Humanitarian crisis in Gaza

[Fishnut]

I meant to post on the anniversary but it's also my birthday and I didn't really feel up to it. The TL:DR is that Israel has created hell on earth in Gaza and the rest of the world is just looking on, shrugging its shoulders and saying 'nothing we can do'.

The BBC has done a retrospective that included these maps:

Damaged areas shown in red.jpg (36.07 KiB) Viewed 16600 times

They say a picture speaks a thousand words and four of them speak of over 42,000 people known to have been killed, more than 100,000 injured and more than 10,000 missing. The scale is unbelievable and the fact we are doing nothing to stop it - and are indeed facilitating it through arms sales - is baffling.

The following facts and figures are from OCHA's impact snapshot for 22 October 2024.

Casualties
- 42,718 fatalities up to 7 October 2024 who have been fully identified, including 13,319 children and 3,447 elderly.
- More than 10,000 people reported as missing, most likely crushed under rubble
- 100,282 people injured

Food security
- 60-70% of livestock has been killed or prematurely slaughtered
- 68% of cropland has been damaged as of 1 September 2024
- 44% of greenhouse areas have been damaged as of 1 September 2024
- 70% of the fishing fleet has been destroyed as of August 2024

Nutrition
- Over 96% of women and children under 2 are not getting their nutrient requirements
- more than 50,000 children are estimated to need treatment for acute malnutrition

Water and Sanitation
- there is less than a quarter of the water supplied prior to October 2023 is reaching Gaza
- there are 395,000 tons of accumulated solid waste

Infrastructure
- 80% of commercial facilities have been damaged
- 68% of roads have been damaged

Shelter
- 87% of homes have been destroyed or damaged
- each person has an average of 1.5m² in shelters, below the minimum emergency space of 3.5m²
- 1.34 million people are in need of emergency shelter and essential household items
0.9 million people need help to survive the winter - the second winter since this massacre began

Health
- 19 out of 36 are out of service
- 17 hospitals are partially functional
- 130 ambulances have been damaged

Education
- at least 87% of school buildings either need to be completely rebuilt or undergo major work as of 6 September 2024
- 35 university buildings have been destroyed and 57 damaged as of 7 October 2024
- 10,839 students and 441 educational staff have been killed as of 22 October 2024

Humanitarian aid
- since 1 October, an average of 28 trucks a day have been allowed access to Gaza, compared to a pre-October 7 2023 average of 500.
- there has been a steady decline in trucks over the last few months, with a peak in April of 165 (still only a third of the pre-crisis average), reducing to 88-80 trucks a day between May and July, 67 in August and 54 in September.

Media access
Back in 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, gave a statement via his Spokesman on the importance of journalists in conflict zones,

The fundamental role of journalists in ensuring access to reliable information is essential to achieving durable peace, sustainable development and human rights. The Secretary-General recalls that civilians, including civilian journalists engaged in professional missions in areas of armed conflict, must be respected and protected under international humanitarian law. He calls on all parties to conflict, and the international community as a whole, to protect journalists and enable conditions for the exercise of their profession.

Yet foreign haven't been allowed into Gaza unless they agree to be escorted by the Israeli military and the visits are often highly controlled. An open letter to the Israeli government by 55 foreign correspondents and a second letter by more than 30 international news organisations was published early this year calling for open access to Gaza for journalists. A further open letter was written in July, again urging media access. Yet the Israeli High Court said Israel can continue to prevent journalists from entering Gaza and the government has shown no signs of allowing journalists in.

An editorial in Haaretz, published in September, called on the Israeli government to allow in journalists,

When Israel prevents journalists from going into Gaza it prevents them not only from reporting on the horrors of the warfare, but also from examining the claims of Hamas in real time – something that is a clear Israeli interest. When Israel prevents foreign journalists from covering what is happening in Gaza we must ask: What does the state have to hide? How does it benefit from journalists not entering Gaza?
...
In any case, precisely during wartime there is great importance to permitting the entry of journalists who are not a party to the conflict: people who can cover the event without fear of pressure from their own society or government. In wartime today, when any image risks the accusation of having been generated using artificial intelligence, the role of the journalist in the field is more important than ever.

Jodie Ginsburg from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) wrote in an opinion piece in Haaretz in July,

Israel's ban on independent media access to Gaza falls outside the norm.

