Israel and Hamas reach Gaza ceasefire and hostage release de

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^^^ I was referring to HAMAS strategy (Not Israeli).
HAMAS were banking on holding hostages would mollify the IDF response

I'm trying to ascertain an unbiased inquiry into the motives of HAMAS and what their intended purpose was with hostages.

1. Get their fighters out of prison and back fighting for them.
2. Hamper the IDF.

We spoke to Paul Rogers about whether Trump is likely to follow through on his plan and what the Arab states can or will do to stop him. We also discussed whether the cease-fire will remain in place over the coming weeks, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government threatens to resume a full-scale onslaught against Gaza.

Paul Rogers is emeritus professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford. His most recent book is The Insecurity Trap: A Short Guide to Transformation.

Daniel Finn
I want to begin by asking you about Donald Trump’s proposal for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which is clearly what is being discussed behind euphemisms about “voluntary migration.” How did he come to put this proposal on the agenda in the wake of the cease-fire deal that had been agreed between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Hamas, and how serious do you think he is about following through on it?

Paul Rogers
On the first point, it seems to have come from Trump himself. It’s clear that he did discuss it with some of his close affiliates, but essentially this was an initiative from Trump himself. It probably stems from some of the things he was doing in his first term, and it seems to him that this is a logical thing to do. He is, after all, a real estate person, and I think this is one of the areas where he believes that this is worth doing.

It was certainly a sudden announcement, and the indications are that contact with the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem about it in advance was quite limited. They did know that something was going to happen, but the extent of that knowledge was very limited. So as far as we can tell, this has come from Trump himself.

Is he serious about it? Yes, I think he probably is. From his point of view, this may seem a natural thing. People talk about Trump being an egotist or a narcissist. I think he’s more of a solipsist in the sense that he doesn’t care very much whether people agree or disagree with him — he’s absolutely certain that he’s right. If he comes up with this sort of idea, begins to follow through on it, and other people back him, then he becomes even more serious about it.

Of course, Netanyahu, who no doubt was surprised if not amazed at this offer, saw this as a way forward, particularly with the problems that he has been having with the far-right components in his coalition. I think it has to be taken seriously, and what happens next depends very much on how other states react — Arab states in particular.

Daniel Finn
Obviously, the people for whom this proposal has the most dramatic implications are the Palestinians themselves, but it also has striking implications for Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab states that immediately border Israel, which would be expected in this scheme to accommodate hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. There was already pressure on those states at an earlier stage from the Biden administration to take refugees from Gaza. How have they responded to what Trump has said, how likely are they to hold the line against Trump over this, and what leverage do they possess to try and convince or pressure him to change his mind?

Paul Rogers
I think much of this depends on understanding the reaction of ordinary people right across the Arab Middle East — obviously in Jordan and Egypt, but not just in those countries. What we’ve seen there is a much more detailed and much grimmer coverage of what has been happening in Gaza over the last sixteen months than you would get from the major European news channels.

The Israelis from the start have used the Dahiya doctrine, which basically means that when you have an insurgency that cannot be defeated by conventional means, you punish the entire society of which it is part. I can’t think immediately of any other conflict in the last twenty years where you have seen the same level of bombing as in Gaza, with the possible exception of Iraq, particularly during the final stages of the fight against ISIS from 2016 to 2018.

The degree of destruction in Gaza is astonishing, and this has been seen far more by people across the Arab Middle East than in Western countries.

The indications are that the quantity of explosives dropped on Gaza by the summer of 2024 ran to about 70,000 tons — in nuclear terms, that is seventy kilotons. We’re talking about the equivalent of five Hiroshima-sized bombs dropped on Gaza. In practice, it’s much worse than that, because there are lots of small explosions. The degree of destruction is astonishing, and this has been seen far more by people across the Arab Middle East than in Western countries.

From the point of view of ordinary people, there is huge anger that stretches well beyond whatever is happening in their own countries. You’ll get the reaction from the leaderships across the region, which are mostly autocratic, and which are more concerned with the reaction of their own people than with international opinion. This is causing a great deal of concern, particularly in Egypt and Jordan. Approximately one-third of the population of Jordan is already comprised of Palestinian refugees.

There is a real fear on the Arab leadership side about what this is doing within their own countries. You can’t really predict how far that will go. This is a matter of Gaza being destroyed right in the heart of the Middle East. One has to remember that Gaza has a long history. The Omari Mosque was one of the main mosques in that part of the world, and it has been largely destroyed.

