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The ceasefire came way too late, for several reasons. Most importantly is that nobody put pressure on Netanyahu who did everything in his power to continue the war of extermination, until Trump came. The agreed deal means that Hamas will stay in power which shatters Netanyahu’s most important war goal. That’s a victory for the Palestinians. “We won on our own against the whole world”.
The first announcement of the deal that Joe Biden made on 15 January looked like the announcement itself was America’s signature for the deal: he laid out the most important aspects of the deal which will lead to “a permanent end of the war” in phase 2. This should be the outcome of the negotiations in phase 1, and if the negotiations won’t lead to an agreement, the permanent end of the war would be a permanent ceasefire. This situation will stand as long as the negotiations are ongoing. This is what Biden have said and according to the agreement, that is partially released, the negotiations will continue until an agreement is reached. So this is why the ceasefire agreement doesn’t have any room for the war restarting again. It is also one of the reasons that the ceasefire agreement took so long: Hamas insisted on a permanent end of the war and wouldn’t agree anything less than that. While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated his condition for a ceasefire over and over again: only when he was allowed to resume fighting again after a temporary ceasefire. And he said also numerous times that he was not going to release ‘thousands of Palestinian terrorists’. The last time he said this was a week before the agreement was made. So Netanyahu had to make this concession since incoming President Donald Trump was seriously putting pressure on Netanyahu which Trump took credit for on his social media platform, see below.

This was the most important reason why the war continued for too long: the Biden administration wasn’t willing or able to put serious pressure on Netanyahu, as he was the only actor against a ceasefire. Even the IDF, Shin Bet and Minister of Defence Gallant, were all in favor of a ceasefire since May 2024. It was for Benny Gantz a reason to resign as member of the war cabinet. And for the same reason was Gallant fired by Netanyahu, in november 2024.
An epic victory versus painful concessions
That the concession was hard to swallow for him showed the fact that he didn’t show up for the cameras until January the 19th, 4 days after the announcement! That’s extremely long for such an important issue, while usually Netanyahu appears in front of the cameras almost daily. It was also the images of celebrating Palestinians in Gaza in contrast to images of protesting Israelis that fueled the conviction that Hamas has won this war. This was once again confirmed when Hamas fighters were parading to celebrate their victory, and also the armed Hamas fighters who are visibly wearing a police uniform. It’s clear: Hamas rules Gaza! And it’s more than solely a PR stunt; until the last days of the genocide, Hamas showed their military capabilities: they managed to kill 5 Israeli soldiers in North Gaza. North Gaza was the area where the genocidal campaign started and faced the most intense bombing campaign. This was so intense that after 3 months, Martin Griffiths of the United Nations publicly doubted if North Gaza could be inhabitable ever again. After 2 months of the genocide, it was also publicly said by Americans to lower the intensity of the war, which Netanyahu, also known for his new alias Satanyahu, declined and went on with the same pace for 15 months long. It was also, again, North Gaza that Netanyahu imposed a total siege for more than 100 days at the end of the genocide, aiming to crush the Palestinians and to impose a ‘buffer zone’ so that there were no people close to Israel’s border. The cities Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahia are totally wiped off the earth. This operation led to more than 5000 deaths by bombing alone, not the indirect deaths counted, and still the resistance showed its reliance. Last New Year Hamas also managed to fire rockets towards Israel. It’s quite astonishing that the armed group is able to resist after 15 months of an extreme-heavy bombing campaign: 2000-pound bunker busters, which allow them to penetrate heavily fortified structures such as multi-story buildings, caves, and bunkers. In total they used more than 100,000 tons of bombs. Furthermore, almost the whole of Gaza was non-stop surveilled by drones; the Israelis controlled the whole border of Gaza, and they had the support of the so-called international community, including Muslim countries. America didn’t only give munitions and share intelligence, but there were also American special forces inside Gaza during the war, making it also a direct involvement of Americans in the war.