While restrictions on reporting are common in war, seasoned correspondents have told CPJ that the effective total ban on journalists entering Gaza—both foreign nationals and Israeli and Palestinian journalists from outside the territory—is unprecedented in modern times.
---
Elsewhere around the world journalists have been able to report from the frontlines in almost every major conflict over the past three decades: from Ukraine to Rwanda. The world's largest news organizations understand the risks and are prepared to take them because they know how important these stories are.
...
Media access to Gaza is only one example of a regime of censorship that is denying the Israeli people their right to know what is happening there and closing the door to international oversight. The emergency legislation that allows Israel's government to ban foreign broadcasters such as Al Jazeera, the shadowy arrests of journalists both in Gaza and the West Bank, and alleged direct attacks on journalists—these are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes.

Yet foreign media are still banned from entering Gaza, meaning that Palestinian journalists are put in the unbearable position of reporting on the very hell they are trying to survive.

The CPJ has confirmed 128 journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 October 2023, making it the deadliest year on record since the CPJ began documenting journalist killings back in 1992.

All of the killings, except two, were carried out by Israeli forces. CPJ has found that at least five journalists were specifically targeted by Israel for their work and is investigating at least 10 more cases of deliberate targeting.

The killings, along with censorship, arrests, the continued ban on independent media access into Gaza, persistent internet shutdowns, the destruction of media outlets, and displacement of the Gaza media community, have severely restricted reporting on the war and hampered documentation.

Jewish Currents put out a statement on 24 October 2024 stating,

Jewish Currents condemns Israel’s targeting of Palestinian journalists in the strongest terms, and calls upon every media institution in the United States to do the same... The normalization of Israel’s flagrant targeting of journalists has implications for reporters around the world. Media institutions have a responsibility to speak out to deter the Israeli military from any further attacks on Palestinian journalists.

Israel’s threats against Palestinian journalists should be treated as a crisis for the international media. When journalists cannot safely inform the public, a crucial check on state violence disappears. And when states are allowed to kill journalists with impunity, it threatens journalists around the world.

Israel has now begun targetting journalists in Lebanon.

I'm focusing on journalists because I think they highlight the difference between what's going on in Gaza right now and other conflict zones. It reinforces the asymmetrical nature of this conflict. Israel has complete control of the borders of Gaza. It is walled off completely. The only way for independent verification of what's going on there right now is satellite images. To call it a 'war' as many in the media are doing only serves to play into the idea that this is a fair fight. This is the human version of shooting fish in a barrel. People are trapped and are being bombed to oblivion and starved to death.

That the Israeli government hasn't really been challenged on this and is still being supplied weapons at an incredible rate ($17.9 billion in arms from the US alone since the crisis began) means that it is feeling a level of impunity that has led it to start bombing Lebanon and Iran.

The Knesset has voted today to ban UNRWA from Gaza and declared it a terrorist group. A member of the UN is calling a UN organisation a terrorist group! Israel continues to take 'unprecedented' action again and again and no-one is stopping them. They may think that it's ok because Israel is one of the good guys (though if these are the actions of a 'good guy' I'd f.cking hate to see a bad guy) but by allowing Israel to do this, there is no way any country can condemn another for breaking the rules of war.

Bomb a hospital? Israel's done it, so many times it's become impossible to count and seemingly impossible to care.

Bomb a refugee camp? Israel's done it, again so many times that the incidents all blur into one.

Remember how they did their best to pretend it wasn't them, or that it was but it was an accident? Now they aren't bothering to deny it because no-one's stopping them so why bother.

Kill humanitarian aid workers? Israel's done that too.

Bomb civilians? Done.

Bomb journalists? Done.

Bomb schools? Done.

Capture civilians, call them terrorists and then torture them? Done that too, and been proud of it.

Prevented humanitarian aid from reaching civilians? Done that for a year now, and it's not exactly like the borders weren't already restricting what could come into Gaza beforehand.

And in recent months they've bombed other countries and even done a massive terrorist attack of their own, planting bombs in hundreds of pagers and walkie talkies. And instead of saying 'holy f.ck, they've just shown that every electronic device could be a potential bomb, we're going to have to massively increase our surveillance on supply chains and airport security because this could be replicated by malign actor, we've somehow collectively gone "wow, that's awesome!"

From Popular Mechanics,

Organizations of all kinds now have added reason to inspect personal communication devices received in bulk for their personnel, particularly as successful novel attacks often inspire copycat attempts. Furthermore, future terrorist groups may attempt supply chain gambits with the intent of causing indiscriminate harm rather than targeting a specific group.

Where does this end? It's increasingly clear where Israel wants it to end. With Gaza empty of Palestinians and Israeli settlements built in their place. NPR reported on a recent rally where 'government minister May Golan said permanently claiming land in Gaza was appropriate punishment',

“What in the end will we do that will really hurt them? Only taking territory will really hurt them…those who got territory and took advantage of it to plan a holocaust will, God willing, receive another Nakba,” she said, using the Arabic term for the mass displacement of Palestinians in Israel's founding war.

