CAAT welcomes the ceasefire agreed in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. The end, at least for now, to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, and the release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages, who have often suffered untold trauma and abuse in captivity, is an enormous relief.
However, no-one should imagine that this ceasefire represents an end to the war in Gaza, still less to the decades-long occupation, Apartheid oppression, and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Israeli forces remain in occupation of Gaza and are still killing Palestinian civilians. Thousands of Palestinians remain imprisoned by Israel, often without charge and under conditions of torture and other ill treatment. Israeli military and settler violence and dispossession of Palestinians continues unabated in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israel has broken ceasefire agreements and returned to war in the past, and there is little to guarantee that they will not do so again. The Trump-led plan for Gaza is vague and problematic, with no clear path to Palestinian self-determination, and with concerning proposals for Gaza to be ruled by an international “peace council” headed by Donald Trump and Tony Blair, both of whom have wreaked untold havoc in the Middle East.
During the coming weeks and months, and the crucial negotiations over the second and subsequent stages of the ceasefire agreement, with the hoped-for goal of achieving lasting peace, it is essential for serious international pressure on Israel to be maintained and increased. It is Israel that holds overwhelming power and control over the Palestinians, and that continues to deny Palestinians their fundamental rights and dignity, and all too often their lives. Therefore, only massive international pressure can ensure that Israel maintain the ceasefire, allow unrestricted aid into Gaza to relieve the famine and devastation of the health care system they have caused, and withdraw their forces from Gaza; and beyond that, that they end their illegal occupation and ongoing land theft in the West Bank, and agree to move to a lasting and just peace that affords freedom, security, and equal rights to all.
In particular, Israel’s occupation, like the genocide they have perpetrated in Gaza, would not be possible without the vast arms supplies and military support they receive from the US and other countries, including the UK. Even if the ceasefire holds and leads to a permanent end to the war and genocide in Gaza, it is these arms supplies that will continue to uphold Israel’s occupation and repression. Pressure on Israel must include an end to these arms supplies, including the F-35 combat aircraft for which the UK continues to supply components. Licences that have been suspended must remain so.
Finally, an end to the fighting cannot mean that the atrocities committed over the past two years should be allowed to be forgotten. There must be accountability for all abuses. Israel has been found to be committing genocide in Gaza by numerous other UN member states, by international genocide scholars, and by a UN Commission of Inquiry. They have deliberately engineered starvation in Gaza by denying the supply of sufficient food and by destroying Gaza’s capacity to feed itself. Israeli attacks have frequently killed dozens or hundreds of civilians, and children, healthcare workers, and journalists have often been directly targeted. Hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches, water facilities, and agricultural land, have been deliberately destroyed. Hamas also killed civilians in their attacks on October 7 2023, and took and held civilians hostage. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohhamed Deif, although the latter was subsequently withdrawn when he was confirmed as killed. Investigations are continuing and more indictments must follow.
The ICC and other investigatory bodies must be fully supported in their efforts to investigate and prosecute all crimes committed by all parties since October 7 2023. US sanctions against Court officials and against NGOs working with the ICC, including Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq, currently engaged in a legal case against the UK government over arms sales to Israel, are an outrageous attack on international justice and must be lifted. In particular, all states have a legal obligation to prevent and punish genocide. Now that a UN inquiry has found that Israel has committed genocide, the UK and other governments must take all feasible measures to support the investigation and prosecution of genocide crimes, including starvation crimes, by Israel. If genocide is simply brushed under the carpet and ignored once a ceasefire is in place, and is allowed to go unpunished, not only is this is a monstrous injustice in itself to the tens of thousands of victims, but it would destroy the credibility of the international community as being willing or capable to prevent and punish the very worst of crimes, and would make other genocides, current and future, much harder to prevent or stop.
