A ceasefire. Ostensibly, Israel and Hamas have signed an agreement for a ceasefire. Hostages and POWs will be exchanged and returned, and Israel will pull back from some of the land in Gaza…but all of this relies on the assumption that Netanyahu’s cabinet actually ratifies the deal.
Do you actually think that will be happening? Do you really think Israel is going to pack up their bags and leave Gaza, abandon their genocidal campaign to erase the Palestinians, and give up on building beachfront resorts on their corpses?
If you do, then you’re much more of an optimist than I am. But I would actually call it gross naiveté.
I have seen this movie before, many times. It always ends in one way: Palestinians betrayed by a world that claimed it would help them, and Israelis laughing at anyone who thought they would face consequences for their crimes.
This “ceasefire” is a joke. It is almost guaranteed that Israel will continue their genocidal activities in Gaza. And if you genuinely believe that Netanyahu’s lunatic government will abandon their desire to conquer their neighbours, you are a fool.
In recent months, Benjamin Netanyahu has talked openly about his “connection” to the vision of a “Greater Israel”. For those unaware, Greater Israel is a proposal for an irredentist, revanchist military campaign, where Israel will colonize their neighbours through violence, either displacing them, killing them, or keeping them as second-class subjects.
The target is not merely Palestine, but also Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. This is not hypothetical: Israel is maintaining an “unlimited” occupation of Syrian land, seized from the transitional government after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
When a “ceasefire” was reached earlier this year between Israel and Lebanon? Israel unilaterally broke the deal, refusing to withdraw and maintaining five military installations in Southern Lebanon. And this is far from the only example of Israel proving untrustworthy in peace negotiations.
People appear to have forgotten that the Israel-Hamas War has already seen two ceasefires. The first one, lasting only a few days near the end of November 2023, ended after Israel demanded that military POWs be returned, which Hamas refused as that phase was only negotiated to involve civilian hostages.
The second one, happening more recently from mid-January to mid-March this year in 2025, featured routine violations by Israel of the agreement, where Israel arbitrarily refused to release their Palestinian hostages, and continued shooting and killing Palestinians on a daily basis throughout the entire period.
Finally, realizing there would be no consequences for breaking the ceasefire, and wishing to prevent the deal from proceeding to the second phase, Israel unilaterally relaunched hostilities…not that they ever truly stopped, as Israel’s daily continuation of violence proved to us.
So I ask again: Do you really think Israel will comply with any ceasefire agreement, no matter what their negotiators say? Today, when Palestinians celebrating this “deal” tried to return to Gaza City by walking on Al-Rashid Street, the Israeli military fired upon them with tanks and fighter jets, and Netanyahu proceeded to boast that he has not yet “approved” the ceasefire. Can you trust Israel when they make a concerted effort to delay the ceasefire for the sole purpose of killing more innocent Palestinians?
And what exactly stops Israel from continuing the genocide the moment the hostages and POWs are returned? Would they not be fully unrestrained, now that they would be certain there are no Israeli citizens left who could be harmed as collateral damage?
This too, is not hypothetical: Israeli Finance Minister and de facto West Bank Governor Bezalel Smotrich insists that Israel should resume violence once the hostages are returned. His exact words are that “immediately after the hostages return home, the State of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza”.
With Netanyahu’s coalition government relying upon the support of Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to maintain confidence in the Knesset, he is beholden to them and their openly professed Kahanist ideology. For those who haven’t read my prior piece, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have both been sanctioned by the Canadian government for their violent extremism.
Whether or not Israel follows this ceasefire deal rests entirely on these three politicians, who openly delight in their hatred for Palestinians and boast of their genocidal intentions. Nobody is willing to use military force to compel Israel to follow international law, and thus Israel openly flouts it.
There is no “ceasefire”. There is only Lucy van Pelt, yanking the football away from Charlie Brown right before he’s able to kick it. So if you fall for this trick again?
You’re an idiot.