The Times of Israel reports that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference recently,

Israel must free itself “from wrong concepts” and make an “unequivocal Israeli statement to the Arabs and the entire world that a Palestinian state will not be established,” through “the establishment of new cities and settlements deep in the [West Bank] and bringing hundreds of thousands of additional settlers to live in them.”
...
"Those who do not want or are unable to put aside their national ambitions will receive assistance from us to emigrate to one of the many Arab countries where the Arabs can realize their national ambitions, or to any other destination in the world,” he [continued].

Meanwhile ITV reports on a small, and relatively fringe, group of settlers who have friends in the government and we've seen what happens when fringe groups have friends in high places and it's not good.

Just on the other side of the border, some Israelis are already plotting to move into the land that’s currently being evacuated. The war in Gaza has become a twisted kind of tourist attraction for families of Israel's right-wing settlers. They pose for pictures - family smiles, with Gaza smouldering in the background. We asked one woman what her message to the people of Gaza would be. “To the Arabs?” she asks in response, as if surprised at the idea she would say anything to them. “Just go away!”

Looking further than Gaza, and even Israel, where this ends is nowhere good for any of us. Israel has broken so many conventions - both formalised in law and informal but globally understood - that they've broken protections that all of us unknowingly rely on. Israel has been allowed to act with impunity for the last year and has made conflict so much more dangerous. By allowing Netenyahu to get away with so much for so long the global north has lost any sort of moral high-ground when it comes to calling out rogue states. Now any country that wants can target civilians with impunity and when called out say 'Israel did it' and also, and more importantly, recognise that world leaders might 'condemn' them but won't actually do anything to stop them.

I'm f.cking terrified by what's going on right now. Gaza is almost completely destroyed, it's going to take decades to rebuild and billions of dollars. Israel seems to have gone insane. It's bombing so recklessly now that it feels like they are just goading their neighbours into all-out war in the middle east. I don't know how we get sanity to prevail, but I feel that we are seeing the beginnings of a permanent reshaping of Israel both geographically and politically. There's no going back to how things were.

[Fishnut]

At least 93 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahiya in Northern Gaza today.

[Director-general of the Gaza government’s media office, Ismail al-Thawabta] said that the building Israel attacked housed 200 people. Dozens of people are reported missing and 150 others estimated to be injured. Medics said 20 children were among the dead.

[IvanV]

I made a prediction a little while ago that we would never get to Stage 2 of the Gaza ceasefire, because we never get to Stage 2 of any agreements between the Palestinians and Israel.

On this occasion, it is quite clear that Israel broke the agreement. There were accusations of Hamas breaking the ceasefire agreement, but they were not credible. Normally the situation has broken down when the time for stage 2 arrives, and there is room for argument about who was to blame, though certainly one can point to provocative actions by parties who didn't want to get there.

Moreover, the reason looks quite cynical. When the Israeli government accepted the ceasefire, one of the coalition partners, Jewish Power, left the coalition. This meant that the government couldn't pass its budget. If it was unable to pass a budget by the end of March, that would lead to a general election. And lo and behold they have gone back to war, Jewish Power has rejoined the coalition, and sneaked the budget through just in time.

There was no plausible threat from Hamas at this time, but they have gone back into Gaza, guns blazing, killing lots of people, stopping food aid, turning off power and water, demanding the evacuation of large areas - this time Rafah and Khan Younis - so they can go in and raze it. The central corridor has been reoccupied.

Meanwhile 50,000 people in the West Bank have been displaced, as Israel has chosen to to occupy those areas for no very clear reason or with any statement about what happens next. Probably the people aren't coming back. There is only lip-service to preventing Israeli settlers going around committing acts of arson and violence. A number of "informal Israeli settlements", ie illegal ones, have just been formalised. Settlement expansion continues apace elsewhere. It all adds just looks like a large acceleration in land annexation in the West Bank. As with the timing of Erdogan's authoritarian uptick in Turkey, it all looks like taking advantage of the rest of the world mostly worrying about other things.

[IvanV]

Funny how it is completely unacceptable when Iran bombs an Israeli hospital due to missing a nearby military target, or so the Iranians claim. But it is inevitable collateral damage when Israel bombs hospitals while flattening Gaza, even though it is only military targets they claim to be addressing.

Trump seems to have a TACO weakness not only over trade negotiations with China etc, but also over whatever Netanyahu does. It seems astonishing if it is indeed true that Netanyahu did this without prior permission and got Trump to approve after. But so far as can be told, that seems to be what happened, and Trump is approving of it after the event. Maybe Trump tipped him a wink, but I suppose we won't know unless someone leaks some confidential communication to that effect.

