Hamas announced on Tuesday that it would not proceed with the second phase of the ceasefire agreement unless Israel halts its violations and attacks on Gaza.
Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, called on mediators Qatar, the US and Egypt to pressure Israel into respecting the terms of the ceasefire’s first phase.
He said that the “next phase cannot begin as long as the occupation continues its violations of the agreement and evades its commitments”.
Since the ceasefire began on 10 October, Israel has reportedly violated it at least 738 times.
The first phase of the deal required a cessation of hostilities, the release of Israeli captives in exchange of Palestinian prisoners, and increased aid into the strip.
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Badran said the agreement required “the entry of between 400 and 600 trucks daily, and the opening of the Rafah crossing for individuals, goods, and aid”.
Israel has not opened the crossing for traffic in either direction. The government media office director in Gaza told Al Jazeera that “there are 6,000 trucks loaded with aid stuck at the crossings”.
On Wednesday, following US pressure, Israel reopened the Allenby Bridge Crossing, known in Jordan as King Hussein Bridge, for commercial traffic. It had been closed since September, after a Jordanian truck driver fatally shot two Israeli soldiers. Passenger traffic resumed one week after the incident, but humanitarian cargoes did not.
Over 20 percent of aid to Gaza relied on this crossing. According to AFP, Israel said the “aid trucks destined for the Gaza Strip will proceed under escort and security, following a thorough security inspection”.
Gaza’s partition
As part of the ceasefire agreement’s terms, the strip was divided into a Green zone and a Red zone, separated by a Yellow Line. Israeli forces are still stationed in the Green area, which encircles the Red zone.
On Sunday, Eyal Zamir, Israel’s military chief of general staff, said Israel would maintain control over the Green zone, thus handling most of Gaza’s agricultural lands, the Rafah crossing and over 50 percent of the strip’s territory.
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Badran condemned Zamir’s statements, saying they “clearly reveal the criminal occupation’s lack of commitment to the ceasefire agreement”.
Zamir also added that the Yellow Line represents “a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity”.
Shortly after, the UN condemned the Israeli claims and called for a restoration of Gaza’s previous borders.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the chief of the UN, said the idea of dividing Gaza “seems to me to go against the spirit and the letter of the Trump peace plan”.
“We firmly stand against any change of the borders of Gaza and Israel,” he added.
The 20-point plan proposed by Trump in October expected the Israeli forces to progressively withdraw from the territory. Israeli statements, however, seem to indicate otherwise.
Child ‘suspects’
Israel has committed several violations along the Yellow Line itself.
On 29 November, the army killed two Palestinian children who were walking along the border to collect firewood.
Israeli forces said they killed “two suspects who crossed the yellow line, conducted suspicious activities on the ground, and approached IDF troops operating in the southern Gaza Strip, posing an immediate threat to them”. The children were aged eight and 10.
Israel, Badran said, has continued demolishing Palestinian homes in the Green zone, extending military operations that were meant to end from the start of the agreement.
Local media reported that the Israeli military on Tuesday conducted demolitions in Beit Lahia.
The second phase of the agreement would entail the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas, along with the deployment of an international stabilisation force, with a peace council headed by Donald Trump.
The Gaza “board of peace” was slated to include Tony Blair, until the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that his consideration had been dropped following complaints from Arab and Muslim leaders.
Hamas has said it is ready to hand over its weapons to the technocratic, apolitical future Palestinian government envisioned by the 20-point plan, on the condition that Israeli occupation ends.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza says Israel has killed more than 380 people and wounded 987 since the October ceasefire.