All of this was against an enemy that was not able to import weapons apart from smuggling some light weapons. Most of it was locally produced. An enemy that did not have planes, tanks, or even appropriate clothing: images of resistance fighters with sneakers and simple t-shirts fighting against one of the most advanced armies in the world. Furthermore, they faced the pressure of Israel, which used hunger as a weapon of war. Hamas did it all by itself, even without the help of Hezbollah. It’s truly astonishing that they kept fighting, refusing to surrender, and at the end have won the war, making it an epic victory that will be studied for many generations to come. The success of the resistance is something we in the West overlook. As astonishing as the victory is, it is as humiliating as it is for the Israelis, especially for Benjamin Netanyahu, the mastermind of the genocide. It’s highly unlikely that if Israel had another prime minister, the genocide could stand for such a long time. Above all, his experience, his talent to manipulate and blackmail, combined with his deepest dream to handle the Palestinian question for once and for all, makes him a skilled genocidal leader. It was for this reason that Israel repeatedly attacked UNRWA: without this UN organization, the Palestinian cause wouldn’t be on the international agenda. It was clear that Netanyahu wouldn’t stop until his ‘war goals,’ which were actually to expel Palestinians from Gaza, were achieved. He could only be forced to stop, and that ‘force’ was Donald Trump. It led to a defeat that shattered both Netanyahu’s big dream and his ego. That’s why Netanyahu didn’t say anything about the ceasefire for four long days. It was the Israeli president Isaac Herzog who made the first speech about it, saying that Israel will have to make “painful concessions.”. Recently at the World Economic Forum, he affirmed his position again that the country needs to move towards phase 2 of the deal, which means a permanent end of the war.
Despite the fact that he signed the ceasefire deal, Netanyahu still refuses to accept his defeat. In his first public speech, he said that Israel had the right to resume fighting again after phase 1 of something he falsely claimed Trump and Biden also agreed on. In his second and last press conference on January the 19th, Joe Biden implied that Hamas will stay in power:
“In Lebanon there is a future free from the grip of Hezbollah, In Syria a future free from Assad, and for the Palestinian people a credible path to a state of their own”.
Also during the genocide, Biden, like most American officials, rarely said that there is no place for Hamas in post-war Gaza, unlike their Israeli colleagues, who said it countlessly.
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Why the media repeatedly emphasises on a ‘fragile ceasefire-deal’
Very shortly after the ceasefire deal was announced, the mainstream international media, like Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Anadolu Agency, NBC, etc., began talking about whether the ceasefire would stand or calling it a “fragile ceasefire.” None of them mentioned the fact that the agreement doesn’t allow for the fighting to resume at any point: see the images below.


Continuously talking about whether the ceasefire will hold and inviting ‘experts’ who think the ceasefire will be breached increases the chances that the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy will occur. And it’s obvious that it is for this reason that they talk about a ‘fragile deal’. What else could be the reason that none of the international media either cite the agreement or quote Joe Biden’s first announcement? Then the question: Who would benefit if the ceasefire falls apart? That is also very obvious: nobody but Benjamin Netanyahu. For several reasons. A war will save his political career; the investigation about 7 October will be postponed, and perhaps most important of all: finishing the Palestinian issue for once and for all! Even though it seems less likely this could be achieved, he will still try everything that is in his power to realize it.
The international mainstream media doesn’t emphasize the positive aspects of the deal, despite the fact that the American government is in favor of a permanent end to the war. One would expect that the government uses its leverage and influence to let these positive voices be heard in the media. Perhaps this issue answers the question of who controls the media: Israel shows it controls it. Even more than the Americans. Basically, the international media serves the state in which they are based: Al Jazeera is controlled and financed by Qatar, the Anadolu Agency by Turkey, the BBC by England, and so on. All these states have warm relationships with both Israel and the USA, and the difference between Anadolu Agency and Al Jazeera on one hand and the Western media on the other hand is that the former gives the impression of being on the Palestinian side. See the example below about high-profile Palestinian prisoners like Marwan and Abdullah Barghouti.
Trump – Netanyahu relationship doesn’t look good.
Anyways, the effects of the ‘fragile deal’ seems to have some effect: on the first full day of the ceasefire, the IDF breached it by killing 3 Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy who posed no threat at all. On the fourth day, the IDF has killed another 2 persons in Rafah and after a week one person was killed in North-Gaza. Another trick the Netanyahu government did was not releasing a Palestinian prisoner who should have been released. In addition to that, on his first day in office, President Trump said he has no confidence that the ceasefire will hold on. A somehow remarkable statement of the guarantor of the ceasefire deal, which could be a concession to the pressure that Netanyahu puts on him. On the other hand, he also said in his inauguration speech that he would make an end to all wars, which will make his legacy as a ‘peacemaker.’ Furthermore, his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has said that he is planning a temporary delegation in Gaza to keep an eye on the ceasefire agreement. And unlike the officials of the Biden administration, they are not solely blaming Hamas. A spokesperson of Witkoff has said:
“Remember, there’s a lot of people, radicals, fanatics, not just from the Hamas side, also from the right wing of the Israeli side, who are absolutely incentivized to blow this whole deal up.”
At the same time, Witkoff said, also like other senior members of the Trump administration, to work on long-term stability between Israel and the Palestinians.
It’s also not a secret that the big prize that Trump wants is the normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And this can’t happen while there is a war in Gaza. It’s also not a secret that Trump wants to win the prominent Nobel Peace Prize, which will be held in December. Obviously resuming the Gaza war won’t help his ambitions. On the other hand, Netanyahu still tries to maneuver his dark dream: recently unconfirmed reports of temporarily relocating Gazans to Indonesia came out. It was first the Jerusalem Post that made up this story, before being copied by other mainstream media. A more worrying development is the escalation in the West Bank; Israel started a major military operation with 10 deaths in just 2 days. Israel says it added the security in the West Bank as an additional war objective, although the Gaza war is unrelated to the West Bank. According to some unconfirmed reports, Netanyahu started the operation to please Minister Smotrich to save his coalition.