In terms of why Netanyahu made such a rash move, I can only suppose that Netanyahu thinks the more war there is, the better his chance of remaining in power without having to face the voters, or else improve his chance of being reelected if he manages to muzzle Iran, as Thatcher reversed a politically lost situation with the Falklands War. And - correctly it appears - thought that he had Trump around his little finger.

I also find it hard to credit Merz cheering it on so enthusiastically.

[Fishnut]

It's been far too long since I last posted here. I don't have any justification, it's just that the longer I leave it the harder it gets to try and summarise everything and I get intimidated and put it off.

So I'll state up front, this is not a comprehensive list of events since I last posted. It's barely touching the surface to be honest but I think an update is important, even if it is only partial.

So where do things stand? Let's start with what Israel is supposed to care most about - the hostages. 251 people were taken hostage on 7 October 2023.

Wiki has the best info I can find but I couldn't make the numbers add up and there didn't seem to be anywhere that had fully collated things in a sensible way. So I spent a couple of evenings making a spreadsheet of hostages which can be viewed in all its glory here.

To summarise, of the 251 hostages, 35 were actually killed in the initial attacks and their bodies taken to Gaza. 44 were killed or died while in Gaza, 3 were killed by IDF after they managed to escape and 1 was killed during a rescue attempt but it's unclear which side killed them. So that accounts for 83 people.

138 have been released as part of hostage exchanges, ceasefire deals, third-nation negotiations or for humanitarian reasons.

8 have been rescued by the IDF.

As for the hostages, there are 22 still being held though there have been no evidence of life since the initial attacks for two of them - Bipin Joshi (Nepali) and Tamir Nimrodi (Israeli).

If we subtract the 35 who were killed on 7/10 and their bodies taken to Gaza, that leaves us with 216 people who were being held alive by Hamas. Of those, 64% have been released as a result of negotiations. Only 3.7% have been rescued and 1.4% were killed by the IDF. 20% have died while in captivity and while I'm sure some of those were deliberate killings, I would not be at all surprised if some were from the incessant bombing and starvation of the people in Gaza that would also impact the hostages.

Going back to the day that started it all, 1,195 people were killed, though it's since been confirmed that at least 14 people were killed in friendly fire. Of these, 736 were civilians, 79 were foreign national and 379 were members of the security forces. While these figures are awful and in no way justified, the fact that the IDF reported about 6,000 Gazans breached the border wall in 119 locations (an average of about 50 people at each location) and around 1,000 were firing rockets, it's incredible the death toll wasn't significantly higher. Even with the element of surprise and the fact they were attacking predominantly unarmed people that's still an average of one person killed for every 5 Hamas combatants. I don't know anything about military operations but if killing was the aim that seems a pretty ineffective use of manpower.

Israel responded decisively, by relentlessly bombing and blockading Gaza which it continues to this day.

According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, as of 25 June 2025 56,156 Palestinians have been killed, and 132,239 Palestinians have been injured. That is almost 47 Palestinians killed for each person killed in the 7 October attacks, and over 110 injured.

OCHA's Humanitarian Situation update 300 for the Gaza Strip makes for incredibly grim reading.

Casualties
Of the 55,202 Palestinians killed between 7 October 2023 and 15 June 2025, 31% were children, 17% women, 45% men and 7% were elderly persons.

Haaretz has a report on the casualties. They discuss research published as a preprint recently on mortality in the Gaza Strip. They conclude that the Ministry of Health is likely undercounting deaths by about 40%, which agrees with previously peer-reviewed research.

These data, says [lead author] Prof. Spagat, position the war in the Gaza Strip as one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 21st century. Even if the overall number of war victims in Syria, Ukraine and Sudan is higher in each case, Gaza is apparently in first place in terms of the ratio of combatants to noncombatants killed, as well as in terms of rate of death relative to population size....

Data compiled and published by Spagat indicates that the proportion of women and children killed via a violent death in Gaza is more than double the proportion in almost every other recent conflict...

Another extreme datum found in the study is the proportion of those killed relative to the population. "I think we're probably at something like 4 percent of the population killed," Spagat says, adding, "I'm not sure that there's another case in the 21st century that's reached that high.

Displacement
82.6% of the Gaza strip is now within Israeli-militarised zones or placed under displacement orders. This means that the people left in Gaza are being squeezed into an increasingly small area which makes it increasingly difficult to find shelter and food.

Gaza.png (521.95 KiB) Viewed 14287 times

The white is where people are currently allowed.

No shelter materials have entered Gaza since 1 March 2025. There's 980,000 shelter items, including over 49,000 tents ready and waiting to go into Gaza but Israel is denying permission for them to enter.

