After 35,000 Palestinian deaths and 80% of the Gaza Strip reduced to rubble, many might expect the calls for Israel to cease its operations to be deafening. They are not.
Almost seven months in, the talk is still of a possible ceasefire, as it has been since the first few weeks. The Israeli army keeps threatening to enter Rafah—the final sanctuary for more than a million displaced Gazans—but so far, it has not.
The United States, Egypt, and Qatar continue to try to forge an acceptable ceasefire deal for both Israel and Hamas. Any agreement would involve hostage/prisoner swaps, access to humanitarian aid, and a time-limited pause in the fighting.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Israel had offered “a very generous ceasefire” deal and urged Hamas to accept it. Then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s army would press on regardless, even if a deal is reached.
Despite its technological superiority and huge firepower, Israel is unlikely to destroy Hamas entirely, but Netanyahu is nevertheless trying to prove that he can manage the crisis and defeat Israel’s enemies.
Division on all sides
Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition partners, who have threatened to pull out and collapse his government if he agrees on a ceasefire deal. Yet that is precisely what the families of the remaining hostages want him to do.
Most countries think lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come about when Palestinians are finally granted a state of their own, but that has never looked like a more distant prospect.
For the Palestinians, those who favour armed resistance (led by Hamas) and those who favour unarmed resistance (led by Fatah) remain poles apart. Palestinians need strong representation, and the two main political parties continue to squabble and spurn all reconciliation efforts.
