The first week of the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire in Gaza is now complete. The agreement, signed by Israel and Hamas in Doha, Qatar, initiated a ceasefire that began January 19 and will last until about March 2. The key is the exchange of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners (also hostages in their own way) rotting in Israeli jails. Thirty Palestinians will be released for each civilian hostage, and fifty prisoners will be exchanged for each military hostage, on average. In the second phase, Israel is to withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border. In the third and last phase of the agreement, the status of Gaza will supposedly be negotiated; in particular this will determine the role of Hamas, which is likely to fight to maintain control of the Strip — something unacceptable for Netanyahu. No one thinks the ceasefire will be sustained beyond the first phase, which is the most palatable to Netanyahu’s government, while the subsequent two phases include difficult concessions. To see this it is enough to examine the Israeli escalation in the West Bank amid the ceasefire in Gaza, which has not thwarted the Palestinians’ thunderous popular celebrations of the prisoners’ release.
The Situation Is Open, the Truce Is Fragile, and There Are Several Possible Scenarios
The dynamics of the ceasefire and its consequences have regional and international dimensions. Its main negotiators — the United States, Egypt, and Qatar — maintain strict oversight of the process. The timing of the agreement, which was implemented one day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, is not coincidental. It serves to further the White House’s desire to put an end to the war in order to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and to isolate Iran, a policy goal that was at the heart of the Abraham Accords. In their original version, the Abraham Accords — pushed by Trump in his first term and upheld by Biden — left the Palestinian question completely out of the “normalization.” Today, following the genocide in Gaza, this is now impossible for the Saudi monarchy to sustain. That is why the ceasefire negotiations are conditional on establishing some degraded version of a pseudo-Palestinian state, which is flatly rejected by Netanyahu and the Zionist Far Right.
The region’s geopolitics are in turmoil. Iran and its alliances (the “axis of resistance”) have been weakened by Israel, as well as by the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a very important ally of the Ayatollah regime. With the fall of Assad and the coming to power of Islamist militias in Syria, supported by Turkey’s President Erdoğan, an opportunity opened for Turkey to advance its position as a regional power. Although this situation is difficult for the Iranian regime, it would be a serious mistake to consider it out of play. The signals are ambiguous: in the face of Trump’s imminent return, Iran reaffirmed its willingness to negotiate while strengthening its alliance with Russia and joining BRICS, preparing to resist an eventual new round of sanctions and military attacks focused on its nuclear facilities.
In this context, the strategic alliance between the United States and Israel is a matter of state. Biden unambiguously maintained this relationship, supporting the genocide in Gaza. Now Trump is undoubtedly more in tune with Netanyahu and the Zionist extreme Right. In fact, one of the second Trump administration’s first measures was to revoke sanctions on settlers who violently attacked the Palestinians in the West Bank. Further, it is clear that U.S. government officials and envoys to the Middle East as a whole are rabidly pro-Israel, upholding Israel’s “biblical” claim to reclaim Palestinian territory. Trump, however, appears unwilling to be dragged by Israel into a war with Iran. While it is unclear what his policy toward the Ayatollah regime will be, the precedent set by his first term is to resort to “maximum pressure” (reloaded sanctions) to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and to launch targeted attacks, such as the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani.
In short, the future of the ceasefire agreement does not depend solely on Tel Aviv, but is inscribed in this complex geopolitical dynamic. More generally, it depends on the Trump administration’s orientation toward putting “America First” and pursuing its dispute with China.
The ceasefire agreement is a defeat for Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing coalition, according to J. Mearsheimer, a supporter of “offensive realism” as the foreign policy of U.S. imperialism. The Israeli government itself admits this — although not publicly. After 15 months of bombardment and genocide, Netanyahu did not achieve either of the two central objectives he set: neither the “total victory” over Hamas — that is, its complete destruction — nor the recovery of the hostages by military means.
The two hostage surrenders were carefully staged by Hamas. In the first, thousands of Al Qassam Brigade fighters reemerged from the tunnel — wearing their uniforms, bearing automatic weapons, and driving modern white vans — to meet a celebratory crowd. In the second, the four military hostages released in Gaza were accompanied by Hamas troops, with Palestinian flags and slogans, in English and Arabic, highlighting the “triumph.” The message to Israel, to the Arab monarchies, to the “West,” and to the world is that Hamas has not only survived but retains elements of state organization and maintains control of Gaza.