Makeshift shelters are now concentrated in bombed-out schools, public lots, and urban rubble, often far exceeding site capacity and without basic infrastructure.

Food security
From the 25 June 2025 impact snapshot,
- <5% of cropland is available for cultivation as of April 2025
- 71% of greenhouse areas have been damaged as of 1 April 2025
- 72% of the fishing fleet has been destroyed as of December 2024
- 100% of the population is projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity classified in IPC Phase 3 or above.
From wiki,

IPC phases.png (377.73 KiB) Viewed 14287 times

It's estimated that 1 million people will be in phase 4 and 470,000 in phase 5 by the end of September if nothing changes.

This is not a natural famine. Israel is deliberately preventing food from entering the Gaza strip. At the beginning of March, Israel shut all crossings into Gaza and prevented aid from entering, and it doesn't seem to have lifted that blockade. Instead the newly-formed 'Gaza Humanitarian Fund' has been distributing limited amounts of food. IDF soldiers have been shooting people coming for food. According to Haaretz,

Since the rapid distribution centers opened, Haaretz has counted 19 shooting incidents near them...

"It's a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They're treated like a hostile force – no crowd-control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire."
...
According to him, "I'm not aware of a single instance of return fire. There's no enemy, no weapons." He also said the activity in his area of service is referred to as Operation Salted Fish – the name of the Israeli version of the children's game "Red light, green light".

From the Financial Times,

Ashraf Abu Shbaker, a father of six, went to the [food distribution] site three times: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. But every time he reached the site, everything was already taken.

He tried to ask one of the security contractors on Tuesday why there was nothing left. He said the contractor pepper sprayed him in the face. Three other witnesses, including one who was sprayed himself, said the contractors used spray and sound grenades within the site.

“Today, I didn’t want to go. I’m tired,” Abu Shbaker said. “If you want to starve people, go ahead, but don’t debase us like this.” ... “This isn’t aid,” Zaydan said. “It’s a mouse trap.”

Nutrition
- Most families survive on just one nutritiously poor meal per day, while adults routinely skip meals to prioritize children, the elderly, and the ill amid deepening hunger and desperation.
- On average, 112 children have been admitted daily for treatment of acute malnutrition since the start of the year, with the situation set to deteriorate if conditions do not change immediately.
- As of 15 June, a total of 18,809 children under five years of age have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition, including 5,486 in May – within a population of children where wasting was non-existent 20 months ago.

Water and Sanitation
- 89% of water and sanitation facilities have been either destroyed or partially damaged
93% of households have experienced water insecurity and 91% reported worsening levels of drinking water security in June 2025

Infrastructure
- 92% of housing is destroyed or damaged.
- 70% of all structures are destroyed or damaged, as of April 2025.
- 81% of classified roads and 62% of the total road network, including agricultural roads, have been damaged or destroyed as of February 2025.

Health
- Incredibly, 17 hospitals are still partially functional.
- Channel 4 will be showing the documentary Doctors Under Attack tomorrow night (Wednesday 2 July) that documents the deliberate targetting of hospitals and medical staff by the IDF. I will be watching.

Education
- More than 2,300 educational facilities, ranging from kindergartens to universities have been destroyed as of February 2025
- More than 658,000 school-aged children have no access to formal learning spaces
- Over 88% of schools will require full reconstruction or major work to become functional, as of April 2025
- over 76,000 students in Gaza were unable to sit for their general secondary examinations over the past two academic years

Gender-based violence
- Incidents of gender-based violence continue to rise, with women and girls facing increasing risks of abuse, exploitation, coercion and harmful coping strategies in their struggle to survive.

Humanitarian aid
Barely anything is getting through. There is aid waiting to be delivered but the IDF is refusing to let the majority through and even when it does initially agree it is then creating issues that lead to missions being aborted or being only partly successful.

It's not just food that's the problem. The lack of fuel is limiting access to water and medical care.

MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza [said]: “The charade of only allowing medical and fuel supplies at the very last minute before a looming disaster is nothing but a band-aid on a gushing wound. The weaponization of aid must end.”

This is genocide, pure and simple.

How do we make it stop?

[discovolante]

Thanks again Fishnut. What an absolutely horrifying read.

[jimbob]

Seconded.
Even by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's own website it's inadequate.

https://ghf.org/operational-update-june-22/

1.1 million meals for 2.1 million people on that day isn't good. And three distribution sites for those numbers is also utterly inadequate.

[discovolante]

My (I think) periodic post to ask about the most effective organisations to donate to, for this issue but I don't think it would hurt to share info about organisations supporting people in other conflicts too e.g. Sudan.

