Washington, DC – Images of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombing are back in the news after a brief stay that only lasted a few weeks.
Almost two months after US President Donald Trump took office, the cease-fire that arrested the War of Israel in Gaza broke, and the region is again at war.
This occurs despite Trump’s own commitment to continue peace in the Middle East and around the world.
Trump took the merit of the truce earlier this year, but he now supports Israel’s renewed assaults in a conflict he has promised to end.
Analysts say that Trump – a fervent supporter of Israel – was more interested in generating headlines to help secure the ceasefire than to end the war. He also made plans to clean ethnically Gaza, removing his residents to make way for a seaside resort in Riviera style.
“We could see proofs of Trump’s insincerity in the ceasefire almost immediately after his entry into office-when he started calling forced displacement and ethnic cleaning of all Gaza Palestinians on a permanent basis,” said Josh Ruebner, speaker of the Georgetown University program on justice and peace.
“So it is not at all a surprise to see the Trump Greenlight administration the resumption of massive Israeli violence against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
Early signs
In the weeks preceding the last bombing, there were signs that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never intended to honor the ceasefire-and that Trump was not invested in maintaining the agreement.
In early February, Trump said that he had “no guarantee that peace will hold” in Gaza.
Even before the ceasefire entered into force in January, Netanyahu said that the agreement was “temporary” and that Joe Biden – who was in the last days of his presidency – and Trump gave “their full support for the right of Israel to return to the fighting”.
In addition, Israel has repeatedly violated the agreement by shooting the Palestinians almost daily and blocking the entrance to mobile houses in the territory, where many buildings have been leveled or made dangerous.
Then, on March 2, Israel imposed a total blockade for humanitarian aid intended for Gaza.
The ceasefire agreement had to include three phases. The first step, which expired in early March, saw the release of around thirty Israeli captives and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners while weapons were silent.
But Israel did not agree to go to the second phase of the agreement which would see a permanent end in war. A third stage would have finally focused on reconstruction in the territory.
Instead, Netanyahu and the Trump administration insisted to extend the first part of the ceasefire agreement. But the Palestinian group Hamas has been clear in its position: there is no need for new initiatives because there is an international pact in place that all parties have already accepted.
Truce ‘served its goal’ to Trump
Ruebner said Trump wanted a temporary cease-fire to release more Israeli captives without putting pressure on Israel to end the war.
In a joint appearance with Netanyahu in February, Trump also expressed his desire for the United States of “possessing” Gaza and transforming it into “Middle East Riviera”.
But as Trump’s proposal encountered an overwhelming international rejection, the American president allowed Israel to “take up this scary scale of violence” against the Palestinians, said Ruebner.
In the days which followed Israel renewed his assault against Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including children, were killed with the support of the American president, who had promised in his inauguration speech to leave the inheritance of a “peacemaker”.
Annelllle Sheline, a researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said that she was surprised that the truce lasted for weeks even after “served her goal” to Trump.
“Trump’s motivation to put pressure on the ceasefire was to show that he could realize what Biden could not, and he did it before even returning to the White House,” said Sheline.
“As the ceasefire was promulgated, there was a lot of skepticism to reach phase two, because this would imply negotiations around a more permanent cessation of hostilities, that Israel and in particular Netanyahu had no interest in accepting.”
The Center for International Policy (CIP), a reflection group based in the United States, also said that Trump “has considerable responsibility” for the collapse of the ceasefire.
“While Trump’s team has managed to attend the administration of former president Joe Biden in the negotiation of the hostage liberation and the ceasefire, he has since enabled this massive failure in his own diplomacy thanks to a series of cheeky missteps,” said Dylan Williams, CIP vice-president for government affairs, in a statement.
A “showman”
Williams quoted Trump’s “obscene proposal” to force the Palestinians from Gaza, as well as the support of the president of the Pusé de Netanyahu to rewrite the cease-fire agreement, as decisions that make him a “complete partner in this bloodshed”.
Despite the number of civilians, the Trump administration expressed unreserved support for Israel and its military campaign in Gaza.
Yl Al-Sheikh, American Palestinian writer and organizer for American Democratic Socialists, described Trump as a “showman” who wanted a “great thing” to boast.
But Al-Sheikh stressed that the American president failed to bring Netanyahu to end the war permanently and to bring Hamas to release the remaining captives.
“So he just wants to hit someone,” said Al-Sheikh. The Palestinians, he added, are “the natural target”.
So what’s going on?
Analysts fear that the Israeli offensive will intensify, leading to more death and destruction, in a campaign that the main rights defense groups and United Nations experts have already described as a genocide.
“Trump and Netanyahu are aligned in their desire to remove the Palestinians from Gaza, either by killing them or by ethnic cleaning and forced withdrawal,” said Sheline.
Al-Sheikh also predicts that violence will persist: “We are going to go to this merry-go-round until Netanyahu does not keep his government together or until Trump gets tired.”
