Afrasianet - Sari Orabi - Israel rushed into a genocidal war on Gaza, wanting a number of goals, the lowest and closest to its belief, to impose defeat, defeat and surrender on Hamas and the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, so it adopted methods of shock, intimidation, carpet bombardment, population displacement and firebelts, and in a way that exceeds the historical experience in the conflict with it.

With this war, which pursues open and declared genocide, it wanted that there is no taboo in this war, and the sweeping machine of destruction affected all the features of urban and urban life in the Gaza Strip without excluding a facility, a person, a stone or a tree.

At the heart of this unprecedented warfare method, Israel wanted to obliterate the file of its prisoners with Hamas and the Palestinian resistance, by implicitly, and sometimes declared, that all sacrifices should be tolerable and acceptable in a war that is described as a fateful and existential war, and comes in response to an exceptional operation unprecedented in the history of the conflict, which further exposed the Israeli limitations disguised by propaganda about the invincible army and intelligence that never sleeps.

In order to cover up the desire to obliterate the prisoners' file, it raised a slogan declaring that the prisoners would return by military force, in conjunction with the elimination and eradication of Hamas.

This Israeli goal, which it believed was the closest to realization, i.e. imposing defeat and surrender on Hamas by hellish firepower, was the first step on the road to achieving the larger goal, which is in its maximum dimension the displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, as revealed by a document of the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence at the beginning of the war, and in medium and near dimensions, the occupation of half of the Strip, after leveling the north of it to the ground, whether it is intended to resume settlement again, or to establish military force and buffer zones protected by this force inside the Strip. Or re-engineering the sector politically, socially and security under the eyes of the occupation army and under its supervision.

In this war, and when the recent ceasefire was announced, which establishes in its operative and conceptual terms the nullification of all these goals from the lowest to the extreme, the occupation seemed, as expected, to have achieved horrific levels of killing, destruction and displacement, transforming extermination from a temporary physical act into a permanent, continuous, effective structure for the masses of Gazans and the general Palestinian population.

The consequences at the human level in terms of the number of martyrs and wounded, the related social tragedies and economic conditions, and the material level in infrastructure, can only be described as catastrophic, and can only be considered at the forefront of reading this war, which means that this cost is the heaviest challenge, at least, during the next decade for the Palestinians, especially Hamas, which led this epic struggle, starting from the day of the "Al-Aqsa flood". From the epic steadfastness throughout the fifteen-month war, to the deal that is supposed to stop the war.

Israel rushed into a genocidal war on Gaza, wanting a number of goals, the lowest and closest to its belief, to impose defeat, defeat and surrender on Hamas and the Palestinian resistance in general.

However, this fact, which is so powerful in the current consciousness, as heavy and urgent as it is, cannot be deflected from awareness, when reading the ceasefire agreement – announced on Wednesday 15 January and supposed to enter into force on Sunday 19 January – that Israel has failed to achieve strategic goals within the framework of Israel's declared discourse, which would have repercussions in the internal Israeli situation.

The announced agreement was in essence consistent with the formula of the deal approved by Hamas on July 2, 2024, which was originally submitted in May of the same year, so that any change that occurred between that formula and this agreement in the details and implementation mechanisms would be in principle or substance.

This means that Netanyahu, in the internal Israeli debate, bears responsibility for all the Israeli prisoners who went missing or were killed from July 2024 until January 2025, in addition to the soldiers who were steadily killed in the last month of the war, especially in the northern Gaza Strip, until Israeli and American circles were forced to admit that Hamas cannot be eliminated, as evidenced by the combat performance of its military wing in the area that the occupation wanted to completely bulldoze, i.e. the northern region. which includes Jabalia, Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

It is not possible, when talking about this agreement, to address the issue from the perspective of victory / defeat, in an open renewed conflict whose rings of struggle are related to each other, the occupation was able in this episode to inflict a great killing on the Palestinians, but it was not able to erase the shame of the seventh of October, nor to achieve a set of declared goals of a strategic nature, but the concept of the declared agreement was that the movement that the occupation wanted to eliminate, in preparation for the displacement of Palestinians, or the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, or to engineer it from Jadid, signed a deal with her that would regulate his exit from the Gaza Strip and lead to a permanent ceasefire.