I've been sending money over to Medical Aid for Palestinians now and then and a while back saw some criticism of Red Cross, so opted not to donate. But I'm not sure how up to date or accurate that all is. I'll try and have a dig around at some point soon but for now I suppose this is an invitation for anyone who has any suggestions to post them. I appreciate that donating probably feels quite futile at the moment, but as long as it's not actively counterproductive then it seems better than letting the flow of support just dry up.

[jimbob]

BCG modelled plan to ‘relocate’ Palestinians from Gaza - https://on.ft.com/3IavX7z via @FT

Boston Consulting Group modelled the costs of “relocating” Palestinians from Gaza and entered into a multimillion-dollar contract to help launch an aid scheme for the shattered enclave, a Financial Times investigation has found.

The consulting firm helped establish the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and supported a related security company but then disavowed the project, which has been marred by the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, and fired two partners last month.

More in link

[IvanV]

Let's have a look at Trump's peace plan, shall we. Various leaders from Europe and the Middle East have given cautious support. Other commentators have been more cutting. In The Grauniad, commentators pointed out that Israel and the US knew it would be unacceptable to Hamas. So is it all a cover story to carry on fighting? On BBC R4 1pm News yesterday, commentator after commentator denounced it as new colonialism, and lacking any consent from the Palestinian people. But how do you get consent from the Palestinian people? Difficult even before the war. And, ultimately you have to say, can you really come to such an agreement without mentioning the West Bank, where large parts are being in effect annexed by Israel? And Israel has recently closed the Allenby Bridge, the only way out of the West Bank to Jordan and the rest of the world, to put pressure on the Palestinians there. It has been reopened for persons, but not cargo.

1. Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.
2. Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.

Just words that mean whatever you want them to mean. Has no effect.

3. If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.
4. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.

Despite the first sentence saying the war is ended, the second sentence makes clear it is only suspended. Hamas will never agree to giving up the hostages unless war definitively ends, with suitable guarantees, which are not present here. That much alone is a show-stopper for anyone with the Palestinian people's interests. Then there's the "agreed upon line". Who agreed upon it? I don't think a map has been published for the likes of us to look at. But on BBC news some people who had apparently seen some kind of a map suggested that there will be buffer zones, including along the Egyptian frontier. I don't think that will go down very well.

5. Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after 7 October 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.
6. Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.

Who decides who are Hamas members?

7. Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the 19 January 2025 agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.
8. Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under 19 January 2025 agreement.

Who's paying? I think the Palestinians will want better than Rafah crossing subject to Israeli oversight. And who's in control of the entry of aid, etc? Israel?

9. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the "Board of Peace," which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of state to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair. This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform programme, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump's peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.

Who will select this committee? The reality of governing places is that you need credible central control and security, so that other forces don't attack you. (See Why Nations Fail, Robinson and Acemoglu) Without this, you get a failed state with warlordism. This transitional body is transitional, and groups will be fighting to be what replaces it.

10. A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energise Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.
11. A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.

Just words.

12. No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.

Well at least Trump has moved on from forcibly emptying it, which was never going to happen. This is probably the main piece of progress in the thinking of the US government that this proposal indicates.

13. Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarisation of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration programme all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbours.
14. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbours or its people.

The thing is you have to get Hamas to agree to this, and they won't. And the Regional Partners, and historically they have always refused point blank to have anything to do with this kind of thing.

I was interested to discover that huge quantities of tunnels remain undestroyed, despite the Israelis occupying most of the strip with massive force and going around demolishing so much. Perhaps all those demolished and bomb-damaged buildings make location of them difficult. Best of luck getting the occupants of Gaza to voluntarily destroy what the Israelis have been unable to destroy.

15. The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The ISF will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The ISF will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A deconfliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.

Best of luck with that. You can wish for this stuff, but these things have never made any progress in the past. You really need this agreed upon before implementation.

16. Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the ISF establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the United States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the IDF will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.

Ah, those special words, milestones, timeframes, progressive. The only things that happen, when it concerns Israel and the Palestinians, are the things that must happen immediately. Anything that is agreed to happen later never happens. Qv Oslo, Camp David, 25 Jan ceasefire. Anything that was to happen later, excuses were found so that it never did. In the case of the 25 Jan ceasefire, the excuses were so transparently thin, it was evidently just a refusal to do what had been agreed to.

17. In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the IDF to the ISF.

So, in the absence of a Hamas surrender, Gaza will be divided into Hamas active areas and ISF controlled areas. What will be the boundaries? Will there be a conflict line? Is this just a new war against a different army?

18. An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.
19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.
20. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.

Not worth the pixels that present it.

