Ammon News - By Michael Jansen

No ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza might be expected before July 27th when the Israeli Knesset begins its recess which lasts until October. As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - who heads a minority government following the departure of Ultra-Orthodox parties - could use this "window of opportunity" to relieve pressure on the Israeli army, finances, and public by reaching a ceasefire with Hamas. This would, however, involve a sharp shift from his hardline stance and encourage him to ease costs and please the military and the public.

For months, a majority of Israelis has called for a ceasefire, the release of 50 Israeli captives, 20 of whom are believed to be alive, an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from the strip. Netanyahu has, instead, given priority to eliminating Hamas which continues to battle Israeli troops entering Gaza. Israel’s campaign has involved constant carpet bombing of Gaza, killing more than 58,000 Palestinians, displacing 1.9 of 2.3 million, and devastating infrastructure and housing. Israel's blockade of water, food, medicine, and fuel has deprived Gazans of means to survive the military onslaught.

While the war continues, Netanyahu cannot be blamed for the laxity of Israeli security forces which, many Israelis believe, enabled the October 7th, 2023, attacks by Hamas which killed 1,200 and abducted 250. Netanyahu also seeks to postpone sentencing for corruption, bribery and breach of trust in his ongoing trial before a Jerusalem court.

However, by carrying on with the war despite opposition, he has undermined his own position and destroyed Israel's most important asset, the claim of "victimhood" conferred by anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution in the Western world.Because of its brutal war and punitive blockade of Gaza, Israel is now condemned widely for genocide.The International Criminal Court has issued unprecedented warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes against humanity.

Despite the 2025 three-month ceasefire, Netanyahu reimposed his blockade on March 2nd and returned to war on March 18th.Since then, he partially eased the blockade but resumed bombardment and mounted a ground offensive which has neither defeated Hamas fighters nor forced Hamas to capitulate due to the punishment Israel has inflicted on Gaza and its inhabitants.

The three phase-ceasefire plans accepted by Hamas but not by Netanyahu, have laid out a timetable for the staged release of Israeli captives in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and the creation of a non-political Gaza government of Palestinian technocrats. Arab governments have been asked to supply troops for a Gaza peace force to restore security. During mediated negotiations between Hamas and Israeli teams, Netanyahu has repeatedly scuppered arrangements reached by Israeli negotiators.He now insists that Israel must control the "Morag Corridor" which isolates Rafah from the rest of Gaza and the Egypt-Israel border in the south of the strip.He has added the demand that post-war aid deliveries in Gaza should be managed by the Israeli-US founded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation(GHF), a condition rejected by Gazans, the UN, and international relief agencies as nearly 1,000 Palestinians gathering to receive food have been killed by Israeli troops since the end of May.

Meanwhile, Israel has pre-empted any acceptable solution for post-war Gaza by ordering Gazans to evacuate their home areas in the north and centre of the enclave and systematically bulldozing infrastructure, commercial and municipal premises, and housing.Israel has now proposed that 600,000 Gazans move to a "humanitarian city" which has not yet built on the rubble of Rafah where they would be sheltered in tents.Israel has reportedly left schools, medical buildings, and a university but there is no water, electricity, and sewage. Palestinians seeking entry would be vetted by the Israeli military and, once inside, would not be allowed to leave, except if they agree to depart permanently.This would mean abandoning their Palestinians homeland and identity and resettling in Indonesia, Libya, or Ethiopia, if

these countriesagree.While insisting emigration would be "voluntary," Israel has created intolerable conditions to force them to leave.

UN agency for Palestine refugees Philippe Lazzarini said, “This would de facto create massive concentration camps at the border with Egypt for the Palestinians, displaced over and over across generations [and] deprive Palestinians of any prospects of a better future in their homeland.”

British-Israeli commentator Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that Israel plans to employ Rafah “as a staging post to ethnically cleanse, physically remove, as many Palestinians as possible from the landscape.”

Israel has acted on this ambition since the UN partition plan was adopted by the General Assembly in November 1947.During Israel's 1948 war of establishment, 750,000 out if 1.2 million Palestinians were driven from their towns, villages, and land when Israel conquered 78 per cent of Palestine.Another, 250,000 were expelled in 1967 after Israel seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel’s “legitimacy” and existence are challenged by Palestinian territory represented by Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem and the presence of 7.2 million native Palestinians alongside 7.2 million Israeli Jews in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,Since the emergence of Israel, some Israelis have denied the existence of a distinct Palestinian people and Palestinian nationhood in Palestine.

The most famous of the deniers was Prime Minister Golda Meir.When in June 1969 she was asked by a Britishjournalist about Palestinian resistance to the 1967 occupation, Meir replied, “There was no such thing as Palestinians.” She asked. “When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? ...It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.”She was mistaken.