War on Gaza: Why Hamas cannot accept Israel’s ceasefire proposal
Israeli army tanks deployed near the Gaza Strip on 5 June 2024
David Hearst writes in Middle East Eye on 6 June 2024:
If anyone owns the daily carnage in Gaza being carried out by an angry and humiliated Israeli army, whose ranks are filled with religious settlers, it is US President Joe Biden.
From the first days after the Hamas attack on 7 October, Biden framed this savage act of collective punishment on 2.3 million Palestinians as a just war. It was he who led the charge that Israel had the right to defend itself. It was he who sabotaged calls for an immediate ceasefire at the UN Security Council. It was he who replenished Israel’s stocks of smart bombs and missiles.
And it is under his watch that the US turned its back on the two highest courts of international justice. Last week, Biden told Time Magazine: “The [International Criminal Court] is something that we don’t, we don’t recognise.” You have to blink twice before rereading. It is really Biden talking, not former President Donald Trump.
The known death toll is approaching 40,000 people, and thousands more bodies could be under the rubble. More than half of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged, along with its hospitals, universities, schools, shelters, sewage systems, and agricultural land. Israel has now dropped more bombs on Gaza in eight months than were dropped on London, Dresden and Hamburg during the six years of the Second World War.
The first, second and a good part of the third ranks of civilian administrators of Gaza have been killed, Palestinian sources close to Hamas told me in Doha. Gaza could take decades to recover from this assault.
Fews Net, the US-based famine early warning system network, said it was “possible, if not likely” that famine began in northern Gaza in April. According to UN estimates, more than one million people were “expected to face death and starvation” by mid-July.
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Biden appears to be forcing Netanyahu’s hand by making an offer he wanted to keep under wraps explicit and public, when in reality something quite different is happening.
Once again, Biden is serving Israel’s bottom line. He has cemented Israel’s bottom line throughout these negotiations. Just as he allowed a major ground offensive against Rafah to proceed, Biden is supporting Israel’s right to continue the war after an initial release of hostages and prisoners.