{"id":309056,"date":"2025-12-08T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=309056"},"modified":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:45:06","slug":"a-ceasefire-in-name-only-gazas-prolonged-purgatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/12\/a-ceasefire-in-name-only-gazas-prolonged-purgatory\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ceasefire in Name Only: Gaza\u2019s Prolonged Purgatory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fake Ceasefire<\/h3>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Japanese residents and foreign nationals living in Japan gather to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on 30 Oct 2025. [David Mareuil \u2013 Anadolu Agency]<\/p><\/div>\n

2 Dec 2025\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0A ceasefire can be a strange thing.\u00a0 The assumption, generally speaking, is that the parties to it restrain themselves for a period of time, ordering their forces and disciplining their charges from straying.\u00a0 But straying happens, transgressions inevitable.\u00a0 Some are genuine enough: silly misunderstandings, hot headed confusion, a fear that the other side has broken it.\u00a0 Room for error, and a degree of death and injury, is crudely permitted.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, transgressions have become the lingua franca of the parties, though Israel remains, by far, the perpetrator par excellence.\u00a0 The latter\u2019s departures from the agreement have been so vicious as to prompt the observation<\/a> that they are pursuing a mutilated reading of the agreement, essentially a \u201creducefire\u201d.\u00a0 The deaths of 347 Palestinians in Gaza since October 10, including 136 children, do not point to cooling restraint.<\/p>\n

On October 28, at least 104 Palestinians were slaughtered<\/a> in a single day.\u00a0 This might have suggested a breach so serious as to suggest a repudiation. Not so, claimed Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani.\u00a0 \u201cFortunately,\u201d he told<\/a> a US audience, \u201cI think the main parties \u2013 both of them [Israel and Hamas] \u2013 are acknowledging that the ceasefire should hold and they should stick to the agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is becoming apparent is that the ceasefire has led to a state of affairs where Israeli forces have been permitted enormous latitude in the way it inflicts violence on local Gazans.\u00a0 The UN Women\u2019s Chief of Humanitarian Action, Sofia Calltorp, reveals<\/a> how Gazan women told her \u201cagain and again: there may be a ceasefire, but the war is not over.\u00a0 The attacks are fewer, but the killings continue.\u201d\u00a0 Agn\u00e8s Callmard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, goes so far as to declare<\/a> that the ceasefire has created \u201ca dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal.\u201d\u00a0 What has in fact happened is a mere reduction of \u201cthe scale of [Israel\u2019s] attacks\u201d and the meagre allowance of humanitarian aid into the Strip.<\/p>\n

\n

READ: Human Rights Day in the age of Gaza<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

In a briefing note<\/a> released on November 27, the organisation is adamant that \u201cIsraeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.\u201d\u00a0 Expulsions continue, prosecutions of alleged atrocities and war crimes by Israeli forces non-existent.\u00a0 The means to build the crucial infrastructure required to sustain life is being hampered, while unexploded ordnance, contaminated rubble and sewage, remain unaddressed.<\/p>\n

Structural realities have also intruded.\u00a0 The Israeli Defense Forces remain in control of over 58% of Gaza.\u00a0 According to a clutch of special rapporteurs and experts in the employ of the United Nations, including Francesca Albanese, Ben Saul and Irene Khan, 40 active Israeli sites continue to operate<\/a> \u201cbeyond the agreed withdrawal line, in clear breach of the ceasefire terms.\u201d\u00a0 They also warn that the UN Security Council resolution<\/a> authorising the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), with Egypt and Israel coordinating border matters alongside a spanking new Palestinian trained police force \u201crisks replicating \u2013 if not aggravating \u2013 the model of security coordination that has entrenched Israel\u2019s settler-colonial apartheid regime in the West Bank\u201d.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian assistance remains at a painful trickle, an obscene state of affairs given the levelling devastation wrought by the war (85% of water<\/a> and sanitation facilities were damaged or destroyed; likewise 92% of homes<\/a>).\u00a0 The charity Oxfam does not spare any details in what is needed<\/a>: \u201cThe most pressing needs include food and healthcare and shelter, as well as water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) including menstrual products and waste management services.\u201d\u00a0 While some food and goods have become more available in local markets, they remain prohibitively expensive for Gaza\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n

\n

MORE: Ceasefire is \u201cholding\u201d: So long as only non-Israeli-Jews are murdered<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Between October 10 and 21, seventeen international non-government organisations had essential aid shipments for Gaza, including water, food, tents, and medical supplies, blocked, with Israeli authorities claiming they were not authorised to do so.\u00a0 Some 99 requests by international NGOs to deliver aid were rejected<\/a>, along with six requests from UN agencies.\u00a0 \u201cThis includes,\u201d stated<\/a> Oxfam last month, \u201cagencies that continue to have long-standing INGO registration with Palestinian and Israeli authorities and are legally permitted to operate by the latter while new registration processes are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A system of brutality, practised, insistent, even casual, has been entrenched against those in Gaza and, increasingly, the West Bank.\u00a0 The summary execution of two men<\/a> in Jenin by Israeli soldiers after their surrender was lauded by Israel\u2019s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who thought the killings the very thing \u201cexpected of them\u201d.\u00a0 Implicit is the suggestion that Palestinians are required to behave in specific, tolerated ways: humbly submit to their apparently generous oppressors, suffer ceaseless purgatorial deprivation and accept a ceasefire in name only.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: <\/em>bkampmark@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – middleeastmonitor.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Dec 2025\u00a0–\u00a0A ceasefire can be a strange thing. Especially a Fake Ceasefire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":309057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1854,87,865,88,2571,427,70,965],"class_list":["post-309056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-palestine","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":309060,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309056\/revisions\/309060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}