The countries at greatest risk from these political uncertainties are Jordan and Egypt, but it’s not just them. It goes right across the Middle East. Because of that, they’re in a very tricky situation. It’s quite possible that Saudi Arabia in the ordinary way would quietly work something out with Trump and allow something like this plan to go ahead. But I’m not even sure of that happening now.

We are now trying to work out how they’re going to react. I suspect it will have to involve holding the line. They are simply going to have to do it, because of fear of their own social disruptions if they don’t.

We tend to forget just how deep this goes. We remember the way in which so many Palestinians were removed — 700,000 of them, out of a much smaller population than today — in 1948–49. But this would be much greater than that, so they will be very reluctant to go along with it in any shape or form. Whether they succeed in holding the line against Trump is a different matter, though.

Daniel Finn
I want to ask you in particular about Saudi Arabia, which stands apart from Jordan and Egypt in the sense that those two countries don’t have significant oil and gas reserves and receive large amounts of military aid and other forms of assistance from the United States. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has enormous reserves and is not so dependent on the United States or any other country, and thus appears to have greater leverage than either Jordan or Egypt. What has been the Saudi response to Trump’s scheme, what actions do you think Saudi leaders are likely to take, and how does this fit into the wider picture of the idea of a broad normalization package that would involve the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia?

Paul Rogers
I think we are moving into an area of difficult speculation here. In terms of how they have reacted, the Saudis are staying out of Washington right now. That’s an exercise in symbolism, but quite a significant one. The same applies to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

As far as Saudi Arabia is concerned, I think this is going to cause them a great deal of concern. Saudi Arabia itself is obviously an immensely rich state. There are some big divisions within the Saudi kingdom involving minorities, particularly in the northeastern part of the country. They have had many problems of social unrest, which are not widely reported.

There’s some element of guesswork in thinking about their likely response. The Saudis will be looking for a way out that does not involve the clearance of Gaza, because that is what Trump actually wants. He just wants to clear it all out and start again and make a huge amount of money for his friends — one must always remember that there are some big gas supplies off the coast of Gaza.

If Trump does get away with pushing this through, I think we are in for a period of considerable instability across the Middle East, particularly in the form of paramilitary groups linked to ISIS or Al Qaeda, which will gain a lot of strength from this. The Saudis will be aware of that, which is another reason why I think they’re going to try and find a way out of this.

In terms of the wider issue, does this affect the whole idea of normalization? I think it probably does. This is a push too far and too fast by a long stretch. As a result, I think the whole idea of normalization may have to be rethought, particularly when it comes to the nature of the current Netanyahu government.

The refugee camp in Jenin has been reduced almost to rubble, and very few of the ten thousand or so people who were living there before are even there now.

This is the basic problem. You have within Israel people who would largely offer Netanyahu’s government some support in terms of the war in Gaza, although more and more Israelis are growing very concerned about that. At the same time, the government is really pushing the boundaries over the degree of religious fervor, which is worrying for many secular Jews in Israel.

Meanwhile, you have the actions of the Israeli military in the West Bank, which are hardly being reported on at present. The refugee camp in Jenin has been reduced almost to rubble, and very few of the ten thousand or so people who were living there before are even there now.

This is not being widely discussed in the mainstream media of Western countries, but it is receiving much more attention in the Middle East. That will be another concern for the Saudis, because they also see the possibility of Trump going along with the annexation of the entire West Bank, which will inflame opinion right across the region.

Daniel Finn
When it comes to the European Union and the leading European states, we’ve seen a lot of focus on their disputes with the Trump administration over other issues such as Ukraine. We’ve also seen some high-profile interventions by J. D. Vance and by Trump’s ally Elon Musk openly supporting parties such as the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany. But Trump’s Gaza proposal also has significant implications for Europe, not least because of the prospect of large numbers of Palestinian refugees trying to come to Europe, as Syrian refugees did over the last decade. What has been the response of those European actors to Trump, and what do you expect them to do over the coming weeks and months?

Paul Rogers
The three main countries in this regard are Germany, France, and Britain, with the last of those three states no longer in the European Union (EU), of course. Germany has been traditionally sympathetic to Israel because of the history going back to the Holocaust, France rather less so, and Britain is also pretty supportive of Israel.

That is certainly true for the current Labour government of Keir Starmer, partly because of all the controversy over antisemitism during the period that Jeremy Corbyn was the party leader — although I think most people now accept that much of that was put up in a political push to damage Corbyn’s reputation with the electorate in Britain. Be that as it may, I think you should expect that out of those three key countries, it will be France that is more likely to be independent-minded and less supportive of Israel.

