I'm hearing that a ceasefire in Lebanon is imminent. Conditions/stages from Israel's side are reportedly: 1) Cessation of armed conflict 2) Hezbollah withdraws all military personnel and equipment to positions north of the Litani 3) Israel withdraws all military personnel and equipment out of Lebanese territory 4) International coalition force led by the USA to replace UNIFIL in demilitarised zones, reserving the right to act militarily should Hezbollah seek to regroup and rearm and the Lebanese army fails to act in response. 5) Final-stage peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon with full resolution of disputed border territories.
There are some significant differences I’ll grant you that. But there’s nothing in there that couldn’t be applied (with the will of Hamas and Israel) to the situation in Palestine.
Kamal Adwan hospital targeted for 7 days in a row. The lead doctor there who is now injured from shrapnel has said that the IDF are targeting their oxygen supplies, emergency dept and electricity supply (generators) with drones. It is one of only two functioning hospitals left in Gaza
this is just wishful thinking imo as neither side show any interest in peace and Israel is clearly on intent on expansion into the west bank rather than the opposite . Which will also make any further negotiations (if any serious ones actually happen) that much more difficult as i can only think of Sinai when the Israeli Govt removed settlers and destroyed their settlements as part of the agreement with Egypt .
Yeah I’m not trying to paint a picture that it would be easy. Quite the opposite, but there has to be a ceasefire in Gaza as the population there are being annihilated and those who survive face starvation and disease. Along with Israel’s decision to ban UNWRA from operating to provide aid for Palestinians, that situation is only going to get worse. The deal between Lebanon and Israel has come about because Hezbollah seems to have decoupled the conditions that there is a ceasefire in Gaza, so perhaps this can be a first step towards that, under a different set of negotiations. The problem is, that Israel is incapable of negotiating with Hamas and wants to destroy it. That stance is never going to bring peace for Israel, because even if they manage to dismantle Hamas, the way in which they have done it, at the expense of over 40,000 innocent lives and utter destruction of Gaza, along with no equitable settlement for Palestinians, is almost certain to breed yet other armed resistance group and this conflict continues endlessly
oh don't get me wrong i despair of this Israeli regimes actions and the senseless deaths they leave in the rubble but your first point works both ways . As i said at the start of all this both sides (Israeli Govt and Hamas ) are just ****s hence your first point works both ways
Israel dismantled the Gazan settlements of Gush Katif and removed close to 10,000 residents in 2005 as part of an agreement with the PLO.
You correctly mention Hezbollah seemingly dropping it's demand for a ceasefire in the north to be coupled with one in Gaza. From the Israeli side, the biggest move on the potential ceasefire in Lebanon was dropping it's demand that Hezbollah be permanently dissolved. I was very taken aback by this and especially at the lack of serious objections by the usual war mongers in the cabinet. Not sure what caused this shift but the cynic in me (the part of my brain that despises Netanyahu) says that the credit he earned from the early surprise blows against Hezbollah's senior leadership has all but dried up by now. This coupled with Gallant's rather vocal exit from the government plus growing noise to stop delaying Netanyahu's corruption trial, means that he is as usual saving his own skin. There has been zero progress on the hostage front for months so the only 'victory' he can now score is the safe return of 100,000 Israelis to their homes in the north. Circling back to my original point, this won't happen in Gaza. There is no version of events where Hamas survives beyond the signing of a ceasefire. It cannot be allowed to continue as an entity.
As far as I know, the Israeli cabinet still need to agree on it. And of course you have absolute ****e hawks like Ben Gvir in there who will pushing for more war. Hezbollah and Hamas are often defined by the west as similar organisations with similar ideologies. Is it because Hezbollah are better armed that they have more negotiating leverage ? If Israel can negotiate with one, then in principle they can negotiate with the other ? No matter what Israel say about dismantling Hamas, it still doesn't solve the burning issue regarding equity for Palestine. If Hamas are destroyed and there is no agreement on Palestine, they will just be replaced, in time, by another armed resistance group.
Hezbollah are fundamentally different in that they are an entity within a sovereign state and do not enjoy especially strong support among many Lebanese outside of the Shia community. Last I checked appx. 55% of people disapproved of the group and that number has only increased as the conflict has dragged on. Many Lebanese feel (rightly) that Hezbollah has vastly overreached its remit and has morphed into a state within a state that uses both a political carrot (it has the fourth largest number of seats in parliament - not enough to legislate but enough to block legislation whenever it wants to) and a military stick (a vast army supplied by Iran) to essentially blackmail the Lebanese government into doing what it wants. The loss of Nasrallah and other leaders recently is another body blow. Even among those who rejected Hezbollah as an entity, its leaders and Nasrallah in particular enjoyed widespread support. That leverage is now gone, leaving behind a vacuum which is being filled with members who simply do not have the street cred or gravitas as the previous leadership. What helps enormously with all of this is that the Lebanese sovereign govt is involved and included in every level of negotiation, so while it and Israel of course have deep and historic rifts, the people sitting on the other side of the table are part of a recognised government that is a fully fledged member of the international community. Negotiations aren't easy, but they are much more straightforward. When it comes to 'the day after' for the Palestinians, who does Israel negotiate with? Hamas barely exists anymore and what remains will (it seems) be destroyed in the coming months. The PLO is a defunct shell of a political party whose leaders are guilty of the most heinous levels of corruption and self-interest. They are reviled by their own people and mocked by the Israeli establishment on all sides of the spectrum. Not even Labour or Meretz would sit at a table with Abbas and his cronies; not because they don't want peace but because they realise that he is the political manifestation of erectile dysfunction.
Initial 60-day ceasefire in Lebanon is expected to be cleared by Israel's cabinet tonight. The usual war-mongers are kicking up a fuss, but have stopped short of bolting the coalition and bringing down the govt.
