SPEAKING at a press conference yesterday, Majed al-Ansar, the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that Israel was the ‘toughest party’ in negotiations on the Gaza ceasefire process.
Qatar has been a prime mover in negotiating a pause in the barbaric genocidal war against Gaza being carried out by the Israeli regime, that by yesterday had killed over 15,000 Palestinians, the majority of the dead being women and children.
The Qatari spokesperson made it clear that the main stumbling block in these negotiations had been the Israelis, he said: ‘The negotiations process is difficult from all aspects. Each party has its own demands and reservations. We’re doing our best to sort things out. But the toughest party was Israel.’
In fact, it has emerged that more Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces than have been released during the truce.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club revealed that 168 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been detained since the truce started last Friday, while during that same period only 150 Palestinians had been released as part of the agreement.
This is part and parcel of the continued action by the Zionist regime in the occupied territories to terrorise and drive Palestinians out of their land in the hope of creating some ‘Greater Israel’.
But the stated aim of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume the genocidal onslaught on Gaza after the truce expires is coming under attack from outside Israel, while within Israel serious questions are being raised about any ‘victory’ over Hamas.
Sultan Barakat, a professor in conflict and humanitarian studies at Qatar’s Hamid Bin Khalifa University, told Al Jazeera: ‘The war status in Israel and the declaration of war and the emergency law that he (Netanyahu) has instituted worked well for his political agenda and for his survival. He would want to extend that as much as possible.’
But, he added: ‘Now, whether he is able to go back with the same intensity, I really doubt it. I mean, it has even divided Europe, so Europe will be next complaining about this.’ The working class and youth of Europe and indeed across the world, from Japan to America, are not just ‘complaining’ but taking to the streets in support of Palestine.
Meanwhile, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), considered to be Israel’s leading security think tank and one of the top defence and national security think tanks in the world, said on Monday that Hamas has scored a massive victory in the ‘cognitive war’.
The INSS is furious that the mighty Israeli military has been unable to crush Palestinian resistance, writing of the truce: ‘It is unfathomable that Hamas sets the terms, decides when they have been violated, and acts as if in a position of power.’
Their report rages that the release of Palestinian prisoners ‘was interpreted as yet another Hamas victory and achievement’ that ‘deepens Hamas’s grip on the West Bank and the public support for the organisation.’
Behind all this fury is the growing recognition by Israel’s leading security experts that the mighty Israeli army suffered a humiliating defeat on October 7th by the Hamas attack, and that, far from crushing Hamas, the murderous war being conducted by the Zionist state with the support and encouragement of US imperialism has stiffened the resolve of the Palestinian people not to be driven from their land by terror.
This has won the support of workers and the masses across the globe who are rising up against the support by the imperialist powers for their Israeli client state, which was established solely to ensure imperialist domination of the oil-rich region.
Tens of millions of workers are now understanding that the enemy of the Palestinians is the same enemy they face at home – a world capitalist system that in its final death agony can only survive through murderous wars abroad and war against the working class at home.
The working class has the power to end the slaughter in Palestine by bringing down capitalism and bringing in workers’ governments in the major capitalist countries.
This requires the building of a revolutionary leadership with sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International to lead the world socialist revolution to victory.
