Israel Has Sabotaged The Gaza Ceasefire- With Trump Administration Backing

As many predicted, Netanyahu has sabotaged the Gaza ceasefire and unlike in Ukraine, the Trump administration has his back.

In some truly horrible news, the ceasefire in Gaza seems like it is not going to continue.

Reuters reports that “Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday as a standoff over the truce that has halted fighting for the past six weeks escalated”.

The outlet went on the report that :

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said earlier that it had adopted a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza for the Ramadan and Passover periods, hours after the first phase of the previously agreed ceasefire expired.

and that

Hamas says it is committed to the originally agreed ceasefire that had been scheduled to move into a second phase, with negotiations aimed at a permanent end to the war, and it has rejected the idea of a temporary extension to the 42-day truce.

In other words, Israel is now starving Palestinians in Gaza again and blocking humanitarian aid, because they came up with a new proposal outside of the already agreed upon ceasefire framework.

The reality is, Benjamin Netanyahu was never serious about this ceasefire, and neither is the Trump administration, who could force him to take it seriously in a second.

How Netanyahu Forced The Failure Of The Ceasefire

Israel has long-held a strategy for “forcing the failure” of peace negotiations.

They have long used this strategy to justify the brutal blockade on Gaza prior to the genocide.

Even Stratfor, a U.S. government-tied private intelligence firm, acknowledged this in 2010.

As their intelligence assessment said :

While Israel has agreed to engage in negotiations with the Palestinians,
it seeks to force the failure of these negotiations by making
unrealistic demands and then blame that failure on the Palestinians'
unwillingness to meet those demands. This tactic - demonstrated by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence on direct talks
without preconditions - enables Israel to appease U.S. and international
pressure (to end the blockade) while showing the world that Israel's attempts at peace are being sabotaged by Palestinian intransigence.

Netenyahu yet again deployed this strategy around the latest ceasefire deal.

As journalist Jeremy Scahill noted, Netenyahu has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement by “continuing to carry out targeted attacks inside the Gaza Strip on an almost daily basis”.

Hamas has also accused Israel of trying to sabotage the deal by “blocking the agreed upon delivery of aid into the Gaza Strip, including food, medicine, tents, generators and other necessities, as well as continuing to kill Palestinians in Gaza”.

This is not a baseless accusation and is actually something multiple Israeli officials have admitted to. According to a New York Times report on the ceasefire:

The current standoff stems in part from Hamas’s accusation that Israel has not upheld its promises for the first phase of the cease-fire. Israel was required to send hundreds of thousands of tents into Gaza, a promise that Hamas says Israel has not kept.

Three Israeli officials and two mediators, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said that Hamas’s claims were accurate.

Israel has also admitted that they have been the only side to violate the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli newspaper Maariv acknowledged that “The defense establishment and the IDF say that so far the terrorist organization (Hamas) has not violated the (ceasefire) agreement”.

Netenyahu also recently ran a deceptive propaganda campaign centred around the deaths of the hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young children to manufacture consent for ending the ceasefire.

Israeli journalist Yossi Verter noted in Haaretz that Netenyahu weaponized these deaths so that “there is no sign of the second stage (of the ceasefire) and the effort to extend the first is in doubt.” He also noted that the Bibas family were “only a weapon in his shtick arsenal.”

Verter went on to note that the far right Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich -who he described as “the main stumbling block at home to continuing the deal”- was “walking around haughtily” because “He sees that Bibi is doing nothing that even hints at ending the war.”

Indeed, Netanyahu was never actually serious about these ceasefire agreements and always intended to “force the failure” of them.

This was even acknowledged by Israeli officials last month. Haaretz reported on February 9th that:

Israeli sources believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to sabotage the hostage release deal, and the delegation heading to Qatar will not advance Stage 2 of the agreement.

The first insider source told the paper that

Netanyahu is signaling quite clearly that he doesn't want to move to the next phase. He's sending a team without a mandate and without the ability to do anything.

The second source explained in detail how Netenyahu was sabotaging the deal, stating that

Netanyahu knows he doesn't have a government if he proceeds with the deal.

due to

Right-wing voters.

The source went on to note that:

The process is working, hostages are being released, but Hamas is doing this with the expectation of a second stage, leading to a [full] cease-fire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Once Hamas realizes there won't be a second stage, they may not complete the first

the source went on to note that:

Hamas isn't stupid. They see the politicization of the negotiations, the appointment of Netanyahu loyalists Ron Dermer and Gal Hirsch, and the statements from Smotrich and other right-wing ministers threatening to topple the government. They'll understand where this is headed

Indeed Netenyahu did sabotage the ceasefire by continuing attacks in Gaza, blocking aid, continuing to call for the “elimination” of Hamas and by refusing to commit to moving to the second phase of the ceasefire.

Where Is Trump’s Tough Talk Now?

In response to Trump and JD Vance’s attempt to force a peace deal in Ukraine, the New York Times opinion columnist and neo-liberal moron Thomas Friedman wrote :

You want an analogy? Imagine if, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel came to the White House this month, Trump and Vance told him that the war with Hamas had gone on too long, too many lives had been lost and it was costing America too much money, so it was time for Bibi and the Israeli people to do a deal with the Hamas aggressor.

The answer is, yes, this is exactly what Trump should do.

The only reason Netenyahu even accepted the ceasefire deal -which he then sabotaged- in the first place was over some mild pressure from the Trump administration.

Haaretz reported that :

Steven Witkoff, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, called from Qatar to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aides that he would be coming to Israel the following afternoon.

The aides politely explained that it was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night.

Witkoff's blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus in an unusual departure from official practice, the prime minister showed up at his office for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.

The paper reported that “Witkoff has forced Israel to accept a plan that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected over the past half year”.

Had Trump put the same pressure on Netanyahu that he did on Zelensky, he could have easily forced him to move forward to phase 2 of the ceasefire and prevented his reignition of the Gaza genocide.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has done the exact opposite. After Bibi sabotaged the ceasefire, Trump approved 3 billion dollars worth of arms shipments to Israel.

Netanyahu himself put out a statement where he thanked him “for his unwavering support for Israel” and called him “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House”.

Trump may fancy himself a tough negotiator, but when it comes to the pressure he could easily apply to force a ceasefire in Gaza, he instead bows down to Israel and the 100 million dollars he received from Miriam Adelson.

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