Here I've picked the juicy parts out of an article from: OpinionGaza This Gaza ceasefire deal is tainted by Trump, Netanyahu and their disregard for peace https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/ceasefire-deal-gaza-netanyahu-trump-peace ......Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, bragged this week that he had previously blocked the deal, which he believes is treasonous. “We succeeded in the past year through our political power in preventing this deal from going through,” Ben-Gvir boasted. He and a fellow hardliner, the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have much to answer for. Despite them, Netanyahu is said to have sufficient support to push the agreement through....... Various actors are queueing up to claim credit for the peace agreement deal, with Donald Trump, the US president-elect, at the fore. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, reportedly applied heavy pressure on Israel to compromise on key aspects, such as troop withdrawals along the Gaza-Egypt border. Trump warned Hamas that “all hell will break out” if there were no hostage releases before he takes office on Monday. Despite his long-running, disastrous failure to rein in Netanyahu, Biden sees the agreement as a feather in his legacy cap. Meanwhile, the Arab Gulf states and Turkey leaned on Hamas. Qatari and Egyptian mediators deserve credit for persevering....... Yet how bizarre, and how repellent, that Trump, arch foe of Palestinian rights, squatting smugly in Florida, poses as peacemaker. That mantle is unlikely to last long. Now that Netanyahu has done Trump’s bidding, he and his extremist religious-nationalist allies will expect US support over future control of Gaza and West Bank annexations. Netanyahu may also seek backing for his prized project – the destruction of Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons-making installations. At last knockings, Blinken did not hold back. Israel’s actions in Gaza had recruited as many new Hamas fighters as they had killed, he said. Most Israelis did not know what “dehumanising” things their government and army were doing in their name. More occupation and annexation would guarantee perpetual war; Israel would never find safety that way. “Israelis must decide what relationship they want with the Palestinians. That cannot be the illusion that Palestinians will accept being a non-people without national rights,” Blinken warned. These home truths are anathema to the present Israeli leadership and Netanyahu in particular, who fiercely opposes a two-state solution. And yet it may be largely academic. Blinken and Biden are heading for the door. Trump has made no similar commitments, has no such vision for a just and permanent settlement. Trump sees the Palestinians as losers – and there is no place in his cruel and twisted world for such people. For him, ending the Middle East war is a business opportunity. The ceasefire is welcome. Let’s hope it holds. But it’s hard to imagine a lasting peace while Netanyahu remains in power. If and when this war definitively ends, there must be elections and a reckoning, in Israel and in the international courts. For Netanyahu, facing war crimes charges, it will never be over until he stands in the dock in The Hague and answers for the terrible, terrible things he has done.
Journalist ejected from Blinken news conference says US State Department silenced him A journalist who was ejected from a news conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claims he was shut out for trying to ask tough questions on Gaza. Sam Husseini said he was targeted for attempting to overcome efforts by the US State Department media team to stop him from asking critical questions during departmental briefings. “I didn’t mean to get hauled out of there. I meant to try to pointedly ask timely questions, and I did so a couple of times,” Husseini said. “I asked why do you refuse to acknowledge the Geneva Conventions applying to Gaza? That’s US policy. US policy does not recognise the Geneva Conventions as applying to the Palestinians. It’s utterly scandalous,” he said in a discussion with US comedian and writer Katie Halper.
