When US President Donald Trump yesterday defended Israel's renewed air strikes on Gaza – saying the country “should hit back” if Israeli troops were killed – he added that nothing would jeopardise the ceasefire.
Many, including the families of the dozens of Palestinians killed in this latest Israeli bombardment, will undoubtedly question exactly what kind of truce allows the stronger party to lash out with overwhelming force on an overcrowded urban area when its soldiers are attacked. They are also entitled to know what those still firing on Israeli troops aim to achieve, apart from drawing more collective punishment down on the heads of Palestinian civilians.
The danger facing Gaza now is not that the 20-point plan to end the war – painstakingly negotiated and agreed with US backing – will collapse, but that it will become a Potemkin peace in which the facade of an agreement accompanies continuing violence. One need only look to Lebanon to see what such a ceasefire looks like.
There, Israeli forces have repeatedly broken a ceasefire deal. On Monday, five people were killed in Israeli strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, as US envoy Morgan Ortagus arrived in the country. In August, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, the head of Israel’s army, boasted that air strikes on Lebanon had breached the ceasefire close to 600 times. At the same time, occupying Israeli troops show no sign of withdrawing from Lebanese territory.
Although Lebanon has thankfully not returned to full-blown warfare, the idea that a functioning ceasefire is in place is a convenient fiction. It allows Israel to engage diplomatically with other parties while reserving the right to strike when and where it wishes. This points to how a dangerous hubris, married with a lack of seriousness, has come to characterise the Israeli leadership’s approach to making peace.
Ultimately, yesterday’s Israeli strikes on Gaza create a problem for all sides. Renewed violence delays the implementation of Phase 2 of the peace plan – which includes disarming Hamas. Israel may feel that its armed forces are entitled to act as they please but the angry and public US reaction to last week’s Knesset vote on annexing the occupied West Bank shows that such misplaced confidence and self-regard is leading Israel to a precarious place.
In a situation as volatile as Gaza’s, where there is no trust between the main protagonists, it was expected that the ceasefire would be tested. That makes the work of solidifying the peace plan and moving it forward that much more important. High-level diplomatic work on moving to the next phases is taking place with the involvement of US figures and key Middle East countries. That should not be derailed by quixotic attacks by Palestinian militants or air strikes by Israel.
That Mr Trump is occupied with a high-profile tour of Asian countries right now makes it possible that Israeli strategists spy an opportunity to maximise the country’s gains and inflict further pain on its enemies. However, the US administration needs to be more focused and forceful in protecting an agreement that bears the US President's signature.
