Se trata de una conquista, pero sigue la lucha contra el genocidio, y por Palestina libre.
This is a conquest, but the struggle against the genocide and for a free Palestine continues.
Is this ceasefire something to celebrate?
Our starting point is the Palestinian perspective: the organizations accepted the agreement, the population celebrated the halt to the bombings and the forthcoming entry of food and medicine in the face of a desperate situation. Bearing in mind that this is where we begin, we can critically evaluate many points of an agreement signed under unfavourable and extortionate conditions, but we can only celebrate the relief that Gazans feel today.
Did Israel manage to impose its policy with its military might?
No. Even while committing genocide, the Zionist entity failed to defeat the people of Gaza and their resistance over 22 months of bombings and ground invasion. The return of the vast majority of the hostages was the result of exchange agreements, contrary to the policies of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich. They were never able to demonstrate a real military success in this regard: Israel’s “Defense” Forces killed more hostages than they recovered.
Is the agreement the product of a negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian resistance?
No — its manufacture was unilateral. The United States appears intervening to “stop everything.” The Zionist quagmire in Gaza was a problem for U.S. expansionist policy as it tries to recover from its decline as a power. There is a strong component of imposition by Trump, even at the cost of, for now, abandoning the Israeli plan to recolonize Gaza. He seeks to prop up again a plan of normalization and institutionalization of Israeli colonization in the Middle East, which the October 7 events put into crisis when an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia was about to be signed.
Did the Palestinian people and their organizations participate in drafting the agreement?
No. It is not even an agreement in any real sense, much less “a peace” agreement. At best it is a truce, on terms imposed by power, within the framework of a genocide. Fundamentally, it is an extortion by imperialism against Palestinians. Its content reflects this: there is no place for self-determination or self-government for the Palestinian population.
What role did international mobilization play in this ceasefire?
We were part of, over these months, a global wave of solidarity with Palestine that far surpassed the Arab world. In Argentina the marches and expressions of solidarity became massive. There are also mass mobilizations in South Asia and across Europe that forced recognitions of the “Palestine State” by complicit European governments. The two general strikes with blockades in Italy, polls in the United States showing majorities of young Jewish people rejecting Israel, artistic expressions, the early ruptures of limited relations with Israel by various institutions — all form part of a global trend that no capitalist government, neither Western nor Arab, was willing to tolerate.
What guarantees are there that the agreement will be implemented?
The entire agreement is precarious: the release of Israeli hostages is to take place in the first 72 hours, which leaves the resistance in greater weakness while waiting for Israel and the United States to fulfil the following phases. Forty-eight hostages will return to Israel, of whom some 20 would be alive. It will be necessary to verify that the IDF effectively releases half of the occupied territory in that first stage.
Is it reasonable to distrust that Israel will comply with the agreement?
Of course. Israel intensified the aggression in the last 36 hours before it took effect. Even with the prospect of a ceasefire, it caused 126 more deaths through air and artillery attacks. Netanyahu has already unilaterally broken the ceasefire reached in January of this year in Gaza, and in 2024 with Lebanon.
Will Israel completely withdraw from Gaza?
Although the plan states that Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza, it does not set any concrete timetable for the gradual withdrawal of its troops — except for the initial pullback — and it allows Israel at minimum to remain in the “security perimeter” fixed by Israel itself. Throughout its history Israel has used “buffer zones” as a mechanism of territorial advance.
How many Palestinians will be freed? Who are they?
Two hundred and fifty prisoners with sentences from Israeli courts and 1,700 Palestinians under administrative detention will regain their freedom. The media will say “prisoners”; we call them by their name: hostages. More than 8,000 people will remain in that condition, in military prisons, suffering torture, without any civil guarantees. The list was still under negotiation as we write this, with particular pressure to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti, a renowned Palestinian fighter serving five arbitrary life sentences.
What will happen with the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance?
It is uncertain. In its first response to Trump’s proposal, Hamas deliberately avoided any mention of this issue. The United States intends disarmament to be total and absolute, while the resistance would concede only to lay down “offensive” weapons, retaining some defensive capability. Any such process should be carried out under the supervision of independent observers, but the agreement reserves to Israel the authority to define when the area will be considered “demilitarized.”
Is the Palestinian resistance only military?
If anything has been demonstrated in these 22 months, it is that the resistance is much more than armed organizations. It is a civilian population determined to remain on its land, resisting extermination and ethnic cleansing. Gazans endured the bombings, continuous ground assaults, forced displacements, threats and even famine. Many never left the north of the Strip. As soon as the agreement was announced, masses began returning from the south to their places of origin.
Is the Israeli government satisfied with this course?
It does not seem so. The plan was always total displacement in Gaza and recolonization. At the same time, it is undeniable that the Zionist narrative suffered historic damage, being exposed as genocidal and colonialist as never before among very large sectors of the world population. Israel’s level of international isolation, its dependence on the United States, and the internal political crisis with evident signs of dissatisfaction within the ruling far-right show that Netanyahu’s coalition also acts under strong pressure.
And what about the West Bank?
Territorial annexations, new illegal settlements and increased violence by fascist settlers and the army have been deepening terribly in recent months. The agreement does not address this point and it is reasonable to think that this process of offensive and colonization will continue to worsen. Israel continues advancing its urbanization project in the E1 sector and building a road that will further fragment the West Bank, with greater control by the occupation over the Palestinians’ scant freedom of movement. The regime of occupation and apartheid must end.
Who will govern Gaza if Hamas is disarmed?
They intend to install a “technocratic” and “apolitical” government composed of Palestinians, but without any autonomy. Decisions about the enclave would be made by the “Peace Council,” chaired by Trump himself with the help of nefarious international figures such as former British prime minister Tony Blair. Those who still believe in a “two-state solution” should know that this does not bring them one step closer to that outcome. There is no prospect of Palestinian self-government in any sector. The plan represents a deepening of colonization.
Will there be justice for the crimes committed by Israel and its genocidal army?
Another hugely important aspect that is not on the table is the accountability that belongs to Netanyahu, his entire cabinet, and their international accomplices. This agreement specially omits any form of accountability: it seeks to close a chapter in complete impunity, while there is an ongoing judicial process at the International Court of Justice and arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court remain in effect. But justice will not come through institutional channels; it will come through global popular mobilization, through the military defeat of Israel and through the final Palestinian victory. Just as happened to the Nazis, wherever they go we will go after them.
And now what? How do we proceed?
Faced with such a precarious and open scenario, the activity of the solidarity movement with Palestine worldwide is key. Israel and its allies aim especially to disorganize and demobilize all those of us who took to the streets in the name of this “agreement.” But if we reach this ceasefire under conditions so unfavourable to Palestinians, it is in part thanks to the international struggle and the pressure we exerted. It is therefore crucial, to ensure that the positive parts of this agreement are implemented, to keep mobilizing, to keep pressuring worldwide: to limit Israel’s capacity to act, to show that the process of colonization and ethnic cleansing has continued since 1948, across historic Palestine. Our struggle, our co-resistance alongside Palestine, was never only about stopping the bombings in Gaza and getting humanitarian aid in. We will not stop until Israel is defeated, until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea. Zionism is not Judaism. Not in our name.