The Gaza “Ceasefire” is a Total Fraud

It shouldn’t shock anyone, this long into both of their careers, to learn that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are habitual liars. They lie, and they lie, and they lie, practically every time they make a public statement. There’s “no inflation” in Trump’s America, except there obviously is. Israel would never bomb a hospital on purpose, unless perhaps a “Hamas camera” was located there. The official stories grow more incredible by the day. So why, we might ask, do so many journalists and politicians still accept anything these men say at face value? And why are they acting as if a ceasefire and a peace process were happening in Gaza, when Israel’s bombing and killing is still raging on?

When he made his speech about the ceasefire to a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on October 13, Trump was his usual bombastic self. “Together, we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East[…] After years of suffering and bloodshed, the war in Gaza is over,” he said. And if you trust certain big media outlets, you might even think that’s true. In the Atlantic, we were told that Trump “has achieved a remarkable success and deserves full credit for it,” with his ceasefire marking “the first steps toward peace in Gaza.” The New York Times has consistently described a ceasefire which is “brittle” (October 14) or “very fragile” (October 24) but still essentially intact. The Bezos-owned Washington Post touts the Trump administration’s “efforts to promote the success of the Gaza ceasefire deal.” The overall narrative is that, while there might still be a minor flare-up of tensions here and there, Trump’s diplomacy is working, and the war is over. Peace on earth, good will to all. 

The trouble is, the “fire” hasn’t actually “ceased.” The truce exists mainly on paper and in sound bites. In the real, flesh-and-blood world, Israel violates it on a near-daily basis, conducting airstrikes, shootings, and other assaults on the people of Gaza much as it did before the agreement was signed. Only the scale and strategy of the violence has changed. From all-out genocide, Israeli leaders have shifted to a quieter, more sporadic series of attacks that they clearly hope will be ignored or excused by the Trump administration, along with others in the U.S. who have a vested interest in pretending a meaningful peace has been reached. 

In fact, Al Jazeera reports that “Israel [has] violated the ceasefire agreement at least 497 times from October 10 to November 22,” including “attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings.” That’s an average of 11 violations per day. Experts at the United Nations have compiled slightly more modest numbers, reporting on November 24 that “Since the ceasefire was announced on 11 October, Israel has reportedly committed at least 393 violations, killing 339 Palestinians, including more than 70 children, and injuring over 871 others.” Whether you take the high or low estimate, the picture is the same: a continuous barrage of deadly assaults. 

Particular incidents stand out from the list. The worst of them was the Israeli airstrikes on October 28, which killed 104 Palestinians in a single bombing run. These attacks came in retaliation for the death of a single IDF soldier who was reportedly killed by Hamas, which would be a ceasefire violation in itself. But in their typical form, the Israelis struck “homes, schools and residential blocks” indiscriminately, and the BBC reports that “46 children and 20 women” were among the dead—that is, more than 60 percent of the total casualties. 

Even beyond direct attacks, Israel isn’t abiding by the terms of its agreement. The deliberate starvation hasn’t ended, as government officials in Gaza say that only around 200 trucks of food per day are being allowed through their borders, far short of the agreed-upon 600. As a result, malnutrition levels are still around 90 percent. Likewise, the latest UN report states that the IDF hasn’t actually withdrawn its forces from Gaza, with “40 active Israeli sites still operating beyond the agreed withdrawal line, in clear breach of the ceasefire terms.” Or, as Forensic Architecture puts it more bluntly, “nowhere in Gaza is safe.” The so-called “yellow line,” which ostensibly marks the point beyond which Israel has withdrawn, is in reality “unclear and contradictory,” with the line on the maps Israel releases not matching the line they actually occupy—and if Palestinians even venture near the line, even if they’re completely unarmed, they can be summarily shot and killed. Palestinians’ homes are still being demolished on a daily basis. In short, this “ceasefire” is not a ceasefire at all. The more accurate term would be a “reduction in fire,” or possibly a “temporary lull.” The ethnic cleansing and genocide is still ongoing, just by different means. 

The really incredible thing, though, is that so many U.S. journalists seem determined to clap their hands over their eyes, like the “see no evil” monkey, and pretend there really is “peace in the Middle East.” No example is more blatant than that of the Associated Press, who keep saying that Israel’s various attacks are “tests” of the ceasefire. An airstrike that “targeted a vehicle, killing 11 and wounding over 20 Palestinians” was the “Gaza ceasefire’s latest test,” according to the AP. (The majority of the dead were children.) Earlier, they reported that “The Israeli army launched a barrage of attacks in Gaza” after a dispute with Hamas over the return of a dead hostage’s body, killing “at least seven Palestinians”—but, astonishingly, wrote in the same article that the “Fragile ceasefire holds so far despite tests.” On another occasion, “Israel’s intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip this week marked the most serious challenge yet for a fragile, U.S.-brokered ceasefire.”

I’m sorry, but that just isn’t what those words mean. You can’t have both a “ceasefire” and “intense bombardment,” because you are bombing and not ceasing. It’s like walking up to your friend, shooting them in the shoulder with a handgun, and saying it’s a “test of your friendship.” And of course, there’s the usual double standard: if it were Hamas that were constantly bombing and killing hundreds of Israelis, it would not be described euphemistically as a “test.” Then, reporters would suddenly be able to call it what it is: a clear-cut violation, whose perpetrators should be held accountable.

There are immediate, life-or-death consequences to this lying. In a grim article from November 21, the Guardian reports that charities dealing with humanitarian aid for Palestinians have seen a “catastrophic drop-off in donations” ever since the “ceasefire” was announced, with one organizer saying that “the world thinks Palestinians don’t need our help any more.” As a result, the aid groups are now struggling to get desperately-needed blankets and clothing to Gaza, which is entering a bitterly cold winter. The Gaza Soup Kitchen reports that donations have fallen by 51 percent. Because of the “ceasefire” narrative, people will starve. And this, of course, is the purpose of spreading the narrative to begin with: to draw the eyes of the world away from Gaza, tamp down the anger and urgency that fuels anti-genocide protests, and let Palestinians suffer and die in silence. 

“It’s harmful and disingenuous for American media to continue the charade that there’s a ceasefire in place,” said Representative Joaquin Castro in a recent social media post. “There is no ceasefire. It’s a lie,” says Representative Rashida Tlaib. Exactly right. Trump and Netanyahu, the premier liars of the modern world, have simply lied again. The fire has not ceased, the food aid is not coming, and true peace is still a long way off. They can’t be allowed to get away with it. We’ve got to see through this false ceasefire, and renew the pressure on our leaders to actually end the violence. When Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian civilians under the guise of a truce, we can’t call it a “test,” shrug, and walk away. We need to demand the names and ID numbers of the commanders responsible, and put them on trial. We need to demand all the aid be let through, and make politicians’ lives hell until it is. The people of Gaza still need our solidarity, as much as they did when the war was officially on. For their sake, we can’t look away.