A week before the ceasefire was announced, Trump has shared inflammatory video content calling Netanyahu a “deep, dark son of a bitch”.
Netanyahu’s puppets: Smotrich and Ben Gvir
During the war of extermination, the mainstream media repeated many times that Netanyahu was forced to continue the war or oppose a ceasefire deal to please Ben Gvir and Smotrich in order to save his coalition. With this argument, the responsibility from Netanyahu is taken away and these reports rarely mentioned the fact that several opposition parties have offered to save this extreme-right coalition in such a scenario.

Even though Smotrich was one of the loudest screamer who opposed the deal, he didn’t resign like he said he would.

The excuse Smotrich is using for not resigning, explained in a lengthy social media post, is that Netanyahu has reassured him that the war will continue after phase 1. It’s obvious that this assurance is difficult to realize since it’s excluded in the agreement. What is also noteworthy in the same comment is that he heavily criticized IDF chief Herzi Halevi but refrained from criticizing Netanyahu for signing the deal. It’s well known that Halevi and Netanyahu have had serious disagreements about the war in Gaza: the former wanted to end the war in opposition to Netanyahu. Halevi also opposed the view to displace Gazans to Egypt. Smotrich called for the resignation of Halevi, saying that “Israel cannot win as long as he is in power”. He also claimed that Netanyahu has agreed to his request to “render Gaza uninhabitable” and “conquer” it, adding that he wants an army chief who stands behind this and is ready to implement it. A few days later, Halevi did resign together with Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman. Although the reason they gave was about 7 October, the more likely reason is that Israel has failed to topple Hamas rulers which Halevi also admitted in his resignation. A chief of army that resigns before his period ends is very rare; it happened only to the IDF chief right after the Hezbollah war in 2006 which Israel lost. Also in Israel they begin slowly to realize that Hamas is there to stay and that means that Hamas has won the war.
Regarding the deal, Smotrich sent some mixed messages, calling it on one hand “a horrific message to all our enemies, that the way to defeat Israel is to kidnap Jews.”. And on the other hand, “unavoidable.”. One would think that a politician with such an outspoken radical opinion about Gaza would resign or attack those who signed the deal. First and foremost, that’s the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Table 1: the Generals’ Plan
The so-called Generals’ plan was a total siege on North Gaza that endured for more than 100 days and ended with the ceasefire. The plan considered all remaining civilians as terrorists and thus legitimate targets. It also blocked foods and medicines from entering the area in an attempt to totally crush the resistance. The plan, which is widely seen as genocidal and ethnic cleansing, was named to former general Giora Eiland, who supposedly proposed this plan. And although it wasn’t officially adapted, the Netanyahu government implemented it. It’s very doubtful that this plan came indeed from the former general since he doesn’t have any official position within the government. Most likely it was Netanyahu’s plan; he didn’t want to take responsibility for the crimes of this plan. Nearly 5000 civilians were killed and around 20 soldiers; the resistance remained operational until the last day. Giora Eiland, who recently admitted that Israel has lost the war, said about the plan something the prime minister couldn’t say in public but who executed it:
“It’s permissible and even recommended to starve an enemy to death, provided you’ve allowed the civilians corridors of exit beforehand. And that is exactly what I am proposing“.
“After all, serious epidemics in the southern part of the Strip will bring victory closer and will reduce casualties among Israeli soldiers.”
Retired general Giora Eiland.
In contrast to Smotrich, the other radical politician, a convicted terrorist, Ben Gvir did resign. If we analyze his statements, it is remarkable that he also refrains from criticizing Netanyahu. See below.

