From Lebanon to Gaza, Israel is imposing a very violent 'ceasefire'

Residents of the Gaza Strip endured another harsh night after the Israeli army launched a large-scale attack on various parts of the Gaza Strip, reviving terror and fear that have haunted Gazans throughout two years of a genocidal war.

According to the Gaza-based Health Ministry, more than 100 Palestinians, including 46 children and 20 women, were killed, and around 600 others were wounded by Israel's violent overnight bombardments.

"What happened last night is a collective crime against our people," Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defence in Gaza, told The New Arab.

Basal said that rescue teams have continued their humanitarian work despite severe shortages of fuel, equipment, and medical supplies. Crews are still searching through the rubble for those trapped, while hospitals are overflowing with the wounded and patients in critical condition.

He warned that the medical and humanitarian situation has reached "catastrophic levels," citing the imminent depletion of fuel needed to operate hospital generators, ventilators, and operating rooms.

However, as dawn broke on Wednesday, residents were stunned by the Israeli army's announcement declaring the end of the "escalation round" and its commitment to a ceasefire.

This announcement sparked anger and confusion among Palestinians in Gaza, who are wondering: What ceasefire is the occupation talking about when it launches raids at will, killing dozens each time with complete impunity?

Politics of delay

The Israeli army announced that it had carried out "a series of significant strikes" targeting dozens of locations across Gaza, claiming that the attacks were "in response to Hamas's violation of the ceasefire agreement."

 In a press statement, it said that aircraft, in cooperation with the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, targeted "more than 30 operatives in command positions belonging to terrorist organisations," emphasising that it "will continue to enforce the agreement and respond forcefully to any violation of it."

These airstrikes came just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered "powerful attacks" on Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce that has been in place for more than three weeks.

Palestinian analysts argue that Israel is trying to impose a new framework on Gaza, similar to the model it has applied to southern Lebanon, where the situation remains suspended in limbo between war and peace.

Gaza-based political analyst Ahed Ferwana told TNA that Tel Aviv "is trying to establish a new equation based on deterrence and forced calm without any real political commitments."

He said Israel "wants the Gaza Strip besieged and weakened, but it does not want to topple Hamas completely. It wants it to remain responsible for the population and to bear the burden of the humanitarian collapse instead."

Ferwana described the situation as "calculated management of instability" in which "Israel opens fire whenever it wants and declares a ceasefire whenever it wants, a repetition of what it imposed on southern Lebanon after ending the war."

"It is a front that never fully closes, without a full-scale war or genuine peace," he said.

For displaced civilians, this ambiguity translates into daily fear. "We do not know if we are in a truce or a war," said Sanaa Bashir, a mother sheltering in the central Gaza town of al-Zawayda. "All night there are planes, and all day there is fear and waiting. Israel strikes whenever it wants and then says it is committed to a ceasefire."

Her children, she added, have not slept through a single night since the attacks resumed. "They keep asking me if the war has come back. I tell them it never left us," Bashir described.

Officially, Hamas denied involvement in the recent attacks and accused Israel of using fabricated pretexts to undermine the truce.

It said in a press statement that Israel's renewed bombardment and continued closure of the Rafah crossing represent "a flagrant violation of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement."

At the heart of the current crisis is the issue of recovering Israeli captives' bodies, a politically sensitive file that both sides are leveraging.

Hamas teams, working with Egyptian experts, have been digging in Khan Younis and Nuseirat for remains buried in tunnels.

Analysts say Israel is exploiting this file as a political bargaining chip to delay the second phase of the ceasefire, which involves reconstruction and discussions on the future of Gaza's governance.

Gaza-based political analyst Mustafa Ibrahim said Israel had "imposed this new equation from the first day of the agreement."

"Netanyahu does not wait for pretexts; he manufactures them. Hamas explained to the mediators that recovering bodies takes time and heavy equipment, but Netanyahu is managing the conflict according to his internal political calculations and upcoming elections," he told TNA.

Ibrahim argued that Netanyahu "is continuing the war in another form," drawing comparisons to the "Lebanese model".

"He uses limited strikes and exaggerated pretexts to justify prolonging instability, avoiding reconstruction, and keeping Gaza trapped in a permanent state of crisis," Ibrahim said. 

Between bitter choices

Palestinian factions, Ibrahim explained, face impossible options, saying, "They are under huge pressure from their people to end the genocide, but they cannot risk a new war given the destruction and their exhausted military capacities."

"The ongoing aggression and the rising death toll prove that Israel is pressing ahead with its goals, both Netanyahu's personal ones and those of the extreme right, which seeks to disarm Hamas ahead of elections," he added. 

The second phase of the truce, Ibrahim noted, "will be the most complex," as it includes potential Israeli withdrawals from parts of eastern Gaza and discussions about Hamas's future role in governance.

"Israel fundamentally rejects any dialogue about Hamas's continued existence," Ibrahim said, noting Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz's recent remark that "60% of Hamas tunnels remain intact," a sign that "Israel intends to keep Gaza in a permanent state of attrition."

"The US is providing Netanyahu full cover," he continued. "Washington justifies Israeli bombings by claiming rogue elements are acting independently, while giving a green light for continued attacks."

The result, he explained, is that "Palestinians live under a nominal ceasefire, violations continue daily, and the humanitarian situation keeps worsening."

Akram Attallah, another political analyst from Gaza, agrees with this analysis, describing Israel's strategy as "a deliberate effort to impose a new deterrence model, one in which the upper hand strikes without being struck."

"Israel wants to be feared, not challenged," Attallah remarked to TNA. "It seeks not just deterrence but dominance, an equation that ensures no Palestinian faction even contemplates responding."

He argued that Netanyahu is prolonging the conflict to compensate for his political failures at home.

"Netanyahu wants to tell Israelis he has won, but the destruction of Gaza has not convinced them. So he keeps bombing, using escalation to project strength and to block any political process that might force concessions," he said.

Attallah doubted that mediators could alter the equation. "Their role is limited to passing messages; they lack any real leverage to pressure Israel," he said. "Israel is conditioning reconstruction and post-war discussions on Hamas's disarmament and removal from power."

"If Hamas surrenders and relinquishes control, reconstruction might start," Attallah said. "But if it refuses, Israel will continue bombing and delaying indefinitely. This is not peace and not war, it is a state of permanent Israeli dominance."

"What we are witnessing is a long-term war in disguise, an attempt to rewrite the rules of engagement in Gaza and the region so that Israel alone decides when the war begins and when it ends," he concluded.