[IvanV]

So something like this has apparently been agreed. It is a ceasefire, not a peace settlement. And full details of exactly what has been agreed has not been released yet, so far as I can find.

We do now have a map (of sorts). Three stages of withdrawal.

Apparently all the hostages will be released after the first stage of withdrawal, when the IDF will still control over half of Gaza. That's a big piece of trust. Because Hamas lose their main bargaining chip after that. Preciously Hamas insisted on full withdrawal before even considering a hostage release. But even after stage three, the IDF will control a strip all around the perimeter. Doubtless Hamas has been so reduced by the last two years it was unable to insist on anything better, and conditions were so appalling it felt it had to sell out for just this.

Last time there was a ceasefire, Israel quickly reneged on all later stages. Well, maybe Trump has Netanyahu's balls in a vice secretly behind the scenes, or something, and at least some of the later stages will happen this time. But the longer term ambitions? Is an actual settlement any nearer than it proved after Oslo and Camp David? The current Israeli government insists it will never agree to anything that could be an actual peace settlement - at least it excludes all plausible options. The never-ended frozen-at-times conflict suits them very well.

We had to wait for the Israeli government to approve it, which happened only late last night. There are reports of continuing IDF artillery etc until several hours after that was announced. The hard right parties who had been threatening to bring the Israeli government down if Netanyahu should end the war have retreated. They are now saying that they will bring the government down if Hamas fails to disband. But is that even part of the deal?

It looks to me like the Palestine ratchet has tightened again. Every time there is a conflict, once it resolves the Palestinians find themselves with less than they had before. Gaza was often described as an open air prison camp before this conflict, and it will be an even more surveilled version of that after this.

And in the distraction over the last couple of years, the Palestinians have lost a lot more of the West Bank. There were several incidents of the IDF simply taking over substantial pieces of land and evicting the occupants out "for security reasons". There are now several tens of thousands of displaced people from such blatant military take-overs. But the largest losses have been in the form of land grabs for informal new settlements, in practice defended by the IDF. In practice these take over a substantial security buffer of land around them. These recent moves amount to a grab of a a material fraction of the West Bank. With increasing transport difficulties for Palestinians within the West Bank, given numerous mobile Israeli checkpoints, it seems that Palestinians in the West Bank are being gradually kettled into small, mainly urban, zones, increasingly reminiscent of Gaza before the recent conflict.

[Rich Scopie]

Trump's not going to give a sh.t now that he's not won the Nobel Peace Prize.

[IvanV]

Trump's not going to give a sh.t now that he's not won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The coincidence of timing is entertaining. But even he should be able to see that the very earliest he might get it would be next year. The shortlist is drawn up in March.

And on the basis of the past decisions of the Nobel Prize Committee to quickly hand out Peace Prizes for both the Camp David Accords and Oslo Accords, then I can see in his narcissistic mind he might think he might get it as early as next year.

But this is a very sketchy ceasefire, and those were comprehensive and detailed deals, albeit - and crucially - both leaving critical points of dispute unresolved.

And in those past cases it took quite some time to realise that they both ultimately failed, and leave egg on the Nobel Committee's faces. I hope the Nobel Committee has learned from that, and this time will wait a due period of time to see that a lasting peace really has come to Palestine before handing out the prizes for achieving it, should we be so fortunate as to come to that.

At the time, the Oslo Accords looked really very promising, a lot more promising than today's sketchy ceasefire. But, in a sense, that is inevitable. We have just emerged from a very hot conflict, and a initial ceasefire is often the first crucial step that ultimately leads to a peace. But probably that was actually the easy bit. We all know that the war in Gaza only carried on so long and so destructively only because an extremist minority in the coalition government threatened to force an election, which Netanyahu really really didn't want. It will require some amazing diplomacy to get from here to an actual peace. We are yet to see who might give us that.

And maybe, to start with, there will appear to be progress. After Oslo I, there was initially apparent progress for quite some time, with the Oslo II accords a couple of years later. But the difficulty of Oslo was that the difficult bits were unresolved, and there was no enforcement to prevent stonewalling. Of course there were breaches by the other side to excuse the stonewalling, there always are. But they are generally provocations by extremists. The strong and the willing know to overlook them, rather than take political advantage of them. Without such an attitude, we would never have achieved the (relative) peace of Northern Ireland. When the stonewalling became apparent, so frustration grew and the Second Intifada broke out. And Oslo was dead, about 7 years after the Oslo I accord was signed.

[Tristan]

Trump's not going to give a sh.t now that he's not won the Nobel Peace Prize.

There’s always next year…

Which might not be as outlandish as it might at first seem. If he can stay focused on it at make it last and if he can repeat something similar for Ukraine then maybe he could get it. I was listening to Any Questions today and it was interesting to hear even Kim Ledbetter saying that.