Trump’s role in Gaza ceasefire fuels Arab American anger with Biden The incoming US president suggests that he pressured Israel to take the deal, which is supposed to go into effect on Sunday. Leading rights groups have described Israel's war on Gaza as a genocide [File: Reuters] By Ali Harb 17 Jan 2025 Washington, DC – When Samraa Luqman voted for Donald Trump in November, she believed that, even if there were a one-percent chance that the former president would push for a ceasefire in Gaza, he would be a better option than the Democrats who had failed to stop the war. Trump ultimately won that race and is slated to re-enter the White House on Monday. And in the lead-up to his inauguration, Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas have agreed to pause hostilities in Gaza, where more than 46,700 Palestinians have been killed in the last 15 months. But Luqman says she doesn’t feel vindicated, even though Trump has claimed credit for pushing the ceasefire deal over the line. Instead, she’s outraged at outgoing United States President Joe Biden for failing to finalise the agreement months earlier. “I’m just even more angry because Trump, who is not even in office, did a little arm-twisting, and the ceasefire agreement was done right away,” Luqman told Al Jazeera. “This could have happened sooner. It’s so sad, all those extra lives lost.” She added that the way the agreement was reached “solidified Biden’s legacy as Genocide Joe”, a nickname that links the Democratic leader to the Israeli abuses in Gaza. After overwhelmingly backing Democrats in previous elections, many Arab American voters turned against the party and its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, in November’s race because of their support for Israel’s war. While many Arab voters say it is too early to celebrate the fragile ceasefire agreement, they stress that Trump’s intervention shows that they were right to abandon Harris. The shift in Arab American voting preferences was especially apparent in the swing state of Michigan. In predominantly Arab neighbourhoods on the east side of the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Harris received less than 20 percent of the votes. The majority of residents either cast their ballots for Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein. While Harris argued that she and Biden had been working “tirelessly” to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, the vice president also pledged to continue arming Israel without any conditions. The Biden administration also vetoed four United Nations Security Council resolutions that would have called for a ceasefire in Gaza. Trump’s role Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni American mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, was among those who endorsed Trump last year, even appearing at his rallies. He explained that negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza was the top demand of the former president’s Arab and Muslim supporters. “He knew that it was a fair and humane request,” Ghalib told Al Jazeera in a statement. “We supported him and asked for ceasefire, peace, fighting Islamophobia, fair representation for Muslims in his administration and promoting and protecting faith and family values and safe education for our kids. He has shown some signs of moving forward to deliver on every one of his promises.” Both Trump and Biden claimed credit for the ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, with the incoming president asserting that the “epic” deal would not have been reached had he not won the elections in November. It is difficult, however, to assess the extent of Trump’s role in behind-the-scenes diplomacy. But several Israeli media reports have indicated that Trump was decisive in getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the pact, which will lead to the release of Israeli captives in Gaza as well as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Trump sent his envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with mediators in Qatar and Netanyahu in Israel last week. On Thursday, the US president-elect appeared to confirm Israeli accounts that Witkoff pushed Netanyahu to accept the agreement. He shared on social media a Times of Israel article quoting an unidentified Arab official as saying: “Trump envoy swayed Netanyahu more in one meeting than Biden did all year.” Notably, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani thanked Witkoff by name when announcing the deal on Wednesday. ‘All hell’ breaking loose Trump had warned earlier this month that “all hell will break out” if the Israeli captives are not released by the time he takes office on January 20. Some analysts saw the message as a threat to Hamas. But the Palestinian group had repeatedly said that it would accept the ceasefire deal laid out by Biden in May, which included a prisoner exchange and a permanent end to the war. It was Netanyahu who publicly stated on several occasions that his government intends to continue the war. Still, Biden administration officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken — have insisted that Hamas has been blocking the agreement. Hala Rharrit, a former US diplomat who resigned last year over the Biden administration’s handling of the war, said the deal announced on Wednesday is the same proposal that had been on the table since May. Rharrit told Al Jazeera that the Biden administration’s months-long failure to finalise the agreement was a “matter of political will”. “If there was not a change in administration, I think we would have kept on hearing the exact same rhetoric of ‘We’re working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire,'” Rharrit said. She added that there would have been no shift had Harris gotten elected, but Trump’s victory created the