The ceasefire in Gaza

Januar 21, 2025

Martin Suchanek

Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza and throughout Palestine celebrated the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on 19 January. And this is understandable. After a year and a half of war and destruction, the daily bombings and killings have come to an end. Finally, aid can reach the two million people who have been starving for months, who lack food, medicine, clean water and clothing and whose homes and infrastructure have been almost completely destroyed. And finally, hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian prisoners, including many children, are being released from prison for resisting the oppression.

For Hamas and millions of Palestinians, the fact that Netanyahu and his war cabinet have been forced to accept a ceasefire is a victory. Indeed, Israel was unable to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas, its political and military infrastructure. The decisive factor here was and is the determination of the Palestinian people to resist their expulsion, destruction and annihilation. Hamas had to be recognised as a negotiating partner, even if only through the mediation of the USA, Qatar and Egypt.

While the people of Palestine celebrated the ceasefire, hardly anyone in Israel cheered. The relatives of the hostages have not forgotten that it was the Israeli government itself that repeatedly sabotaged prisoner exchange deals in order to continue its genocidal war. The extreme, fascistic right, on the other hand, regards the ceasefire as a defeat because the army is at least temporarily halting the mass murder.

Three ministers of the fascist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Force) party, led by security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned from the cabinet and denounced the agreement as a „capitulation to Hamas“. The second far-right government party, the Mafdal – HaTzionut HaDatit (National Religious Party – Religious Zionism) led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, remains in the government. Netanyahu is reported to have given him the guarantee that the ceasefire would be ended after the first phase and that the war would then be continued. Whether this is true or not, we can only speculate. In any case, the statement points to how fragile the agreement as a whole is.

Whose success?

Hamas, like much of the Palestinian population, but also significant sections of the global solidarity movement, see the ceasefire as a victory for the Palestinians. Unfortunately, however, this is only true to a very limited extent, or more precisely with regard to the maximum goal of the Zionist attacks – the eradication of Hamas and the de facto expulsion of Palestinians. The fact that the masses‘ will to resist could not be broken certainly represents a moral victory. But it has come at an enormous cost. The Israeli army is leaving behind a destroyed, devastated country. 50,000 people were killed by the Israeli army as a result of its attacks, and around 200,000 people – about a tenth (!) of the population – died from the „indirect“ consequences of the genocidal war.

The ceasefire agreement is known to provide for three stages. In the first phase, lasting 42 days, 33 of the 98 hostages still alive are to be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

During this time, the Israeli army will remain in Gaza, and negotiations are to take place on the modalities of its staged withdrawal, the exchange of further hostages and prisoners, and the „self-government“ of Gaza. The agreement could fail at any time on any of these issues. In particular, a lasting agreement on the future political administration of Gaza is virtually impossible as long as Israel insists that Hamas must be excluded from any political participation.

In Israel itself, the right wing will campaign against the agreement. However, in the event of Smotrich and his party leaving the government, opposition leader Yair Lapit and his party Yesh Atid have offered to save Netanyahu and support his government for the entire duration of the ceasefire agreement.

However uncertain the duration of the agreement might be, for the moment there is one clear winner, Donald Trump. It was to his advantage to be seen as the enforcer of the deal, even against resistance from within the Israeli government. Nonetheless, that is no guarantee of all three stages of the agreement actually being implemented. While the pressure of mass protests in Western states, and the political exposure of the character of Zionism, may have contributed to Trump’s well-publicised insistence on the ceasefire, they are certainly not enough to guarantee its continued enforcement when his calculations change.

Balance of forces

Israel and the West have achieved significant goals in the last year and a half. Most Arab states have not lifted a finger for the Palestinians. Their reactionary regimes have once again made it clear that their economic and geo-strategic interests are always more important to them than solidarity with the Palestinian people, to whom they grant only verbal and symbolic support. China and Russia also allowed the West and Israel to get on with it, limiting their criticism to UN resolutions and diplomatic jabs. While China, as the „protective power“ of the Palestinians, is trying to bring itself into play to a certain extent, Russia continues to pursue relations with parts of the Israeli financial oligarchy.

