By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
Hamas, two years into the Gaza genocide, has reportedly accepted a raw deal in which they’ll give up their captives in the hope that President Trump will force Israel to go through with a complete withdrawal from Gaza.
From Drop Site, “Hamas and Palestinian Factions Agree to Gaza Ceasefire; Trump Confirms Deal Was Reached”:
Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed to a framework for the Gaza ceasefire deal on Wednesday evening, a senior Hamas official and a second source close to the Palestinian negotiating team told Drop Site. “From our side, yes,” the Palestinians reached an agreement, the Hamas official said, but added they needed to “finalize some points” with the mediators. “It’s over, it’s over. It’s been decided,” the second source said. “Everybody’s agreed on it. There are a few things that will be discussed, but it’s over.”
Mediators, the source close to the negotiators said, told the Palestinian side that President Donald Trump planned to personally announce a permanent ceasefire and had offered assurances that the U.S. would not permit Israel to resume the war after retrieving the Israeli captives.
“We have a great team over there, great negotiators. And there are unfortunately great negotiators on the other side also,” said Trump Wednesday. “But it’s something I think will happen—got a good chance of happening…. Our final negotiation is with Hamas and it seems to be going well.” Soon after he made those remarks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio walked up to Trump and handed him a sheet of paper. “I was just given a note by the Secretary of State saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East and they’re going to need me pretty quickly.”
Thirty-seven minutes after this story was first published, Trump announced a deal had been reached. “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!” he wrote on Truth Social. “This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a post referring to the Israeli captives held in Gaza: “With God’s help we will bring them all home.” In a subsequent post, he added, “Tomorrow I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home.”
“The new “ceasefire deal” is going to be a repeat of the January one. Trump will take credit and guarantee it, they let in some aid and get their rape-soldier prisoners out, then they will restart the genocide again and the new main line will be “WE NEED KHAMAS TO DISARM”, with Trump leading the charge on behalf of his masters,” Zei Squirrel commented on X.
I agree with their negative assessment.
“The two guarantors of this ‘ceasefire deal’ are Trump and Steve Witkoff. So in other words, there are no guarantors, and everyone knows it. Hamas and the Palestinian resistance know it too, but they were left with no alternative than to have this play out and at least make the rape-soldier prisoner excuse drop away from the propaganda laundering of the genocide,” Zei Squirrel said in a follow-up tweet.
“They also made sure to emphasize that it was Erdogan-Turkey, UAE, Jordan, Saudi, Qatar and Egypt who played a key role in pushing them to accept this grotesque farce of a fake ‘ceasefire’, so that when they restart the genocide everyone will know exactly who was behind it.”
This is what I wrote on X after the news broke:
People forget that October 7th happened because Gaza was being slowly strangled and cut off from the Arab world through the Abraham Accords.
It was a “Hail Mary” to try and get the Arab world to rise up and come to their defense, but instead they were just left for dead.
Hezbollah and Iran tried to help but they couldn’t take on the US and Israel.
Now, Hamas is accepting a raw deal in the hope Trump will force Israel to go through with a complete withdrawal (not likely).
“Hamas sources have made clear to Drop Site that they believe the only path to a brokered agreement to end the genocide rests with Trump. The alternative is an indefinite continuation of the armed struggle against a U.S.-backed Israeli military,” Drop Site reports.
“‘There is no other deal to be taken. Either this or return to fight with full American support coupled with Arab and Islamic passivity and let-down,’ said a source close to the negotiators.”
Gaza has been destroyed, but so has Israel’s global legitimacy.
As Israeli hasbara agent Eylon Levy said during a conference in Israel last month, Israel winning its multifront war won’t matter “if we emerge from this war a global pariah where the average European is convinced that Israel is worse than Nazi Germany.”
Hopefully, Gaza will be rebuilt and Israel’s legitimacy will forever remain in tatters.
We need to start the construction of Gaza genocide museums throughout the world and make sure Israel’s war crimes are never forgotten.