It’s very remarkable that such a vocal voice against a ceasefire, calling it a complete victory for terrorism, doesn’t attack the man who signed the deal but praises him by saying, “Significant achievements under your leadership.” So the question is why extremist Ben Gvir has no intention to overthrow the government, meaning supporting them, which is the same government that has signed what he calls ‘a surrender deal’? How is that possible?
Perhaps the answer is the same that explains Smotrich’s case: both of them are playing a role that fits in Netanyahu’s dreams: extreme policies that a prime minister can’t say in public, like the forced displacement of Palestinians, are said by his coalition partners Smotrich and Ben Gvir. It’s also no secret that Netanyahu didn’t want a deal at all, which he can’t say in public. Smotrich and Ben Gvir did. With the use of Israel’s influence on the international mainstream media, it looked like Netanyahu was forced to continue his war while, in fact, the coalition could afford to lose their support. Both Smotrich and Ben Gvir got extensive media attention, and if they were as outspoken as they seemed to be, both of them should have resigned and attacked Netanyahu. Both of them refrained from the latter, and their masks should have fallen by now as secret puppets of Netanyahu.

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Will the ceasefire hold and how does the future looks like?
Although Netanyahu will try everything in his power to demolish the ceasefire, like he has demolished peace initiatives in the past many times, there is a slim chance he will succeed. His tools of using the media, as well as Smotrich and Ben Gvir, will likely be neutralized by the lack of national and international support for his dark dream.
The Trump administration has been clear in not willing to be part of wars, neither the Gaza war or a war against Iran. Even before his election victory, Israeli analysts expected that the new American administration would increase it’s pressure to Israel to end the Gaza war. It’s absolutely not in the interest of the Americans to restart this war as their priorities lies in other places in the world. Also on a national level Netanyahu doesn’t enjoy the broad support that he did during the genocide. Except pressure from family members of the captives, the public opinion, the Israeli President and numerous political parties are all in favor to move to phase 2 of the agreement. For the first time since 7 October 2023 some opposition parties have also called for the resignation of Netanyahu which will mark the countries total defeat.
Reasons why Hamas is the winner of the war
The legitimate question will arise: what has Israel won from the war? Except for killing extreme high numbers of people, some sources estimate that roughly 10% of the population, the indirect deaths included, are killed. There are no reliable numbers of how many Hamas militants are killed. Regarding their leadership, who are assassinated on a large scale, this doesn’t say much about their military capabilities since the movement is designated to replace their leaders. Assassinating leaders is nothing new; only the scale of it differs from the past, and given the fact that the resistance movement was able to continue their way of warfare in the same manner as before their leaders were killed shows that they can cope with it. The only visible decline of Hamas’ military capabilities is the sharp decline of their rocket arsenal: daily rocket attacks towards Israel became occasional after 6 months of war. But these locally produced rockets can be easily made again. About the group’s underground network, there are no updated reliable numbers, but even the IDF admitted, in November 2024, that the tunnel network remains operational. In May 2024, the US intelligence estimated that 65% of the tunnels remained active. So given the information that is available, it’s safe to conclude that Hamas’ military capabilities remain on the same level as pre-7 October, which makes the war a total failure from the Israeli perspective. Something everyone can agree on is that the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed on a large scale: sanitation, healthcare, buildings, and electricity infrastructure are nearly totally destroyed. Gaza doesn’t start from scratch; it’s worse than that: only clearing the rubble will take 15 years. On the contrary, the military infrastructure remains largely intact. Those who have said that the IDF lacked a military strategy and that it was a war of extermination were right. It is also not so strange that the Palestinians celebrate this as a victory. During the release of the Israeli prisoners, a young man, with a Hamas fighter next to him, shouted: “We have won on our own against the whole world”. And this too cannot be denied.