You can see very strong support for the Palestinians in Britain, by no means restricted to the substantial Muslim minority. We have had a series of massive demonstrations in London — approximately twenty demonstrations over the last sixteen months, all of which were peaceful. There have been some attempts at disruption by right-wingers, but by and large the marches have been fairly peaceful.

Those demonstrations have really concerned the British government — both the previous Conservative government and the Labour government in office since July of last year — because this is something that they are finding very difficult to control. What is happening nationally is happening locally as well. I live near an industrial town in the North of England, and there have been frequent demonstrations there too.

There’s a chasm between what the states are saying and what ordinary people are thinking, particularly in Britain. Bit by bit, Israel is coming to be regarded as a pariah state in many parts of Europe, and of course much more so across the Global South. There is a lot of concern in Europe about this at leadership level.

At the same time, however, you have a number of states, notably Hungary and Italy, that have moved pretty far to the right. By and large, support for the Palestinians is much lower in those political quarters. The Israelis obviously recognize these divisions, and they are putting a huge amount of work into maintaining support in Western Europe, but it’s proving difficult for them.

What that means for the EU is that it does not have the unity or strength at the moment to come up with a common view that will hold. That may change, and it certainly could change if Trump comes anywhere near to going ahead with his scheme to clear Gaza. But again, these are very unusual times, and it is difficult to make predictions with the kind of certainty that you would hope for.

The problem with the British is they always think they’re much more powerful and significant than they actually are.
The problem for Europeans — and here I can speak mainly about what’s happening on the British scene — is that they’re not really sure how far Trump is going to go on so many of these different schemes. They’re almost taking refuge in the idea that Trump is not going to get away with some of the things that he is doing — there’s quite a lot of wishful thinking going on at the moment.

The problem with the British is they always think they’re much more powerful and significant than they actually are. The “special relationship” between Britain and the United States is incredibly one-sided, and Britain has had great difficulty in coming to terms with that.

Daniel Finn
The final question I want to ask you about is about the prospects of the cease-fire deal being extended. We’ve already seen the potential for it to break down over the last week when Hamas stated that Israel was not complying with its commitments to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza. For now, at least, the deal still seems to be going ahead. But what do you think is the likelihood that the next stages will be implemented, leading to a permanent cease-fire?

Paul Rogers
I’ll be very pleasantly surprised if it does last and goes through to the next phase. I think the chances of that happening are pretty remote at the moment. It’s probable that Netanyahu and his people will try and make it so difficult for Hamas that Hamas will at some point respond by overstepping the mark, enabling Israel to say, “This is over — this is finished.”

Although it’s difficult to say for sure, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are quite well entrenched in Gaza in spite of all the destruction over the last sixteen months. The problem for Netanyahu is that from his point of view, he cannot go the whole way through with what is necessary to achieve a full deal. It will cost him his position for sure.

I’m afraid I think that a way will be found to ensure that the cease-fire does not last. Whether or not the Israelis intend to go back into Gaza with ground troops, I think there’s a very considerable chance that they will resume air strikes. If you look at what is happening in the West Bank, reliable Palestinian news sources indicated that the level of destruction in Jenin is quite astonishing — the number of people killed, the way in which Israeli Jewish settlers can treat Palestinians with impunity.

This indicates that Israel will go a long way to achieve what it thinks is necessary. We’re in a position where two parties that believe Israel has to be a purely Jewish state are part of the current coalition. That may not be a position that most Israeli Jews would support, but it is there under the current leadership.

This all points to the fact that it is not going to be easy to turn this into a long-term cease-fire. I think that the way in which the Israelis accepted the cease-fire had a lot to do with messages coming from the Trump administration before it took office indicating that Trump did not want any major problems appearing at the time of the inauguration. Since then, we have seen a return to more “normal” attitudes as far as Israel is concerned.

You think HAMAS don't know about Israel's policy? The policy's goal isn't to kill fellow Israelis, it's to deter kidnappings of Israelis because they don't mind killing the hostages to prevent the kidnapping. It won't work if HAMAS doesn't know about it.

Not just that, Israel has followed through on their policy before, meaning HAMAS also knows they're not playing and has adapted to this policy. What use is a human shield when you know opfor will accept the human shield as collateral damage to eliminate you?

Hezbollah specifically described operational changes in response to the Hannibal Directive in the Wiki article I linked to earlier—in a quote from 2006.

The underlined really seems like a deep misunderstanding of the situation.

