Not LA, but Gaza a few hours after the ceasefire agreement was announced. (Screengrab from a video posted to X).

“The war will end. The leaders will shake hands. The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. That girl will wait for her beloved husband. And those children will wait for their heroic father. I don’t know who sold our homeland. But I saw who paid the price.”

– Mahmoud Darwish

A ceasefire deal seems to have been reached in Gaza. Great. But recall that Israel has breached the Lebanon truce nearly 500 times in the two months since it was signed…and any retaliation or defensive measures taken by Palestinians will be considered a violation, which is how Israel justified ending the first ceasefire/hostage release deal back in late November 2023.

This ceasefire deal could have been reached any time since May and likely anytime since December of 2023. It wasn’t because neither Netanyahu nor Biden wanted an agreement, even after the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah had been eliminated, the mass killing and destruction went on.

According to many reports, Wednesday was one of the bloodiest days in Gaza in months, with Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian tent camps, homes, apartments, and journalists. At least 80 Palestinians were killed and nearly 200 injured. How many more Palestinians will Israel kill in the next four days before the ceasefire takes effect (if it does)?

Who will be the last Palestinian child killed by an Israeli-launched US-made bomb in Gaza in the days and hours before the ceasefire commences? (During WW I, the US and UK forces launched a senseless massive artillery barrage on German positions after they’d laid down their arms in the minutes leading up to the 11 a.m. start of the Armistice. At least 2,738 men were killed on the final morning of the war.) Why?

Let’s just reflect for a moment on how many Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians, have been killed in the last 15.5 months…

Direct Casualties from Israeli Airstrikes, drones, quadcopters, artillery shelling & gunfire…

Gaza Ministry of Health Estimate: 46,500 11,000 missing in the rubble

New Lancet study: 75,000

Estimated deaths from starvation: 63,000

Estimated deaths from all causes related to the war (including untreated diseases, suicides, freezing to death): 183,000 – 300,000

How many students were beaten, arrested, jailed, kicked out of school, and banned from campus for demanding a ceasefire that Trump, Biden, and Netanyahu have now blessed? And how many lecturers, teachers, and professors lost their jobs or were denied tenure for defending their students?

Could there be a more humiliating end to the Biden presidency than Trump taking credit for forcing Israel to agree to a peace deal Biden claims to have proposed nine months ago but was too impotent to secure?

According to reporting by Haaretz, the deal will unfold in three phases starting on Sunday. The first phase will feature a ceasefire, a swap of hostages and prisoners, and an increase in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. The release of 33 hostages held in Gaza, beginning with the Americans and including women, children, the sick, and men over the age of 55, will be gradual over the course of 42 days. The IDF will permit the displaced Gazan population to move from the southern part of the Strip to the north during the first phase of the cease-fire. After two weeks, negotiations will begin on the implementation of the second phase, which will include the release of 65 more Israeli hostages. As the deal progresses, the IDF will withdraw to a buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip, settling between the Gaza Strip’s population and the Israeli border settlements.

The roadblocks to a ceasefire in Gaza have always been erected by the Netanyahu government. I imagine this will come as breaking news to readers of the NYT but not to Israelis, who’ve seen their leaders openly brag about it for months.

But the Ben-Gvir/Smotrich crazies weren’t the only ones scuttling previous ceasefire deals. Haaretz has documented Netanyahu himself undermining at least eight prior efforts to craft at least a pause in the slaughter…

Which is precisely what he seems to be doing now…

On Thursday, with the rightwing of his coalition in revolt, Netanyahu said Hamas backtracked on agreements on terms of a proposed cease-fire and hostage release deal. He threatened that his cabinet would not approve it until the matter was resolved. He also emphasized........

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