The Israeli military won important tactical victories that have enabled it to weaken Iran and its “axis of resistance,” particularly Hezbollah, and to degrade Hamas’s capacity to some extent, although by how much remains to be seen (Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, argued that Hamas’s new recruits already outnumber the casualties it suffered). But without a clear strategy, no victory is possible, even for a sophisticated and all-powerful war machine like Israel, which has relied not only on U.S. weaponry but also on the collaboration of technology companies, such as Microsoft, and AI to carry out the genocide in Gaza. Indeed, Israel’s main problem is strategic. The goal of “eradicating Hamas” was never realistic. This is not only because Hamas thrives on Palestinian resistance to the occupation, but also because the attempt would probably have killed all the hostages, which is unacceptable to the Israeli population. This a problem for the religious Far Right and settlers who oscillate between the “final solution” (ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank) and the military reoccupation and recolonization of northern Gaza; for now, these goals are outside the balance of power. This is similar to what happened to the United States itself in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
In the late 1960s, Henry Kissinger — then Richard Nixon’s national security advisor — said (referring to the plight of U.S. imperialism in the Vietnam War) that in an asymmetric war, the “regular army” — that is, the strong side — loses if it cannot win, while the irregular forces win if they survive. This simple statement seems to explain the situation of Israel today: it dropped tons of bombs, eliminated the Hamas leadership, perpetrated genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, but could not win.
This setback for Netanyahu is unlikely to pass without consequences, the first of which is the political crisis facing his government, which is hanging by a thread. One of his extreme right-wing partners, Jewish Power, led by former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, withdrew from the government, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) agreed for now to exchange Gaza for the West Bank offensive, conditioning his stay on Netanyahu’s resumption of the war once the first stage of the agreement is concluded. While this is a likely dynamic, it raises several contradictions. Domestically, for Netanyahu to break the agreement would mean abandoning the dozens of hostages who should be released in the second phase of the ceasefire; doing so would undoubtedly provoke mass mobilizations demanding his resignation. Besides, according to the latest polls, 60 to 70 percent of the population supports ending the war. Externally, he would need Trump’s endorsement to resume the war, which for now does not seem to be in tune with the White House’s interests.
The reasons that led Netanyahu to accept the same agreement he rejected in the last eight months, despite Joe “Genocide” Biden’s unsuccessful efforts, are probably to be found in the combination of the domestic situation and international pressures.
According to an analysis published in +972 magazine, Trump’s pressure played a role — the explicit mandate was for a truce on Trump’s Inauguration Day, January 20 — but Netanyahu’s calculation that it was less ruinous to sign the agreement, at least to buy time, also weighed in the decision.
Several Factors Shape a Critical Domestic Situation for Netanyahu’s Government
Despite invaluable American financing, the war blew a hole in the Israeli economy: the debt climbed to 69 percent of GDP (nine points in just one year) so that for the first time in history, the credit agency Moody’s downgraded Israel’s rating. In addition, the war seriously affected the high-tech sector, one of the Israeli economy’s most dynamic branches.
Although the Hamas attack on October 7 deepened a rightward shift in Israeli society and entrenched a reactionary national unity, a growing majority soon came to support the demand for a ceasefire and negotiations with the families of the hostages in order to achieve their release. Although this movement had ups and downs in its ability to convene and mobilize — let us recall that for 15 months weekly demonstrations were held — it clearly expressed the majority position rejecting the “permanent war” of Netanyahu and his partners of the extreme religious right and the settlers. Netanyahu’s interest in maintaining the war was almost directly linked to staying in government — this in turn guarantees his personal freedom, which was seriously compromised by corruption cases.
This resulted in unprecedented criticism and open opposition of the State of Israel as it waged a war. This was not out of pacifism or empathy with the Palestinian people, since the shift to the right is profound and has led 62 percent of Israelis to believe that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” Rather, it was because the price of “total war” was the lives of the hostages.
War fatigue affected the ranks of the army, trained primarily for short wars. Moreover, Israel overextended itself militarily by opening several simultaneous fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and an attempted war with Iran. Although the disparity between Palestinian and Israeli casualties is astronomical, 400 soldiers against perhaps more than 100,000 Palestinians is a high number — by the standards of the Zionist state. Not least, in the week before the ceasefire, 15 Israeli soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, an area searched and occupied by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In recent months war fatigue was reflected in the unwillingness of reservists to rejoin combat (the drop was 15 to 25 percent, with peaks of 60 percent refusal). But it was reflected above all in the open crisis between the government and the heads of the defense forces and the security service (the dreaded Shin Bet), who considered the goal of “total victory” unrealistic.
