This Friday, December 1, the end of the truce between Israel and Hamas became official. In fact, after seven days of ceasefire, it only took Israel a few hours to resume attacks on the Gaza Strip in what it has already announced as an “expansion” of the operation throughout the territory. Something that has led many to question the real meaning and impact of the temporary truce.
“It is the nightmare that everyone feared,” is how James Elder, spokesperson for Unicef, described the end of the truce between Israel and Hamas just a few hours ago. And with its end, the bombings on the Gaza Strip have also returned, which have already claimed the lives of dozens of Palestinians this Friday.
The last-minute efforts of Qatar, the main mediator of this truce, have not been enough. At least for the moment, since Doha assures that negotiations continue and that the reinstatement of a truce is a real possibility.
Statement by the Prime Minister’s Office:
The Hamas-ISIS terrorist organization has violated the outline. It has not met its obligation to release all of the women hostages today and has launched rockets at Israeli citizens.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 1, 2023
The reason offered by Israel for ending these seven days of ceasefire was simple: according to the Israeli Army, Hamas had violated the terms of the truce after allegedly firing into Israeli territory. For its part, the Palestinian armed group blames Israel for not allowing the entry of fuel into the northern Gaza Strip, something that would also be a violation of the agreement.
The end of the pact does not come as a surprise. Some experts point out that Israel has never had a real will for the truce to extend for long – the Executive made it clear at all times that its objective remained the same: to end Hamas.
“You have a few days. When we fight again, we will apply the same force and more, and we will fight throughout the Strip,” said Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defense and former Israeli military officer.
A reality of which its international allies, such as the United States, were also very aware. In fact, this is what Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, said in his meeting with Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, just a few hours before resuming the fire.
“The Israelis, who had consistently said that after the pause – in which hostages were released and humanitarian aid access to Gaza was allowed – hostilities would resume, were adamant about this,” noted Jeremy Bowen, editor of the section. International chain ‘BBC News’.
Motivations for the truce: the benefits for both parties
“That is not an operation, not a round of fighting, it is a war,” were the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 7, after the Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.
His promise was equally clear: to end the Palestinian armed group Hamas at all costs, regardless of the cost – as the facts show – of the lives of more than 15,000 Palestinian civilians to date.
However, on November 24 – after much mediation from countries such as Qatar and Egypt – a truce was reached, which contemplated a ceasefire in Gaza. Of course, in exchange for several concessions on both sides.
On the Israeli side, the main motivation was to get the hostages back home. A point that cost Benjamin Netanyahu’s Executive a lot of criticism, added to the “military humiliation” – as the Israeli media has repeatedly called ‘Haaretz’— which led to the Hamas assault on October 7 despite being one of the most developed military powers in the world.
After the seven days of truce, 108 kidnapped Israelis were handed over by Hamas in exchange for 240 released Palestinians, most of them minors.
“In the case of Israel, obtaining some hostages alive is the clearest benefit (…), just as Hamas has known how to play with the card that it respects the lives of hostages at the media level,” he points out. regarding Bryan Acuña, international analyst specialized in the Middle East.
![This photo provided by GPO on Friday, Dec. 1, 2023, shows freed Israeli hostage siblings Bilal (right) and Aisha Al-Ziyadne reuniting with their family at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, Israel.](https://s.france24.com/media/display/447c258c-908a-11ee-b866-005056bf30b7/AP23335435531321.jpg)
However, many are not so clear about what Hamas gains from this agreement. In your case, the reason would not be one, but several.
“For the Islamist organization it possibly gives possibilities to regroup and get ready for a new escalation (…) Also the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons is another benefit for Hamas’s image. Like a third part that is important to mention: the possibility of escape for Palestinian civilians who were still in the central areas of Gaza and near the north,” says Acuña.
