by Simplicius’s Garden of Knowledge | Substack Jan 16 2025 shared with thanks
The big news of the day: Israel has officially announced a ceasefire and potential end to the Gaza war. Hamas will be releasing 33 hostages—interesting numerology, as always—and Israel will reportedly withdraw its military forces from Gaza.
Gaza, January 15, 2025
It will be done in three phases, with the first beginning on January 19th, just a day before Trump’s inauguration as if in tribute:The announcement was met with rousing cheers throughout northern Gaza where Hamas fighters reportedly came out of their tunnels to openly celebrate in the streets—make no mistake, this is being viewed as a monumental victory by the resistance:
Hamas declared the ceasefire with Israel a victoryAccording to the agreement, in the second phase of the ceasefire, the Israeli army must leave Gaza.Hamas must return the surviving hostages, and in exchange they will receive their comrades held in Israeli prisons.
Israel intensified its airstrikes across Gaza just hours after the ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced, killing at least 70 people overnight, according to the enclave’s health officials. The attacks came as people took to the streets to celebrate the truce, following 15 months of brutal warfare that has seen up
This was Hamas’ demand; Israel insisted on the release of its citizens without any conditions.In the third stage of the settlement, the remains of the murdered hostages will be returned to the families in Israel, and large-scale post-war reconstruction will begin in Gaza.In Israel itself, they are already calling the deal “bad” and claiming that it was imposed by the United States.Listen to Blinken’s admission below:“Indeed Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.
”Don’t be surprised if the real number is much more than it has lost—and if not yet, it will be in the future.After much more than a year of fighting, the “pound for pound greatest military force on the planet” was unable to defeat Hamas even after being given a blank cheque for total indiscriminate slaughter and genocide of the civilian population with zero repercussions, a leeway not afforded to any other military force in recent history.
Hamas has said that an airstrike by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Gaza that followed the announcement of a ceasefire deal had targeted a site where a female Israeli hostage was being held.
The fact is, the IDF performed dismally and the reason the deal even came about was because the last several weeks saw a significant spike in IDF soldiers’ deaths:Recently news came that 4% of all IDF troop deaths have been suicides:And reports of 20,000 wounded IDF from just the Gaza conflict:In a humorous nod to American politics, both Biden and Trump separately took credit for the ceasefire deal, though CNN contends that both sides did work together on it. Keep in mind Netanyahu recently suspended plans to attend Trump’s inauguration reportedly after the latter’s snub—Trump posted a Jeffrey Sachs video calling Netanyahu a “deep, dark son of a bitch”.In fact, Haaretz even made claims that Trump’s recent ‘aggressiveness’—which likely includes the jab above—led to the ceasefire presumably because Netanyahu read the change in the wind and could see that it would be now or never, as Trump’s coming administration is perceived as having a harsher, no-nonsense approach on reaching a deal
Israeli “patriots” feel betrayed by a Trump who had claimed to want to give Hamas “hell” yet immediately strong-armed Bibi into a deal:Zimri: “So all his people have been lying – it’s a big disappointment.”Magal: “He talks about hell and in the meantime sends his envoy to sign a deal. It’s a deal whose impact will be very difficult. That’s the truth.” He added that the last remaining hope is that Hamas will reject a deal: “A cabinet minister told me we need to pray again that God will harden Pharaoh’s heart.
“But of course, this is just the latest chapter in the endless cyclical nightmare of Israeli racist colonialism:We can’t have particularly high confidence of it succeeding, particularly given that top Israeli officials like Ben-Gvir have already expressed their hopes that the deal will fail, and will undoubtedly give their most earnest try in undermining it in any way possible.
Also on Thursday, Israel delayed a cabinet vote on the ceasefire deal, blaming Hamas for reneging on parts of the agreement. The militant group has rejected the claims.Some media have attributed the failure to ratify the agreement to opposition from key parties in Israel’s governing coalition
Ie also has little bearing on Israel’s continued strikes on various other surrounding countries, from Lebanon and Syria to Yemen. Israel even stepped up strikes on Gaza today, killing a reported dozen or so—one supposes they needed to sate their fill of bloodlust as consolation for the coming cessation of hostilities.In fact, a report just earlier claimed that Israel even unleashed its first direct strike on Jolani’s troops:The Israeli Air Force has carried out its first strike on the forces of the terrorist group HTS, which has seized power in Syria.
The attack targeted a convoy of militants in the province of Quneitra to prevent them from getting closer to IDF forces on the ground.This was right around the time that Erdogan issued a loud rebuke toward Netanyahu, calling on him to stop striking Syria as tensions continue rising between Turkey and its Syrian proxies and Israel.Erdogan:“The aggressive actions of the forces attacking Syrian territory, Israel, in particular, must come to an end as soon as possible. Otherwise, it will cause unfavorable outcomes for everyone.”We’re left to speculate whether this rising new threat is chief amongst reasons for Netanyahu finally acquiescing to a ceasefire he rejected many times before.
With the IDF’s continued dismal performance—in particular its major failure in incurring into Lebanese territory—Netanyahu may have chosen to reduce the burden of the multi-fronted war in order to free up resources to concentrate on the potential new threat from the Turkish-Syria axis.—The fetid stink of it all will follow Biden administration ghouls around for many years to come:
Simplicius76
The Free 