December 2021: Israeli tanks go 100-200 meters inside Gaza to raze a strawberry farm while a Hamas militant prevents farmers from attacking the Israelis. How come?
🧵Explaining the Israeli-Hamas "ceasefire understandings" & why Israel never went for a formal ceasefire agreement
2\ The Israeli-Hamas "understandings" were brokered by Egypt, Qatar & UN
Hamas polices Israel's siege from the inside, prevents by force anyone from attacking Israel during periods of calm in return for Israel alleviating the blockade
Israel only partially fulfilled its promise
3\ Many attempts & proposals were made to cement "the calm" & establish a formal permanent ceasefire that'd see a mutual full cessation of hostilities in return for lifting the siege on Gaza
Israel killed the Hamas leader advancing this deal in 2012 & turned down later proposals
4\ In return for maintaining calm, Israel only gave Gazans occasional crumbs of mercy: e.g allowing 17,000 people to work in Israel, Qatari cash aid..
Gazans call these "sedatives" b/c Israel maintains "we won't allow real & long-term development in Gaza" maariv.co.il/news/military/…
5\ The situation in Gaza continued to be dire: a permanent state of non-life where the majority of the population are unemployed & living beneath the poverty line.
Israel's occasional crumbs of mercy were a tool of blackmail: e.g. keep quiet or we will re-close the fishing zone.
6\ Israel's gov perfectly understood the only way to end Gaza's plight & get more sustainable calm would be to lift the blockade & go for a formal ceasefire.
An Israeli minister proposed re-opening Gaza's airport & seaport under int. supervision. Netanyahu turned him down...
7\ One reason why Israel never went for a permanent ceasefire was that it dehumanized Gaza so much & for so long that the only acceptable way to discuss Gaza became in terms of strength & deterrence.
Israeli politicians would only compete in terms of who can be tougher on Gaza!
8\ Israel's gov also had strategic gaols of keeping Gaza on the brink & under Hamas' control, to:
Use Gaza as a scarecrow to kill any discussion about ending its occupation in the West Bank. "If we leave, Hamas will take over like in Gaza"
To push Gazans to leave permanently!
9\ Even the informal Israel-Hamas "understanding" was violated repeatedly
Israel kept shooting at farmers & fishermen almost daily
Israel kept flying fighter jets & predator drones equipped with rockets 24/7 inside Gaza with an unbearable buzzing noise that gets loudest at night
10\ Israel kept heavily restricting Gaza's imports & exports & banning people from going in/out of Gaza except for very few humanitarian exceptions.
"We allow them to keep their heads above water, but not beyond that" Israel's defence minister 2018 makorrishon.co.il/news/12431/
11\ Whenever a violent escalation erupted, mediators would rush to Gaza to restore calm & go back to the "understandings". A formal ceasefire was NEVER finalized.
That very calm was always inherently violent for Gaza's population; a slow death & permanent state of non-life.
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🚨Israel's demand of disarming Hamas is a red herring designed to sabotage any ceasefire talks🧵
Hamas has virtually no offensive weaponry left (e.g. rockets, tunnels crossing into Israel)
They have light weaponry (e.g. rifles & anti-tank missiles)
Another Oct 7 is impossible!
2\ Hamas currently does NOT have the capacity to threaten Israel itself (e.g. rockets)
But they DO have the capacity to maintain a long insurgency *inside* Gaza against the IDF (not Israel itself)
Any serious Israeli analyst would tell you the chances of another Oct 7 are zero!
3\ Israel & Hamas share an interest in exaggerating Hamas' remaining capabilities. Israel wants to falsely portray Hamas as a major "existential threat" to justify continued genocide
Hamas wants to present a victory image that it's still in good shape after everything Israel did alwatanvoice.com/arabic/news/20…
Getting many questions about the demonstrations in Gaza
So here's my full assessment of the protests; their potential & limitations; genuineness & spontaneity vs outside influence; motives & goals; & their ability to actually challenge Hamas or bring the war close to an end🧵
1\ The protests seem to have started spontaneously in small numbers & limited areas. Their grievances are genuine; people are tired, desperate for the genocide to end at any cost, many want Hamas to step down from gov to take away Israel's pretext for the siege & killing
But...
2\ The protests quickly drew the interest & influence of external actors, keen to exploit Gazans' despair & pain, & this may end up undermining the movement instead of helping
e.g. Israel demanding Gazans take to the street or face death, land theft & forever war will backfire
"Pay for slay" is a deeply racist Israeli trope that Palestinians are so deplorable, they'd want to get killed or imprisoned for life only for a few pennies!
The collaborationist Palestinian Authority NEVER paid anyone to attack Israel!
Israel has an identical prisoner fund🧵
2\ The PA paid financial support to Palestinians maimed or detained by Israel & families of those killed
Israel has an identical fund: "Prisoners of Zion & Families of Martyrs". It gives benefits to those imprisoned or killed for "Zionist activity" abroad or in mandate Palestine
3\ Why did the PA need this fund?
Because Israel has detained over 1 million Palestinians since 1967. All either tried in kangaroo military courts with a conviction rate of 99,7% (conviction rate of settler attacks on Palestinians is 1.8%) or never even put on trial or charged!
🚨🚨Netanyahu violates the ceasefire deal & declares Israel won’t allow displaced Gazans to return to the North today
The agreement👇 clearly says Israe should allow this unrestricted return of 1 million Gazans on day 7 (today) after the release of 7 female hostages (4 today, 3 last Sunday)
2\ Netanyahu is asking now for an additional female hostage, Arbel Yehoud, to be released today before allowing people back to the north
It’s unknown if Arbel is even alive. If she’s dead, it means her body would only be released at the end of phase 1 (as Israel itself demanded)
3\ Netanyahu claims Hamas was supposed to release female civilian hostages (I.e Arbel) today first before the 4 female soldiers
But if that’s the case, then why did Israel say nothing yesterday? Why only object now after the 4 soldiers returned to Israel?
2\ It became a Tiktok challenge during the genocide for Israeli soldiers to kidnap Palestinians, torture & humiliate them & force them on camera to wave the Israeli flag &/or sing Israel's national anthem
3\ More of the Israel Tiktok challenge of kidnapping, torturing & humiliating Palestinians:
Just read the "research" cited here by an org whose own co-founder called it "a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist organisation, run in the most dictatorial, corrupt & undemocratic fashion & utilized as a propaganda outfit".
As expected their report is a fraud🧵
1\ Author's main assumption is Gaza's causality figure is impossible b/c that'd mean Israel is targeting civilians & there's "no evidence" of this.
The ICC prosecutor literally charged Netanyahu with the Crime against Humanity of extermination for deliberately killing civilians!
2\ The author claims he found an error whereby 103 entries of killed men were mistakenly registered as women in a database of 44,000 causalities
That's his main "evidence" that the number of Gazan women killed by Israel has been widely inflated by a whopping 1%