This crisis resulted in the resignation of the chief of the Israeli General Staff, General H. Halevi, which has a strong political motivation, since it responds to the demand that the military leadership be replaced by the extreme right-wing parties. It is also linked to the promise to exempt Orthodox Jews from military service, which Netanyahu would guarantee in exchange for a vote on the budget.
Last but not least, the genocide in Gaza deeply damaged the image of the State of Israel and increased its international isolation. It is now in many cases supported solely by the United States and the government of Argentinian president Javier Milei, an avowed servant of Zionism. The live broadcast of the massacre in Gaza turned public opinion against the Zionist state and its accomplices, starting with the U.S. government. As part of this delegitimization, the International Court of Justice admitted the charge of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel. And the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Galant, for war crimes in Gaza.
The brutal massacre by the State of Israel in Gaza and the complicity of Western governments led to the emergence of a youth movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people. This led to mass mobilizations and occupations of university campuses in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and other countries. As part of this phenomenon, anti-Zionist Jewish youth organizations have emerged, taking up the struggle of the Palestinian people as their own. This is a profound process. Many compare it to the anti-war movement in Vietnam, particularly in the development of anti-imperialist elements, which undoubtedly also acted as pressure for a ceasefire.
This movement faced and still faces harsh repression and persecution by the imperialist states, with false accusations of “antisemitism” for exposing the colonial crimes of the State of Israel. In France, two comrades of our sister organization Permanent Revolution, among them Anasse Kazib, who is one of its public leaders, will be put on trial for denouncing Israeli oppression. In Argentina, members of the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores Unidad, including Alejandro Bodart of the MST, who was recently convicted, are also being persecuted.
After 470 days in hell, tens or hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are returning to Gaza just as they fled: on foot, in carts, in trucks, and ramshackle vehicles, with only the clothes on their backs. But this time they are celebrating that, at least temporarily, the bombing has stopped. They know that their homes, schools, hospitals, universities, businesses, water networks, and infrastructure are gone. They know that Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have gone as far as they can in transforming Gaza from an open-air prison into a scorched earth where life is virtually impossible. But the Israeli government has failed to expel them by forcing them to flee catastrophe and hunger, for which, among other acts, it is accused of genocide.
The destruction and genocide perpetrated by the State of Israel, with the complicity of the United States and European powers, have been unable to break Palestinians’ will to resist colonization. That is why, despite the very high cost in human lives — 47,000 dead, according to official figures, and up to 180,000, according to estimates by The Lancet — the agreement was experienced as a moral victory for the Palestinian masses.
The ceasefire does not mean an end to the war or the colonial occupation, although it highlights the strategic crisis of Zionism. As historian Ilan Pappe argues, before the war in Gaza, the State of Israel had been carrying out an “incremental genocide” against the Palestinian people to sustain the apartheid regime. That genocide in installments took a leap with the war. The “Iron Wall” operation carried out by the Israeli army in the West Bank, with the complicity of the Palestinian Authority, adds to the brutal attacks by the settlers, who seek to occupy and eventually annex most of the Palestinian territory. The West Bank was a secondary theater of operations during the 15 months of the war in Gaza, but today it is in the sights of Netanyahu, who in this way seeks to give “compensation” to his extreme right-wing partners for the truce in Gaza. One of the targets of this attack is the city of Jenin, which has a long tradition of resistance dating back to the Arab revolt of the 1930s against British colonial oppression, and in recent years it has been one of the centers of radicalization of new generations. Faced with the scandalous betrayal of the Palestinian Authority, which became a direct police detachment at the service of Israel, some have joined the ranks of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but many others are organized in independent brigades.
As revolutionary socialists, we defend the Palestinian resistance against colonial oppression and claim their right to national self-determination. We defend their organizations against the Zionist state, but we do not share Hamas’s strategy or its aim to establish an Islamist state, negotiating with the reactionary Arab monarchies or oppressive regimes such as Iran, and maintaining iron social control to prevent the democratic organization of the Palestinian resistance.
To defeat the colonial oppression of the genocidal State of Israel and its imperialist accomplices, it is necessary to establish the greatest unity among the Palestinian masses, the workers and oppressed sectors of the Middle East, and the movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people in the central countries. To end the oppression of the Palestinian people, it is necessary to dismantle the colonial scaffolding of the Zionist state and to fight for a secular, working-class, and socialist Palestine in all the historic territory. This is the only guarantee for the peaceful coexistence of Arabs and Jews, on the road to conquer a socialist federation in the Middle East.
This article was originally published in Spanish on January 26, 2025 inLa Izquierda Diario.