A couple of interesting articles:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ahu-israel
https://substack.com/@samf/note/c-16314 ... are-action

The Sam Freedman Substack is paid but you can get a free trial to read it. It’s a post on how the plan came about.

[headshot]

Is Trump’s motivation peace, or opportunity?

[IvanV]

A couple of interesting articles:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ahu-israel
...

The Guardian article is worth reading.

As it says, we could have been here 7 months ago. Whilst it was probably not irrelevant that Hamas' situation has been substantially weakened in the interim, the main difference that led to the ceasefire is the US holding Netanyahu's hand into the fire. And the only way we get from this narrow ceasefire to any kind of a satisfactory on-going situation is for the US to maintain its concentration on the issue, and keep Netanyahu's, and his successors', hands in the fire. For otherwise, as it says, they will go back to their usual tricks.

And maybe Trump has actually learned something about the art of the deal from this. Namely that when it comes to foreign leaders whose main priority is staying in power, money isn't much of an incentive. Rather, the only way you can try to make them do something they is to locate a fire you can hold their hand into, and do that. Of course in the case of Israel, it is precisely the US that has such a fire. In the case of North Korea, the relevant fire is in the possession of China.

[Tristan]

A couple of interesting articles:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ahu-israel
...

And the only way we get from this narrow ceasefire to any kind of a satisfactory on-going situation is for the US to maintain its concentration on the issue, and keep Netanyahu's, and his successors', hands in the fire.

Which is why, as distasteful as it might seem, a route to the Nobel peace prize at some point should remain on the cards. That could help keep him focused on making it work.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Agreed. Trump does have an ability, if he chooses to, to knock heads together and force things to happen, at least to a certain extent. He is generally less bothered about u-turning on things as his base will go with him regardless, and if he decides to, he will happily call Netanyahu a bellend or whatever and move against Israel*. If his motivation is simply personal indulgence and getting equal with Obama, then so be it if, in the pursuit of that, he does actually achieve good things.






*He won't, because Netanyahu is, whatever else you may call him, a charmer, and Trump is very inclined to agree with the last person he spoke to.

[IvanV]

The tragedy continues for some.

Four Palestinians were killed by the IDF for trespassing over the line of control. They failed to follow an order to cross back, but there is no indication that they were armed or any threat to the IDF. Both Hamas and the IDF have labelled this a ceasefire violation by the other side.

Eight Palestinians were publicly executed by Hamas. This followed armed clashes between Hamas and other armed groups trying to assert control.

[IvanV]

Perceptive piece by BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen.

The Trump 20-pt plan isn't a peace, or even a roadmap to peace. It is a flaky ceasefire, not "job done" at all. Getting to peace remains the difficult bit that requires considerable concentration and effort.

There's a risk of even the basic agreed things not happening already. Israel is threatening to let only half the aid in, and keep borders closed, unless Hamas produces bodies of the dead Israelis - well a lot more of them. But imagine trying to find the bodies of specific people in Gaza, after all that happened, and when you only have access to less than half of it. Most of them died on or about 7-10-2023. More Palestinians have been shot and killed for trespassing over the invisible line.

And Trump is reminding Hamas to disarm. But security is needed, and there's still no sign of the international stabilisation force.

[IvanV]

And Trump is reminding Hamas to disarm. But security is needed, and there's still no sign of the international stabilisation force.

I have just learned that Trump has openly said that Hamas has been given approval (unclear by who) to act as armed security for a period of time. For example Trump speaking at about 1m22s in this video by a former BBC reporter now an independent Indian journalist. Trump seems to understand some of the practical realities of live in a rubble wasteland with a population, explicitly mentioning they are now a bit less than 2 million after all the deaths.

I also only just learned that these armed groups that Hamas is clashing with, and publicly executing some of them, Netanyahu openly admitted to arming them. That was back in June and I missed that. What a delightful way of intervening in Palestinian society.

[Sciolus]

It's always been striking that Hamas holds "hostages" while Israel holds "prisoners". The genocide-apologists have always defended this because obviously the IDF only captures and holds people who are genuine terrorists. But that argument rather falls apart when you discover that many of these "prisoners" are in fact dead bodies which they have refused to return until now.

[jimbob]

It's always been striking that Hamas holds "hostages" while Israel holds "prisoners". The genocide-apologists have always defended this because obviously the IDF only captures and holds people who are genuine terrorists. But that argument rather falls apart when you discover that many of these "prisoners" are in fact dead bodies which they have refused to return until now.

Over on internationalskeptics, you can see a load of the apologetics' arguments in the various Israel/Palestine threads