The so-called „Axis of Resistance“, on which Hamas, but also the Palestinian Left, relied, has been massively weakened. Iran and Hezbollah have always wanted to avoid a decisive conflict with Israel. They were attacked, provoked and further weakened by Zionism – and this was also in the interest of and with the support of the USA. Added to this was the overthrow of the Assad regime, the most cynical and, for decades, the most inactive „supporter“ of the Palestinians. Even if the future Syria will not become a friend of Israel, the country does not pose a danger for the coming period. In the longer term, however, Syria could prove to be the greatest threat, especially if the masses were to succeed in breaking the political power of HTS and its transitional government, the influence of imperialist and regional powers, and in establishing a truly new democratic and socialist Syria. In the short term, however, Israel has been able to expand its power throughout the region by showing everyone that it can attack any regime or political force with impunity and with the backing of the US, the EU, Germany and Britain.

If the „Axis of Resistance“ has proved to be a political paper tiger in the last year and a half, the strategy of Hamas and the leadership of the Palestinian resistance has been revealed as a dead end. They calculated that Israel’s asymmetrical war would draw their allies into a joint fight. In reality, the leaderships of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria never intended to do so and avoided it as best they could.

The fact that a ceasefire was reached was due to the US and its Western allies’ realisation that the total annihilation of Hamas and any other resistance organisation was politically unrealistic because it would require the complete expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and beyond. As the last few months have made clear, they have no moral or humanitarian objections to such genocide, but they do fear that the rejection of Israeli policy and its support could strengthen the mass protests and lead to effective measures such as blockades and boycotts of military and economic support. Above all, however, the US and its allies want to revive Israel’s economic and political cooperation with the reactionary Arab regimes, first and foremost with Saudi Arabia – and the ceasefire serves as a means to reintroduce a „normalisation“ that was interrupted after 7 October 2023.

The ceasefire and the promises of „self-government“ in Gaza and the West Bank are intended to pacify and appease the Palestinian masses. As with the Fatah movement and the PLO in the past, some imperialist powers would have nothing in principle against also openly or indirectly involving Hamas in a form of „self-government“ under Israeli supervision and a „government of national unity“. However, this would hardly be acceptable to the Zionist hardliners. In any case, such a „government“ would be just as powerless, if not more so, than the current Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

The ceasefire may lead to a lull in the violence, but it will not and cannot lead to a solution to the real problem, the systematic 76-year-long expulsion, disenfranchisement and oppression of the Palestinians. A „peace agreement“ negotiated by the imperialist powers and Israel with Hamas would not bring self-government, let alone liberation, to the Palestinians, but at best an expanded Hamas-led autonomous authority.

While Gaza would continue to vegetate for years on end, dependent on Western aid and under a regime of scarcity, the construction of settlements, land grabs and evictions in the West Bank would continue as before and after October 2023. Such a solution would itself be a malicious caricature of the two-state solution, which has always been reactionary but has also been completely utopian for years.

If the war and the experiences of recent years have shown anything, it is that there has not been, is not now, and never will be, a just and lasting peace in the Middle East as long as the oppression by the Zionist state of Israel, which acts as a pro-imperialist gendarme, continues. Peace will only be possible if the oppressive Israeli state is replaced by a unified, secular, democratic and socialist Palestine in the context of a regional socialist revolution.

However, this also means that the Palestinian left and working class need a strategy and programme that goes beyond the orientation towards the Axis of Resistance. Rather, the liberation struggle must be placed in the context of the revolution in the entire Middle East, in Arab states such as Syria and Egypt, but also in Iran and Turkey. But this also requires the fight to build new revolutionary workers‘ parties in Palestine as well as in the entire Middle East and a new International based on a programme of permanent revolution.

Tasks of the solidarity movement

In Western countries, we must continue the fight for the liberation of Palestine. Even if the ceasefire holds for some time, it will not lead to liberation. In the period ahead, the task is to deepen our organisation and mobilise to provide aid and support for the Palestinian people. We must demand not only money and material aid, but also an end to all support for the Zionist state and for the right of Palestinians to defend themselves against Israeli oppression and fight for liberation. Building a broad movement rooted in workplaces, schools and universities also requires fighting in the trade unions and reformist parties for a break with the pro-imperialist and pro-Zionist leadership.