incentive to make the ceasefire deal happen. Concerns about agreement Although Wednesday’s announcement sparked jubilation in Gaza, Arab American advocates are cautious about celebrating just yet. It is not clear whether Israel will honour the deal, which does not take effect until Sunday. In neighbouring Lebanon, a US-brokered ceasefire agreement in November has failed to stop daily Israeli attacks. Israel has also killed dozens of people in Gaza, including at least 21 children, since the deal was announced. Suehaila Amen, an Arab American community advocate in Michigan, said she hopes the ceasefire will come to fruition, but stressed that it is difficult to take the word of US and Israeli politicians. Still, she said an agreement reached after Trump’s intervention is further indictment of Biden’s unwillingness to get Israel to end the war. “For many within the community, pushing back against the Biden administration for their continuous funding of a genocide — as well as turning a blind eye to the verified and documented human rights violations — continues to be something we stand by,” Amen told Al Jazeera. Amen said voters are “well aware” that Trump helped complete the ceasefire deal. “As Biden leaves with a bloody legacy of genocide to his name, our work continues to ensure our rights are protected and no further harm or harassment ensues towards the Arab and Muslim American community, from the White House and on down,” she said. ‘We hope it will not be temporary’ The way Walid Fidama sees it, the former president made “concrete promises” to end the war in Gaza when he met with Arab and Muslim advocates before the elections. A lifelong Democrat, the Yemeni American ultimately cast his vote for Trump in November. “We are happy that he helped with the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, and we hope it will not just be temporary,” Fidama told Al Jazeera. “We want the agreement to take full effect and allow displaced people to return to their homes.” But some members of the Arab American community are sceptical that Trump will bring lasting peace to the Middle East, as he promised on the campaign trail. After all, Trump has filled his incoming cabinet with staunchly pro-Israel aides, including Senator Marco Rubio, his nominee for secretary of state. And during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump made a series of policy shifts that bolstered the Netanyahu government, including by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Luqman said she is under no illusion that the Republican establishment will distance itself from Israel, but ending the atrocities in Gaza “immediately in order to save more lives” was her top concern. “I’m not going to support Marco Rubio. But at the same time, I’m really conscientious that there aren’t many good options,” Luqman said. Source: Al Jazeera
Bibi had piss weak Catholic zionist genocide Joe the bomb supplier around his little finger, now Biden wants to claim credit for the cease fire.
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/czx8dxl5w45o Reporter removed after interrupting Blinken's last speech The BBC was inside Secretary Antony Blinken's last briefing when he was interrupted. The reporter was physically taken out by security and has been identified as Sam Husseini.
Israel’s defence minister cancels all administrative detention orders for settlers Israel Katz has announced that he will cancel all administrative detention orders against Israeli settlers in response to the planned release of some Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal. “I have decided to release the settlers detained in administrative detention and to convey a clear message of strengthening and encouraging the [occupied West Bank] settlements”, he said in a statement. Settlers are Israeli citizens who live illegally on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. More than 700,000 settlers – 10 percent of Israel’s nearly 7 million population – live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts spread across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli settlers walk with batons and axes along a street in the town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank [File: Oren Ziv/AFP]
Live updates LIVE: Israel kills over 100 in Gaza since ceasefire deal announcement A mourner reacts near the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, January 17, 2025. [Hatem Khaled/Reuters] By Stephen Quillen, Umut Uras and Nils Adler 17 Jan 2025 At least 101 Palestinians were killed, including 27 children and 31 women, in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the announcement of a ceasefire deal that is due to start on Sunday, according to the enclave’s civil defence.
Hamas may be smug in projecting that Israel failed to remove them as the governing and militant entity in Gaza. However they are likely celebrating too soon. The ceasefire agreement could easily still unravel and the future plans for governance in Gaza are unclear. Hamas has survived - and its future looks secure for now Hamas found ways to survive and even boost fighter numbers despite more than a year of bombing, while it has also retained its position as the government of Gaza https://inews.co.uk/news/world/hamas-survived-future-secure-for-now-3486119?ito=smart-news A significant threat to Hamas would be the re-establishment of the Palestinian Authority as the governing entity in Gaza. Fatah has stated numerous times that their first step in Gaza would be to execute every single last member of Hamas. However the Arab countries and the U.S. are urging Israel to put the Palestinian Authority in place in Gaza. Arab states urge Israel and US to let Palestinian Authority oversee Gaza recovery https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...t-palestinian-authority-oversee-gaza-recovery