The Gaza ceasefire – and a dizzying whirlwind of competing truths

The strikes in the early hours of Tuesday morning that signaled a return to war in Gaza, could not show more clearly how a great many things can be true all at once in this completely intractable conflict – and how alive we must be to the dangers of oversimplification by politicians and media outlets.

It is true that with Tuesday’s airstrikes, it is Israel who has chosen to commit the decisive act that finally kills off the ceasefire, once and for all.

Yet it is also true that this ceasefire, phase 1 of which formally expired on 1 March, had thereafter been limping on gingerly by mutual consent, in a sort of purgatory, just waiting to be finally killed by one of the two sides – with the only remaining question being which side was going to deal the killer blow.

It is true that returning to war is almightily convenient (and then some) for the personal political interests of Benjamin Netanyahu, having been right in the throes of multiple storms from which he could now abruptly extricate himself. A constitutional storm over his singularly disgraceful attempts to fire the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and his Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara. A legal storm in which he was forced to face a continuing corruption trial at which he would need to keep testifying. A political storm in which passing his budget by the end of March (and thereby preventing the automatic fall of his government) requires the support of his extremist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – whose price was a return to war.

Yet it is also true that these expediencies for the Israeli Prime Minister are not nearly the only reason why the ceasefire died (and hundreds in Gaza with it) overnight. Because while, with this decision, Netanyahu could sweep away all of his domestic troubles, the IDF also had serious, legitimate grounds for preparing a resumed military operation.

The IDF’s concerns were not simply based on the unsurprising facts that Hamas were regrouping and rearming. Just a day before Tuesday’s strikes, the IDF cleared for publication a report that it had identified intelligence of ‘unusual activity’ in the Gaza Strip, indicating that Hamas operatives were planning to carry out a further 7/10 style ground attack in Israel under the cover of the ceasefire. The report also indicated that Hamas were mounting efforts to carry out attacks on communities in the Gaza envelope, and on IDF troops stationed inside Gaza.

However well-founded these reports actually were, they were serious enough to warrant a security cabinet meeting with Netanyahu at the beginning of this week. And for all those falling over themselves to give their ‘take’, in which they attribute the breaking of the ceasefire and the deaths of innocent civilians solely to Netanyahu’s callous political self-interest, they will need to account for these completely independent and simultaneous developments.

Why were these developments so significant? Because the IDF’s top brass had repeatedly told Netanyahu last summer that the IDF had achieved all major military objectives in Gaza, such that continued fighting was no longer necessary and conditions were ripe for a ceasefire deal. And yet now, these developments warranted the IDF’s preparation of an immediate military response to counter the re-emerging threats. However much convenient cover this gave to Netanyahu, it would take large degree of willful ignorance to suggest that the IDF, faced with this ongoing situation (and equipped with fresh lessons from its failings on October 7th), could this time afford to let it slide.

These purely strategic considerations were not lost even on axed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Last November, shortly after his firing, Gallant had lamented to hostage families that Netanyahu was preventing a ceasefire and hostage release deal after there was virtually nothing major left for the IDF to achieve in Gaza. Even for someone who has absolutely no love lost with his former boss, Gallant has now welcomed the return to war. Continuing it is “the right move to create the conditions necessary for the return of the hostages“, he said. “Hamas only understands force.”

There are yet more competing truths.

It is true that Hamas did not push the decisive kill switch on the ceasefire agreement this week, as it wanted a progression to phase 2 of the agreement (in which the IDF would withdraw fully from Gaza, in return for the release of the remaining hostages).

Yet it is also true that Hamas’s attempts to invoke the agreement, as if it were acting as a good faith party to an international contract and to all international legal obligations, are not only fundamentally dishonest but, frankly, sick.

By this, I mean that Hamas have absolutely no right to claim they are upholding a ceasefire which they have repeatedly upended in the most clandestine manner, having (in no particular order): attempted attacks on IDF soldiers in Gaza with drones; declared responsibility for the bus bombings miraculously averted in Tel Aviv last month; failed to provide timely lists of hostages due for release and to release those hostages in the correct categories; delivered the body of an unidentified Gazan woman instead of Shiri Bibas; and subjected the rest of the freed hostages to a vomit-inducing spectacle of staged parades, interviews under duress, and vicious handovers amid crowds of screaming onlookers.

It is true that a return to this exhausting war, instead of proceeding on to phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement, poses the greatest danger to the remaining Israeli hostages and to Gazan civilians.

Yet it is also true that phase 2 was not automatic, but had to be negotiated between the parties. If Israel were to accept phase 2 on Hamas’s terms, capitulate to the terror group and withdraw from Gaza permanently while Hamas remained on its border, the long term danger for the country would escalate significantly. Absolutely nobody can take Hamas, a fundamentally ideological organization, at its word when it claims to support the pan-Arab reconstruction plan for Gaza – one in which it will hand over control of the strip to another, more moderate force who will credibly recognize the Jewish state’s existence.

And if there is one party who really cannot afford to rely on that word, it is Israel. Ending a war in favor of the party who started it – and who desire to start another one at the next best opportunity – is a prospect no honest leader would ever countenance. Why should Israel?

All this shows just how many considerations are in play at this moment, which validate the whirlwind of competing truths and emotions inside everyone’s frazzled minds this week. Which is why I would more than welcome all sincere disagreement in the comments section of this post.

And, ultimately, it shows that nuanced and careful, honest analysis is critically important -perhaps more than at any other stage in this war. Something to keep in mind the next time you hear or read the fundamentally unserious claim that this war is only being kept alive by Benjamin Netanyahu and his selfish quest for political survival, and nobody else.