(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Israel-Gaza war: Is a ceasefire possible? [1] [] Date: 2024-02 As we near the seventh week of the war in Gaza, the extent of the devastation and loss of life is such that many Western governments are coming under pressure to back ceasefires – with France and Ireland having already done so. In the UK, MPs voted against supporting a ceasefire on Wednesday evening. Fifty-six Labour MPs voted for the measure, rebelling against Keir Starmer’s order to abstain, including eight frontbenchers who have left their posts over their defiance. Starmer, like Rishi Sunak and many other Western leaders, is instead urging restraint with humanitarian pauses. Without their backing, is there any possibility of a ceasefire and an eventual return to negotiations? In Gaza, sustained air strikes and artillery fire have killed some 11,000 Palestinians, including 4,500 children, and wounded 20,000 more. The whole of the Gaza Strip has been besieged, with food, water, fuel and electricity withheld. Some hospitals have closed and others will follow shortly. Around 1.1 million Palestinians have been ordered to move to southern Gaza and while most have, as many as 200,000 have not. What do you think? Win a £10 book voucher for sharing your views about openDemocracy. Tell us This devastation also has the function of deterring Palestinians in the West Bank – where violence has increased significantly – from responding to the hugely heavy-handed treatment being meted out by Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Since 7 October, 185 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and 2,500 wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The level of shock still being felt in Israel from the 7 October attacks by Hamas should not be underestimated and extends right across society. The loss of civilian lives was the worst in the state’s 75-year history, with 1,200 people killed and up to 240 taken hostage, as well as some reports that dozens more IDF soldiers were ‘spirited away’ by Hamas. That few Israelis acknowledge that this number is far less than the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian lives lost in the same 75 years is allowing Binyamin Netanyahu’s far-right government considerable freedom in its determination to destroy Hamas and, as it sees it, make Israel safe again. The Israeli government views Gaza as the main problem. It has attempted to build support for moving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the border into Egypt. Joe Biden’s administration in the US has come out against that, as well as against Israel permanently controlling Gaza, which would imply the long-term garrisoning of the territory and its people. As US policy slowly shifts, senior figures in the US military are now talking of the need for a limited war – the implication being that this must not go on for months – because of the rapid loss of support for Israel in the wider world beyond Europe. Israel is not remotely up for that, with the Financial Times reporting that “Israeli officials have suggested that Gaza will be sealed off from Israel and potentially squeezed ever tighter by new buffer zones and security barriers inside the strip”. Many analysts will argue that Gaza has been akin to an open prison for over two million Palestinians for the past 15 years, but this latest suggestion sounds more like a vast closed prison, with all exits sealed off. Netanyahu government’s stance presumes that the IDF can actually destroy Hamas but, despite many decades of effort to cultivate support across the Global South, the global mood is turning against Israel as it reduces streets to rubble and destroys neighbourhoods. That is reflected in increasingly trenchant statements from UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres about Gaza becoming a “graveyard for children”. A grim consequence is that we are already seeing a dangerous worldwide rise in antisemitism – with talk of a ‘slaughter of the innocents’, with all its biblical meanings – and Israel becoming a pariah state. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/israel-gaza-is-a-ceasefire-possible-palestine-hamas-netanyahu-biden/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/