“Regrouping militarily, releasing Palestinian prisoners and allowing civilians to flee were Hamas’ main motivations for accepting the truce”
In this way, both sides would have obtained both military and political benefits. Israel has managed to recover more than a hundred hostages and Hamas has had the option to regroup, while giving respite to civilians, continually bombed by Israel.
Although this truce—as Israel made clear from the beginning—never marked the end of the conflict. For Netanyahu’s Executive, one of the premises that would justify this escalation of the war is that Hamas is synonymous with ISIS, something refuted by many experts.
“You can’t just say, ‘ISIS massacred people, so did Hamas, so they’re the same thing.’ “It’s very superficial,” said Itzjak Weismann, a professor at the University of Haifa who analyzes Islamic movements and thought. before the newspaper ‘El País’.
The reason: Although Hamas used terrorist tactics on October 7 and has ties to more fundamentalist factions, such as Islamic Jihad, its trajectory is very different. The violence of the Islamic State has been broader and encompasses the international sphere — with attacks against the West on repeated occasions.
Furthermore, the Islamic State seeks the establishment of a totalitarian caliphate and Hamas “liberates the land occupied by Israel” and ends its State. Different objectives that even make them enemies of each other.
And the civilian population?
“Those in power have decided that the killing of children will resume,” said a United Nations official quoted as saying. via ‘Al Jazeera’.
And at this moment, one of the questions that remains in the air is what will happen to Palestinian civilians. This Friday, the Israeli Army dropped pamphlets from its planes on the bombed towns with a message: ‘Get out of here.’ But many, who have already fled the northern Gaza Strip, have nowhere to go. Bad expectations for the already deep humanitarian crisis.
Civilians are being ordered to move south, but nowhere in Gaza is safe due to the indiscriminate bombing and continued fighting.
— MSF International (@MSF) December 1, 2023
“Civilians are being ordered to move south, but nowhere in Gaza is safe due to indiscriminate shelling and ongoing fighting,” wrote the organization Doctors Without Borders on its X account.
“That there are Palestinian civilians who have nowhere to go, due to physical, economic and even political conditions – for example, relatives of Hamas members – or are left in the middle of military operations and die, is a fact,” says Acuña. .
Nearly two million people are crammed into the south of the territory, where Israel asked people to take refuge at the start of the war. Without safe access to northern Gaza, their only option is to move within the 220 square kilometer area, which is now also unsafe following promises of war “expansion.”
![Palestinians injured in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip are taken to a hospital in Khan Younis, Friday, December 1, 2023.](https://s.france24.com/media/display/4ef2474a-9061-11ee-a161-005056a97e36/AP23335534518687.jpg)
Something that does not make the international community happy, not even Israel’s allies. The United States has already said it expects Israel to “respect civilian lives” and has advocated renewing the war.
For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations has condemned the failure of the negotiations and the resumption of fire. “I deeply regret that military operations in Gaza have resumed. I still hope that it will be possible to renew the pause that was established. The return to hostilities only demonstrates how important it is to achieve a true humanitarian ceasefire,” Guterres noted on social media.
Arab nations in the region, such as Turkey or Iran – an ally of Hamas – also condemn the new bombings by Israel, a country they call “genocidal.”
Pressure on Palestinian civilians will also have regional consequences. With the southern Strip becoming overpopulated, further Israeli attacks in the area would leave Palestinians without many options. And one of them could be to move towards Egypt through the Rafah crossing.
![Palestinians evacuate those injured in the Israeli bombing of Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, December 1, 2023](https://s.france24.com/media/display/6fd96ff4-908b-11ee-84da-005056bf30b7/AP23335315769602.jpg)
But this would be crossing a red line for Cairo. Since the beginning of the war, the Egyptian government has made it clear that it does not plan to accept refugees because it fears that Israel will never let them return and for what it claims are “security reasons.” Something that further reduces the alternatives of Palestinian civilians.
After a truce, of which there is no sign that it will be resumed in the near future, Palestinian civilians are once again on the ropes.
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