Gaza – What ceasefire?
The ceasefire in Gaza, which took effect on 10 October, has by no means had the effect of ceasing the firing, the bombing, or any other of the war crimes perpetrated by Israel on the Middle East. There has been some alleviation but certainly not a cessation.
As at Christmas eve, Israel had violated the ceasefire at least 875 times (including 421 bombing raids), killing over 400 more people – men, women, and innocent little children – and injuring over 1,100. In the 76 days between 10 October and Christmas eve, there were only 11 days free of Israeli violations. Israel and its US imperialist backers have sought to ‘justify’ some of these violations as reprisals for Hamas killing of Israeli soldiers, action that is credibly denied by that organisation, but even if it were true, how does the killing of two soldiers in Rafah justify the slaughter of 45 people on October 19, through a massive wave of air raids whose victims would primarily or even exclusively have been innocent civilians? Likewise, “On October 29, Israel killed 109 people, including 52 children, after an exchange of gunfire in Rafah that killed one Israeli soldier. “’The Israelis hit back, and they should hit back,’ Trump told reporters, calling Israel’s attacks ‘retribution’ for the soldier’s death” (Ajlab, ‘How many times has Israel violated the Gaza ceasefire’, Al Jazeera, 11 November 2025, updated 24 December 2025).
Clearly these actions amount to nothing less than the extremely serious war crime of collective punishment, illegal under international law – but international law has never been respected by US imperialism, for which it is only a weapon to use against others. US imperialism exempts both itself from such laws and the attack dogs it unleashes to protect its predatory commercial interests, as is clear from Trump’s unashamed approval of the murderous action.
However, Israel does not bother to look for an excuse to continue its bombing raids over Gazan territory which continue even as this article is being written:
“The Israeli military continued to violate the ceasefire agreement in Gaza on Saturday [27 December], carrying out multiple airstrikes and naval bombardments.
“Israeli naval boats reportedly fired into the sea off the coast of Gaza City, sowing panic and fear among residents whose displacement tents are tens of metres away from the coastline.
“Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes continued with the home demolition campaign in the battered enclave, with airplanes striking buildings east of the Zeitoun and Tuffah neighbourhoods in Gaza City, as well as the Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
“Israeli warplanes also targeted areas east of Khan Younis, in the enclave’s south, as well as various areas in Gaza’s east, and the city of Rafah.
“Israeli aircraft further continued their intensive low-altitude flights over various areas of the Gaza Strip” (‘Israel fires into Gaza waters, demolishes homes across enclave’, The New Arab, 27 December 2025).
Humanitarian aid
The ceasefire also provided for the siege on Gaza to be lifted so that humanitarian aid could be delivered to its population that Israel had been trying to starve into submission:
“According to the Gaza Government Media Office, since October 10 to December 22 only 17,819 trucks entered Gaza out of 43,800, averaging 244 trucks per day. That is only 41 percent of the trucks allocated.
“According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.
“In addition, Israel has blocked essential and nutritious food items, including meat, dairy, and vegetables, crucial for a balanced diet. Instead, non-nutritious foodstuffs are being allowed, such as snacks, chocolate, crisps, and soft drinks” (Al Jazeera, ibid.).
Even more severely blocked are deliveries of fuel, with only 5 fuel trucks being allowed to enter each day, rather than the 60 that are required.
Even more cruel is Israel’s blocking of agreed medical aid supplies to Gazan hospitals whose supplies are at an all-time low, preventing doctors from giving the necessary treatment to thousands of patients.
Securing the future annexation of Gazan land
Meanwhile Israel has unilaterally demarcated its ‘yellow line’ (that reportedly keeps creeping westwards!) behind which it is permitted to keep its military presence over 58% of Gazan territory, where it is taking steps to establish a permanent Israeli presence.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced at a press conference on 23 December that Israel would never fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip or occupied Syrian territories, and, moreover, that it would be establishing military bases in the north of Gaza where before 2004 there had been illegal Israeli settlements that were vacated as a result of the Oslo accords when Gaza was handed over to Palestinian control.
Most of the population of Gaza is being driven into the Palestinian side of the yellow line, while Israel destroys homes and farmland on the Israeli controlled side. According to Benedict Garman and Barbara Metzler, writing on the BBC website on 12 November, Israel had destroyed, since the ceasefire came into effect, more than 1500 homes in Gaza of the few that were left standing after the pre-ceasefire bombings had already flattened over 80%. Of course, since the BBC report referred to above, even more bombing has been taking place. In this way, ethnic cleansing still continues apace.
‘Voluntary’ expatriation
Israel has been preparing for some months now to herd Palestinians into a specially built camp erected on the ruins of Rafah, to be used as a pathway for Palestinians to ‘voluntarily migrate’ out of Gaza to wherever they might be taken in. One assumes that Israel would ensure that conditions in the camp would strongly encourage ‘voluntary migration’!
