The current phase of the genocide in Gaza might soon come to an end.
The resistance has continued to kill its occupiers day by day:
Five Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded in an explosion in northern Gaza on Monday, the military said, raising Israel’s toll in over 15 months of fighting in the Strip to 407.
It has steadily increased the pressure on the Israeli government to finally end the slaughter. It is looking likely that it has now achieved one of its aims:
Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages, officials say – AP News
Hamas has accepted a draft agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of dozens of hostages, two officials involved in the talks said Tuesday. Mediator Qatar said Israel and the Palestinian militant group were at the “closest point” yet to sealing a deal.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposed agreement, and an Egyptian official and a Hamas official confirmed its authenticity. An Israeli official said progress has been made, but the details are being finalized. The plan would need to be submitted to the Israeli Cabinet for final approval.
The deal, about a hostage exchange and ceasefire, is similar to one that has been on offer since many, many month ago. That deal had been agreed to by Hamas but was sabotaged again and again by Netanyahoo and his coalition allies:
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir sparked outcry Monday when he claimed he had repeatedly foiled a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas over the past year, while calling on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to join him in thwarting an emerging agreement.
…
In a post on X, together with a video in which he called on far-right ally Smotrich to join him in telling Netanyahu that they would bolt the coalition if the current hostage deal proposal went through, Ben Gvir said that they have managed to stop previous efforts to reach an agreement.“In the last year, using our political power, we managed to prevent this deal from going ahead, time after time,” he wrote.
However, Ben Gvir said he now lacks the power to stop what he termed the “surrender deal” because Netanyahu expanded the coalition by bringing in Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party in September last year.
Aside from Ben Gvir's and Smotrich's resistance to a deal, it was Netanyahoo personally who was blocking a deal with the hope of assuring his own political survival.
Over fifteen months the Biden administration falsely claimed that it was Hamas which was blocking a deal over Gaza. It falsely claimed that it could not use any pressure against Netanyahoo to finally accept an agreement.
That was of course nonsense as it is the U.S. which was and is financing Netanyahoo's war.
It only took a few hours and some brashness from Donald Trump to push Netanyahoo towards concessions.
Last Friday evening, Steven Witkoff, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, called from Qatar to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aides that he would be coming to Israel the following afternoon. The aides politely explained that was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night.
Witkoff's blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus in an unusual departure from official practice, the prime minister showed up at his office for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.
Other Israeli media add:
Two officials familiar with the latest ceasefire push told The Times of Israel on Monday that Trump’s Mideast envoy held a “tense” meeting with Netanyahu on Saturday, during which the former leaned hard on the Israeli premier to accept compromises necessary to secure a hostage deal by the January 20 US presidential inauguration.
Witkoff’s pressure on Netanyahu appeared to have had an effect, with the two officials familiar with the negotiations saying that key gaps were filled in the talks over the weekend.
Should the deal go through the members of the Biden administration will falsely claim that it was their achievement. It was not. It was them who had for over a year enabled Netanyahoo to proceed with the genocide.
In fact there are still attempts by the Biden/Blinken duo to give Netanyahoo an excuse and reason to sabotage a deal:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will unveil a plan for the post-war management of Gaza in a speech on Tuesday that has been the subject of internal divisions within the Biden administration, according to a US official.
…
The plan Blinken is slated to unveil envisions a reformed PA leading the post-war governance of Gaza in what would create a pathway to an eventual two-state solution.
…
But the fear from some in the administration is that the speech will end up serving Netanyahu’s political interests, while marginalizing the PA and its President Mahmoud Abbas, Axios reported.The US official speaking to The Times of Israel said that Netanyahu could end up using the plan as an excuse to blow up the hostage negotiations by arguing that the talks are being used to allow the PA to gain a foothold in Gaza once the war is over.
As Axios summarizes:
The bottom line: "Blinken wants to try and shape the outcome of the war and he will make clear in his speech how he thinks Israel can turn its tactical wins against Hamas into strategic gains," a U.S. official said.
The genocide enablers of the Biden administration are on their way out. The new administration will probably have stopped the genocide even before it enters its office. In this case elections did matter.
But stopping the genocide does not make a Trump administration less friendly to Israel's greed for extension. In whatever may follow a ceasefire we can be sure that Trump will (again) take Israel's side.