Netanyahu and fascist allies blocking truce in Gaza to save their own hides

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Shawwal 22, 1445 2024-05-01

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Entering the seventh month of their genocidal war on Gaza, Israeli rulers are dragging their feet for a ceasefire deal because they will end up in prison.

Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criminal charges at home and war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

His regime, dominated by right-wing extremists, appears unwilling to make a deal to postpone the day of reckoning.

It is not the deal per se but internal divisions in the Israeli cabinet that is preventing it from being finalized.

Even Egypt, one of the interlocutors, has expressed frustration at Israeli foot-dragging saying, “Gaza truce proposal ignites discord within Israeli cabinet”.

Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid used more harsher language.

He said, Israel is held hostage by “irresponsible lunatics”. This was reported by Anadolu Agency on April 30.

“The State of Israel has become a hostage of irresponsible lunatics. You can’t go on like this,” Lapid wrote on X.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Israeli War Cabinet Minister and ex-Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot.

He slammed what he described as the “political blackmail” practised by far-right ministers, saying they “harm Israel’s national security”.

Eisenkot was referring to Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, both extremists, who have threatened to withdraw from the coalition if Netanyahu does not carry out the invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

They also want the war to continue even though Israeli political and military leaders know they have lost it.

Israel has not achieved any of its objectives: destruction of Hamas and the release of Israeli prisoners.

Should the two extremist ministers pull out of the coalition, the regime would collapse.

Meanwhile, indirect negotiations facilitated by Egypt and Qatar continue in Cairo.

Israel latest proposal given to Egypt and Qatar via the Americans, was passed on to Hamas.

The resistance movement’s representatives traveled to Cairo on April 29 to receive the proposal.

They said they will study the proposal and respond to it.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the zionist regime fear that the ICC may have issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his generals.

These would be announced only when any of these officials travel to Europe where they would face imminent arrest.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that Netanyahu is “frightened and unusually stressed” by the possibility of an imminent arrest warrant.

He is like a wounded beast caught in a trap that has snapped its leg.

The more he thrashes about, the tighter the trap gets.

Such beasts are very dangerous.

Nobody would or should lament Netanyahu’s discomfort.

He has caused the death of more than 34,568 Palestinians, among them at least 18,000 children, since October 7, 2023.

Almost the entire infrastructure of Gaza is destroyed including all schools and universities.

Of the 36 hospitals in Gaza, 33 have been destroyed.

In a number of hospitals, including Al-Shifa and Al-Nasser Hospitals, Israeli troops carried out massacres.

Mass graves have been discovered with most patients subjected to execution-style killings.

Their hands were tied behind their back and shot in the head.

Most had hospital tubes still in them when they were executed.

These constitute war crimes and Israeli soldiers and politicians must be held accountable.

Netanyahu, meanwhile threatened that Israeli troops will invade Rafah regardless of whether there is a deal or not.

While in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was now up to Hamas to accept the deal.

Hamas, however, has made it clear that there will be no deal until Israel pulls all its troops out of Gaza and there is a permanent ceasefire.

Netanyahu and his extremist allies are terrified that a ceasefire would spell their political doom and end up in jail.