A start on ‘voluntary migration’ has already come to light. According to John Eligon and Zimasa Matiwane, writing in the New York Times of 17 November 2025, two flights arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, full of refugees from Gaza and the West Bank who paid up to $5,000 each to be flown out to a destination unknown to them. Since, in order to reach their departure airport, the people concerned had to be bused through several Israeli checkpoints, one can assume that these flights were facilitated by the Israeli government. It does not seem likely that there will be more flights to South Africa, but a principle has been established and it remains to be seen how, and if, it will be implemented in the months ahead.
The West Bank
Israel is just as anxious to evacuate the Palestinians living in the West Bank as those from Gaza. Since October 2023, it has been severely stepping up its harassment and expropriation of West Bank Palestinians, and has just announced that it will be building another 19 illegal settlements on their land. These will be added to the record 68 new settlements that have been approved in the past two years. While in 2022 there were 141 across the West Bank, there are now 210, and over 500,000 Israeli Jews live there, with a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem. This demands the displacement of large numbers of the Arab population of those areas.
“Even as the war in Gaza commanded the world’s attention over the past two years, the facts on the ground were shifting in the West Bank, intensifying the battle for control of the lands of Bethlehem and Jericho, Ramallah and Hebron…
“Extremist Jewish settlers and Palestinian farmers are the foot soldiers in this endless conflict, an extension of the war in 1948 that accompanied the establishment of Israel. And since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Palestinian militants from Gaza, Israel’s far-right government has embraced a playbook of expanding settlements across the West Bank, transforming the region, piece by piece, from a patchwork of connected Palestinian villages into a collection of Israeli neighborhoods.
“The unrelenting violent campaign by these settlers, that critics say is largely tolerated by the Israeli military, consists of brutal harassment, beatings, even killings, as well as high-impact roadblocks and village closures. These are coupled with a drastic increase in land seizures by the state and the demolition of villages to force Palestinians to abandon their land.
“Many of the settlers are young extremists whose views go beyond even the far-right ideology of the government. They are not generally operating on direct orders from Israel’s military leadership. But they know the military frequently looks the other way and facilitates their actions.
“In many cases, it is the military that forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee” (Michael D. Shear, Daniel Berehulak, Leanne Abraham and Fatima AbdulKarim, ‘Land Grab: Israel’s escalating campaign for control of the West Bank’, New York Times, 20 December 2025).
It’s quite something when even the New York Times is shocked!
The fact is that “even before Israel’s genocide began, violence against West Bank Palestinians was already at record levels. By September of 2023, UN officials had already declared it the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank on record. But once the genocide began and the world’s attention moved to Gaza, Israeli settler and state violence against West Bank Palestinians spiked further — and the last few months have become the worst in recent history.
“In October 2025, Israeli settlers carried out at least 264 attacks, the highest number in a single month since the UN began keeping records 19 years ago. Since January of this year, 45 Palestinian children in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces, and more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in total by the Israeli military and settlers since October 2023.
“This most recent spike in settler attacks is due in part to the onset of olive harvest season in the West Bank, which Israeli settlers attempt to disrupt by burning trees, villages, and descending on olive groves by the dozens and physically attacking farmers..: This is Zionism.
“Whether it’s Israeli settlers attacking villagers or an Israeli military court ordering Palestinians to destroy their own homes, the end goal remains the same: to gain the maximum amount of land for Jewish settlement, with the minimum amount of Palestinians on it. This is the fundamental political goal of Zionism — a politics of eradication and supremacy” (‘Israel’s genocide isn’t over. It’s been expanded’, Jewish Voice for Peace, 20 November 2025).
Whole villages are being destroyed: “Israeli forces have launched a wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank concentrated around the so-called ‘pentagon of villages’ — Tubas, Tammun, Aqaba, Tayasir, and Wadi al-Fara — which the Israeli intelligence establishment considers a ‘hotbed’ of resistance activity. Ostensibly to root out resistance in the Tubas district, local residents told Mondoweiss that the real reason for the military invasion is to thin out the population in the area, laying the groundwork for land confiscation and settlement building” (Qassam Muaddi and Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau, ‘Israel is violating all its ceasefire agreements and escalating on all fronts’, 28 November 2025).
The result has been massive internal displacement. “After the total destruction of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps by the Israeli military, the UN reports that at least 31,919 Palestinian refugees have been displaced from those areas alone — creating the largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967” (Jewish Voice for Peace, op.cit.). The one object is to make way for Jewish settlers.
Israel’s expanding aggression to Lebanon and Syria
Israel has used the time since the ‘ceasefire’ came into effect to scale up its aggression against neighbouring Lebanon and Syria. In Lebanon, too, a ceasefire has been in effect, for over a year, again one that Israel breaches at will.
“In Lebanon, the international peacekeeping forces — UNIFIL — reported last week that Israeli forces had committed around 10,000 violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon, including 2,500 land incursions and 7,500 airspace violations, since entering into its ceasefire with Hezbollah a year ago in November 2024. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also reported that the Israeli army has conducted 1,200 land raids into 21 Lebanese villages over the past year.
