burke noted, is Netanyahu’s sordid effort to use the “war” on Gaza to shield himself from ongoing corruption charges, for which, if he is found guilty, he could be imprisoned. As Burke explained, Israeli media reported that a court approved Netanyahu’s request not to appear at a hearing yesterday “due to the renewal of the war.”

On the other hand, Netanyahu faces staunch opposition from his most feared enemy within Israel — the Israeli Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents hostages’ families, and which has been particularly vocal, for the last 17 months, about the need to prioritize the hostages’ return over military action that endangers their lives.

As the Forum stated, “The greatest fear of the families, the hostages, and the citizens of Israel has come true — the Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages.” Describing their “shock, anger, and terror” over “the deliberate collapse of negotiations to bring their loved ones home”, family members accused the Israeli government of misleading the public by claiming that renewed military operations were intended to pressure Hamas into releasing captives. “This is a complete deception,” they stated, arguing that “military pressure endangers both hostages and soldiers.”

Dani Miran, whose son Omri is among the hostages still held in Gaza, told Haaretz about his fears. “It’s horrifying”, he said, adding, “Every hostage who has returned described their greatest fear as Israeli bombings — they felt them up close. As long as my son and others are still there, the fear is overwhelming.” He also criticized the government and the military for failing to communicate with family members, and called for continued negotiations, stating that “this must be resolved without war.”

The unconscionable return to the pre-ceasefire horrors

As of now, what is most crucial to recognize is that the combination of the renewed and indiscriminate bombing, as well as the siege, have returned the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, immediately and fundamentally, to the worst days of the 15-month long genocide.

It is also crucial to recognize that, for the monsters in charge of Israel and its policies, the last two months have been hugely frustrating, because the State of Israel, as has been the case since October 7, 2023, exists solely to engage in the indiscriminate slaughter of as many Palestinian civilians as possible, via a relentlessly vengeful, self-righteous, giddy, whining, manipulative and messianic mindset that, if manifested by an individual, would lead to them being sectioned, but which, because of Israel’s devious manipulation of westerners’ deep-seated colonial racism, and its guilt over the Holocaust, means that its extraordinarily transparent and public genocide continues to be either tolerated or celebrated.

Over 17 months since this truly grotesque manifestation of incessant evil began, the world’s leaders face the starkest choice that they have yet faced: whether to take unprecedented action to condemn Israel and to impose meaningful restraints on its genocidal enthusiasm, or be forever tarred as complicit in the vilest of crimes imaginable, resolutely committed to joining Israel in the depths of human depravity, to be pursued for the rest of their lives by what remains of international system of judicial accountability that was established after the Second World War in a brave and commendable effort to ensure that horrors like this — the wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter of an entire civilian population — never took place again.

Speaking of which, while it is reassuring that, since the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants were issued in November, neither Netanyahu or Yoav Gallant have travelled abroad — except to the US, which is deeply complicit in their war crimes and crimes against humanity — it is surely time that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which warned that Israel was committing a “plausible genocide” nearly 14 months ago, acts on the mountains of evidence presented to it, and, under its new Chief Judge, Japan’s Yuji Iwasawa, issues a decisive ruling that Israel has been and still is engaged in a genocide in Gaza before there are no more Palestinians left to save.

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo”, which you can watch on YouTube here.

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here. He has also, since, October 2023, been sickened and appalled by Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and you can read his detailed coverage here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and the full military commissions list.

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