Yes but isn't it kind of wrong to shoot the 'human shield' and like they are fine with shooting palestinian 'human sheilds' and also are willing to shoot/bomb their own people if hamas uses them as human shields by taking them hostage...like that seems like a problem on both sides. Hamas is willing to attack civilians, Israel is willing to attack civilians and it goes round and round. Like I think it is grosss to shoot through human shields like its ok to just use civilians like that and count them as coradical damage or whatever like if the enemy grabs an innocent person and puts them in front of themself its ok to just shoot through the innocent victim to kill the bad guy? like I cannot agree with that.

Hannibal directive specifically refers to kidnapped soldiers not civilians but for arguments sake let’s assume it unofficially also refers to civilians.

They think correctly I believe that ransoming hostages encourages more hostage taking that a no negotiation policy that will result in the deaths of hostages in the short run in the long run will save more of their constituents then it will kill. That position is politically unpalatable and not just in Israel.

Imagine a scenario where terrorists hold an elementary school hostage. The government refuses to negotiate and bombs the school killing everyone to attempt to teach the terrorists that hostage taking is not going to pay off anymore. The government survives the backlash but the backlash encourages the terrorists to try again etc etc. There is no doubt who would win such a test of wills and little doubt that a government that pursues such a “logical” policy will face immediate and historical infamy.
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In what universe does a country struggle for 70-80 years to survive only to relent and capitulate to a group of terrorists whose sole manifesto is their destruction? Of course if Israel relented immediately and said "poor little HAMAS, we don't mind you murdered our women and children and took them hostage. We will give you anything you want to get them back". Of course HAMAS would be heroes in GAZA and attract hundreds of cadres. "hey! you unemployed? who wants to plunder Israel. they don't retaliate anymore because Amnesty International told them they were naughty and now they just sit there saying "please HAMAS we are sorry" everytime we launch rockets on Israeli homes or attack settlers".

this is not the United states, Israel has constantly been under siege since 1948 and their potential enemies are literally a few miles down the road. We may not like Israel's response, but in their minds they literally do not have a choice. Jewish people survived 1000 years of persecution, I doubt they fear international sanctions or angry words from goyim.

In the interview, Abu Marzouk also said he was open to discussing the potential disarmament of the terror group in Gaza, saying that, “We are ready to speak about every issue,” and, “Any issue that is put on the table, we need to speak about it.” He declined, however, to answer specific questions about what a compromise on disarmament might look like.

The comments seemed to contradict more hardline statements from other public leaders of late, such as politburo member Osama Hamdan, who said this month that “the weapons of the resistance” were non-negotiable.

Asked about Hamdan’s remarks, Abu Marzouk told The New York Times that no one leader could set the organization’s agenda.

Qassem, the Hamas spokesman, also rejected this suggestion, saying: “We hold onto our resistance weapon as a legitimate right, and what was attributed to Moussa Abu Marzouk does not represent the movement’s stance. Resistance in all its forms is a legitimate right for our people until liberation and return.”

Asked about the ongoing, fragile hostage release-ceasefire deal, which has paused fighting in the Strip as Hamas has freed captives who were mostly abducted on October 7 and Israel has set free over a thousand Palestinian security prisoners, including many terror convicts, Abu Marzouk said he was open to extending the three-part deal’s first phase, which is currently slated to end on Saturday.

He said, however, that the group would demand far more security prisoners released in exchange for each of the remaining hostages than it had for those released in the past, noting that Hamas considers all the remaining living captives — including those who are in fact civilians — to be soldiers.

Abu Marzouk suggested 500-to-1 and 1,000-to-1 as possible prisoner-to-hostage ratios for the remaining captives, which are likely to be rejected out of hand by Israel.

The interview was conducted before Israel’s decision on Saturday to freeze the release of 602 security inmates in exchange for six living hostages, after those hostages were released in propaganda ceremonies that the state called “humiliations.”

Abu Marzouk added that Hamas is also open to releasing all the hostages at once, in exchange for an end to the war and the release of all Palestinian prisoners — which Israel has rejected.

IDF responds to rocket fire, as ceasefire up in the air
On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces struck a rocket launching site in Gaza, from which a rocket had been fired at Israel but fell short in the Strip, the military said. It added that a second rocket launch site in the area was also targeted.

It sounds like moving into the neighbourhood was a bad idea. It would be better for everyone involved if they didn't attempt to colonize Palestine in the first place.

Of course, getting ethno-nationalists who believe in their own innate superiority to recognize that they're the bad guys and that their actions can't be justified isn't likely to happen.

The mindset that results from declaring one's group the chosen people seems identical in practice to the mindset that results from declaring one's group the master race, so it shouldn't be shocking to see them acting no differently from that other famous ethno-supremacist movement of the 20th century.