“These violations escalated significantly over recent weeks, culminating in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief of staff Tabtabai on Sunday, who is considered the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be targeted since the ceasefire began” (Mondoweiss, op.cit.).
The Israelis were supposed under the terms of the ceasefire to withdraw their forces from Lebanese territory, making way for the Lebanese army to take their place. However, although Hezbollah has observed the ceasefire to the letter, Israeli forces are still present, occupying high ground. With the incessant breaches of the terms of the ceasefire by Israel, it is thought that the ceasefire, such as it is, may not hold, and though Israel can then be expected to launch further aggression, it will lose its relative immunity, which it can scarcely afford to do.
As far as Syria is concerned, “Israeli forces continue to position themselves in Syrian territory while conducting land raids in cities such as Quneitra and its surroundings. Last Monday [23 November], official Syrian TV reported that Israeli forces ‘bulldozed extensive farming areas’ in the Syrian village of Breiqa in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on Thursday [27 November], Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli fighter jets flew over several Syrian governorates, and on the following day, an Israeli force invaded the Syrian town of Beit Jinn. When the force was reportedly uncovered, clashes between the Israeli force and Syrians reportedly led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers. According to Syrian state TV, Israeli shelling and strikes led to the killing of 13 Syrians, including at least two children.
“Israeli strikes across Syrian territory have continued to become more flagrant over recent weeks, while previous strikes in Damascus in July aimed to strengthen Druze separatist elements in Suwayda. The reality on the ground Israel hopes to create is one of regional fragmentation” (Mondoweiss, op.cit.).
Undoubtedly Israel is busy creating more and more enemies for itself. It is possible its aggression will yield results for it in the short term. In the long term it is doomed.
Palestine Action hunger strikes
Throughout all this time the Israeli fascists continue to receive material, financial, propaganda and diplomatic support from US imperialism and its various imperialist allies, such as the UK. Giving that support to such a bloodthirsty regime, and to a considerable extent at the cost of the working-class masses in the imperialist countries, has given rise to a great deal of horrified opposition on the part of the populations of these countries. We have seen the British government resorting to extremely repressive measures to try to silence this opposition, from labelling Palestine Action a terrorist organisation, to arresting those demonstrating in support of Palestine on trumped up accusations of terrorism or anti-semitism, to imprisoning activists charged with sabotage in punitive conditions for months awaiting trial, while measures are being taken to remove the right to a jury trial, since juries have proved susceptible to accepting the argument that sabotage to prevent genocide is a means of executing a legal duty under international law, not a crime.
These Hitlerite measures on the part of the British state, with a ‘Labour’ government at the helm, to boot, are forcing open the eyes of many people to the true nature of bourgeois ‘democracy’; to the fact that the bourgeois state, for all its ‘free and fair’ elections, is an instrument of class rule which entitles the population to democratic rights only so long as it behaves and does what it’s told. If it starts opposing bourgeois interests in a meaningful way, as is the case on the question of the Gaza genocide, then democratic rights pretty quickly vanish into thin air.
Hunger strikers
This reality has been brought into the stark light of day by the Palestine Action hunger strikers. In protest at having been locked up for over a year ‘awaiting trials’ that will not take place until at least June (when the average wait is 6 months), 8 of the 24 people arrested on charges of having been involved in sabotage of military facilities under the aegis of Palestine Action, put themselves on hunger strike with a view to gaining publicity (a) for the injustice of their plight, and (b) for the Palestinian cause. As hunger striker Amu Gib (Amy Gardiner-Gibson) explained, “Our demands are simple. One: shut down the weapons factories that are supplying arms to Israel. Two: deproscribe Palestine Action. Palestine Action is a direct action protest group and should never have been labelled a terrorist organisation. Three: end the mistreatment of prisoners in custody. Four: set immediate bail. There are people whose parents are really ill or dying, people who have missed major life events. And five: provide a fair trial, including the unredacted release of the correspondence about activists between British and Israeli officials and arms dealers.”
Of the eight original hunger strikers, two gave up relatively early on, a further two gave up at Christmas, including Amu Gib, having come very close to death, and having undoubtedly irreparably damaged their health after some 48 days without food. Lewie Chiaramello is refusing food intermittently. The hunger strikers have been able to gain some publicity for their cause, which was reported, for example, in the Guardian, the Independent and the Times, and supporters have demonstrated day after day outside the prisons in which they are held. Although they have not succeeded in achieving their demands, we are glad that some of them have chosen no to carry on until death, as their death would not, in all probability, have made any difference. The authorities would rather they died than give in to their demands. We would prefer that such brave and principled young people should live to fight another day.
Nevertheless, at the time of writing, Ms Teuta Hoxha, Ms Heba Muraisi, and Kamran Ahmed are still refusing all food, are extremely weak and ill, have been admitted to hospital, and are in danger of dying at any moment. Kamran Ahmed gave an interview to the Sunday Times when he said he was afraid of dying, but for the cause of Palestine it was worth it. These people are very brave, very honourable, and our thoughts are with them. But at this point there is no shame in giving up. You will always be heroes and your lives are precious to us and to the Palestinian cause.