What We’re Watching – The Gaza Ceasefire Deception

Welcome to The Geopolity’s What We’re Watching (3W),  our daily look at the interconnected worlds of Geopolitics, Economics and Energy. Curated from the world’s leading sources of information, our analysis and commentary is designed to help you make sense of the events driving the major developments in the world.

In this roundup, we take a closer look at the Gaza Ceasefire Deception.

While Israel continues to indiscriminately kill Palestinians in Gaza, over 80 since the start of the ceasefire, US president Trump said that whatever threatens progress of his “peace plan” is the fault of Hamas – by default.

3W notes that comments by Trump’s special envoy for Gaza, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, further confirms our original assessment of the Trump peace plan, which was that it is not a humanitarian objective born from concern for the wellbeing of the Palestinians in Gaza. It is part of the bigger US – Israel Alliance’s plan for a “New Levant”, which aims to create a new security infrastructure in the Middle East. This new security infrastructure should provide Israel with a position of dominance vis-à-vis all other countries in the region.

It is designed, therefore, to force not only Hamas to surrender and disarm, but to break the spirit of resistance among the Palestinians in Gaza. Such that the US – Israel Alliance can focus its military endeavors on other parts of the Middle East. Iran is clearly in their sight, but we forewarn that eventually Turkye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will come onto their radar-screen as well.

Furthermore, we look at:

• Trump’s flip-flopping on the subject of Ukraine, as he completed a 360-degree turn on the subject this week
• The renewed attacks by the US – Israel Alliance on Lebanon, while the US special envoy threatens a renewal of all-out war if Hezbollah does not surrender via disarming
• Iran’s formal withdrawal from the JCPOA
• The resignation by the US military commander overseeing the US military operation in the Caribbean designed to pressure the Venezuelan government

Geopolitics

Gaza – Israel on Sunday closed border crossing into Gaza for shipments of humanitarian aid and launched dozens of strikes across the territory killing tens of Palestinians, after accusing Hamas militants of killing two soldiers, writes The Associated Press. Israel’s military said militants had fired at troops in areas of Rafah city that are Israeli-controlled according to agreed-upon ceasefire lines. Hamas said communication with its remaining units in Rafah had been cut off for months and “we are not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas.”

Hamas, meanwhile, accused Israel of various ceasefire violations. The BBC writes that on Friday Israel tanks shelled a bus killing all 11 members of a Gazan family inside. The Abu Shaaban family was trying to reach their home to inspect it when the attack took place in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. The Israeli military said soldiers had fired at a “suspicious vehicle” that had crossed the so-called yellow line demarcating the area still occupied by Israeli forces in Gaza. The yellow demarcation line is not physically marked, however, and it is unclear if the bus the family was travelling in did indeed cross it. Any Palestinian crossing the yellow line, knowingly or unknowingly, armed or unarmed, male or female, adult or child, is deemed “an imminent threat” by Israel and killed, 3W notes. In this way, a total of 80 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire started, writes The Associated Press.

Irrespective of the facts, US president Trump put the blame on Hamas and said the militant group must behave or face consequences, writes The Associated Press. This, 3W notes, is a reminder of the real objective behind the current Gaza ceasefire. As we explained in our original analysis of Trump’s peace plan, it is not a humanitarian objective born from concern for the wellbeing of the Palestinians in Gaza. It is part of the bigger US – Israel Alliance’s plan for a “New Levant”, which aims to create a new security infrastructure in the Middle East. This new security infrastructure should provide Israel with a position of dominance vis-à-vis all other countries in the region. For this, southern Lebanon needs to become a depopulated, Israeli controlled area, as is the entirety of the Golan Heights and southern Syria. Gaza is to be de-militarized, i.e. the spirit of resistance to Israeli occupation and criminality is to be broken. And the countries with the “potential capability” to threaten Israel, irrespective of the will to do so, need to be “Balkanized” like Iraq. This latter point regards specifically Iran, but in time we at 3W would not be surprised to find Turkye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have become targets of the US – Israel ambition as well.

Our 3W assessment of the larger objective of the US – Israel objective in the Middle East in general, and Gaza in particular, was confirmed by US president Trump’s special envoys for Gaza, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They travelled to Israel on Monday to meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, writes The Associated Press. In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program over the weekend, Kushner said the success or failure of the deal would depend on whether Israel and the international mechanism could create a viable alternative to Hamas. “If they are successful, Hamas will fail, and Gaza will not be a threat to Israel in the future,” he said. Clearly that, and only that, is the objective of the Trump peace plan for Gaza.

Lebanon – Israel carried out a series of air raids on Iqlim Al-Tuffah in southern Lebanon on Monday, as drones and reconnaissance aircraft violated Lebanese airspace over Beirut and its southern suburbs at low altitudes, reaching as far as the Bekaa Valley, writes Arab News. The strikes coincided with renewed US pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. Thomas Barak, US envoy to Syria, warned in a lengthy post on Monday that “if Beirut fails to take action on disarmament, Hezbollah’s military wing will inevitably face a major confrontation with Israel at a moment of Israel’s strength and a point of weakness for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.” In the 3W viewpoint, this is further evidence that not only the Gaza peace plan is part of a larger US – Israel Alliance plan for the Middle East, but also that the Gaza peace plan is designed to enable the Alliance to progress on other fronts across the Middle East.

Iran – Iran has formally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, under which international sanctions were lifted in exchange for limitations on Tehran’s nuclear programme, writes The Guardian. From now on “all of the provisions [of the 2015 deal], including the restrictions on the Iranian nuclear programme and the related mechanisms are considered terminated”, Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement. 3W notes that while this is presented as a big deal, the agreement was of course made irrelevant by the US in 2018 when it unilaterally withdrew from it, during the first term of US president Trump. As a result of the US withdrawal Tehran began stepping up its nuclear programme, a response which is now being presented as the “root cause of all issues”.

Ukraine – The Associated Press writes that in a matter of weeks, US president Trump has made a 360 degree turn on the subject. After meeting Russian president Putin in Alaska, Trump adopted the Russian talking points, as was clearly on display when he and his vice-president Vance then met Ukrainian president Zelensky in the White House and scolded him. Then as late as last week Trump flipped and said that Ukraine could win the war, could recapture all the Ukrainian territory current held by Russia including Crimea, that the Russian economy was about to collapse, and that he would consider giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if that could speed up an envisioned process where Russia agrees to stop fighting and retreats back to pre-2022 positions. But then late last week Trump had another phone conversation with Putin, and when meeting Zelensky this Trump showed that this call had influenced him as he put pressure on Ukraine to stop fighting and accept the current frontlines as the new border.

Venezuela – The military commander overseeing the US military operation in the Caribbean designed to pressure the Venezuelan government, Admiral Alvin Holsey, said on Thursday last week that he is stepping down from his post, writes The New York Times. It is unclear why Holsey is suddenly departing, less than a year into what is typically a three-year job, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career. But sources told the NYT he had personal issues with the operation he was tasked with leading. As a matter of domestic law, the US Congress has not authorized an armed conflict with Venezuela, while as a matter of international law, the US is not authorized to kill people whom it suspects of trafficking drugs.