\n<\/p>\n
Hamas is expected to hand over the body of the last Israeli captive held in Gaza in the coming days and has commented that it would be open to discussing \u201cfreezing\u201d its weapons to facilitate entering the second phase of the ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the second phase would be challenging to achieve but that it could begin as soon as this month.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n However, Israel has been attacking Gaza throughout the first phase, killing at least 360 Palestinians, and still restricts the entry of aid, with quantities allowed in far below what was agreed.<\/p>\n So, how has phase one of the ceasefire gone? And what are the chances of it continuing into phase two?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we know.<\/p>\n No.<\/p>\n Since the ceasefire began on October 10, Israel has broken it more than 590 times, killing at least 360 Palestinians, and sending the total death toll in Gaza from two years of attacks above 70,000.<\/p>\n Under the first phase \u2013 based on US President Donald Trump\u2019s 20-point peace plan \u2013 Israel was required to halt its genocidal war on Gaza, pull back its troops, allow aid in, and exchange hundreds of Palestinian detainees for the remaining captives still held in Gaza.<\/p>\n Speaking a month after agreeing to the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel\u2019s war on Gaza \u201chas not ended\u201d and that Hamas \u201cwill be disarmed\u201d.<\/p>\n Throughout Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli officials have been pledging to \u201cdestroy\u201d Hamas and claiming that Israeli bombardment, which has killed mostly civilians according to Israel\u2019s own tally, was to achieve that.<\/p>\n Palestinians in Gaza remain in limbo and suffering daily attacks.<\/p>\n Under the terms of the agreement, Israel initially pulled its troops back behind what it called the \u201cyellow line\u201d.<\/p>\n Running around the land edges of the Strip, the poorly demarcated yellow line separates the areas of Gaza controlled by the Israeli army and those controlled by Hamas.<\/p>\n Hamas accuses Israel of pushing the yellow line further into Gaza \u201cdaily\u201d, displacing those who find themselves on the wrong side and killing Palestinians, including children, approaching the unclear boundary.<\/p>\n A full Israeli blockade on Gaza this year led to an engineered famine that was recognised by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in Gaza City in August.<\/p>\n Since the ceasefire, Israel has allowed slightly more aid in, although far less than Gaza\u2019s needs and what the agreement stipulated.<\/p>\n Aid agencies are reporting that the situation remains desperate, despite cases of malnutrition starting to slow.<\/p>\n UNICEF and partners in October identified nearly 9,300 children less than five with acute malnutrition, five times the level reported during a previous ceasefire in February.<\/p>\n \u201cA big portion of the goods coming in is commercial [not humanitarian] \u2013 meaning that big aid agencies, including UNRWA, aren\u2019t getting there,\u201d said Tamara Alrifai, the director of external relations for Gaza\u2019s principal aid agency, UNRWA.<\/p>\n Considering Israel\u2019s past actions \u2013 including unilaterally breaking a ceasefire earlier this year and Netanyahu saying the war isn\u2019t over \u2013 it is uncertain.<\/p>\n According to many Netanyahu critics, much of the genocide Israel unleashed on Gaza has been shaped by his own political circumstances.<\/p>\n But that makes him more reliant on the Trump administration, which supports the ceasefire, to protect him.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael has never had a leader in a weaker position, so the US will never have a better chance of pushing their deal through,\u201d Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said, listing the threats to the PM that Trump\u2019s support might save him from.<\/p>\n Netanyahu has petitioned Israel\u2019s President Isaac Herzog to grant him a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial. Trump has also asked Herzog to pardon Netanyahu.<\/p>\n Netanyahu can also use Trump as an excuse if his far-right government members are angered by an end to the war on Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cNetanyahu can always shrug and say, \u2018it\u2019s not me, it\u2019s Trump,’\u201d Mekelberg said.<\/p>\n Phase two of the deal concerns Gaza\u2019s post-war governance. The most detailed framework so far has been the US-backed plan, now endorsed in part by the UNSC.<\/p>\n The plan sets out a transitional phase in which Palestinian technocrats \u2013 not political factions \u2013 would run day-to-day governance.<\/p>\n Their work would be overseen by a multinational \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d, and supported by an International Stabilisation Force tasked with security and demilitarisation. This is meant to allow for the reconstruction of Gaza and stop a return to armed conflict.<\/p>\n But Hamas and other Palestinian groups have rejected the idea of foreign guardianship over Gaza.<\/p>\n They were also opposed to the UNSC resolution, saying it \u201cpaves the way for field arrangements imposed outside the Palestinian national will\u201d.<\/p>\n Other than the still escalating death toll in Gaza, nothing is certain.<\/p>\n Netanyahu, according to his critics, is an opportunist to his core, who is still balancing several competing threats at home.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Trump and his inexperienced political negotiators drawn from outside of the US\u2019s diplomatic core find themselves negotiating a settlement to both the genocide in Gaza and the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n And, whatever deal is agreed upon, Israel is almost certain to continue to attack Gaza whenever it likes, much as it does in the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere in the region.<\/p>\n A Palestinian state also does not look any closer to fruition.<\/p>\n Mekelberg points out that with so many potentially shifting factors, including Israel\u2019s domestic politics, it is hard to know if a final deal is achievable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Netanyahu,\u201d Mekelberg said.<\/p>\n \u201cHis corruption cuts through everything, from his legitimisation of the far-right at home to the way he\u2019s approached the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox [Jews in the Israeli military]. It\u2019s too messy. There are no lines through.<\/p>\n \u201cAdd to this a US president that is also unpredictable, and it\u2019s close to impossible to predict how this will play out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hamas is expected to hand over the body of the last Israeli captive held in Gaza in the coming days and has commented that it would be open to discussing \u201cfreezing\u201d its weapons to facilitate entering the second phase of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the second phase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Has Israel observed the ceasefire?<\/h2>\n
Has Israel withdrawn its troops?<\/h2>\n
Has Israel allowed aid in?<\/h2>\n
Is Israel really committed to this ceasefire?<\/h2>\n
What\u2019s planned for phase two?<\/h2>\n
So, could a final deal be likely?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"