This means that the goals of a moral nature, in their strategic dimensions, will begin to erode, starting with this agreement, especially if it reaches its final goal, because the doctrine of "Palestinian despair of the usefulness of resistance", which expressed itself this time as genocide, fundamentally contradicts the occupation's retreat from the set of declared goals, and its agreement with the movement that entered Gaza to eliminate it.

Therefore, if this agreement goes forward, a number of Israeli goals have necessarily fallen, starting with the preliminary goal of breaking the firewall embodied by Hamas, as it is the leader of the current state of resistance in Palestine, and responsible for the October Seventh operation, and what it means to destroy it in terms of long-term moral brokenness that is difficult to recover from in the foreseeable future, to goals ranging from various patterns of occupation, colonial re-engineering, and complete displacement.

In the thunderous fall of these goals come the quick consequences, which are necessarily in favor of the Palestinians and Hamas, such as the occupation being forced to acquiesce again to the release of those sentenced to life sentences who wanted to die in prison, who are described by Israel as having Israeli blood on their hands, and who have been consistently declared to be permanently excluded from any possibility of releasing Palestinian prisoners, in addition to other high-sentence holders, to be the second time that Israeli standards have been broken, in a prisoner exchange deal from within Palestine, in the entire history of the conflict, ironically at the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu, after the Gilad Shalit deal that was also led by Hamas.

In this regard, the goal of eliminating Hamas, and the goal of recovering Israeli prisoners by military force, or by imposing defeat and surrender on Hamas, has been lost, and if this goal is completed, the ceasefire will continue and be stabilized, and the second phase succeeds in stabilizing it, removing the occupation from the Gaza Strip and completing the prisoner exchange, the other strategic objectives will have fallen.

Certainly, we are not talking about a solid agreement, as the reasons for the fragility are clearly present in it, and the nature of the exceptional war since the seventh of October and the length of the war of extermination continues after the agreement, and it is not possible to talk confidently and seriously about guarantors regarding Israeli behavior.

However, the initial agreement that has taken place, an apparent Israeli retreat, would establish a greater regression, which would have internal Israeli repercussions that turn the war into internal Israeli polarization, reinforcing accusations of failure, which is a confirmed failure on the seventh of October, and a confirmed polarized failure with regard to the long months of war, and for the issue of Israeli prisoners to return to the main issue inside Israel and the place of internal rivalry between the traditional Zionist current and the current that rallies around Benjamin Netanyahu, with the settlement current at its core. The Torah, after this latter current wanted to sacrifice the prisoners in favor of "full Israel" and cover up with war, to complete its closure on the joints of the "state" and its deep organs, the Israelis wonder today: "Why did some prisoners return alive, and some returned in coffins?!".

Hamas' steadfastness not only forced Israel to sign an agreement it rejected, but also prevented the continuation of the Israeli push to perpetuate its Zionist project in Palestine and the region.

The Israeli retreat can be seen in this agreement, by including the second phase in the first phase of the first item, in a way that guarantees the continuation of the temporary ceasefire, as long as the negotiations are based on the conditions of the second phase, until the parties agree, with the aim of reaching a permanent ceasefire, a condition that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected last July.

Two questions remain  : the first is about the reasons leading to this agreement after a long Israeli intransigence covered by American propaganda and power, and the second is about the distant consequences of this war, if the agreement goes ahead and is not torn by the factors of fragility in the Israeli aggression scene on Gaza.

As for the Israeli submission to an agreement that Netanyahu rejected, and after taking into account the transformations in the White House with the arrival of the new inhabitant Donald Trump, as the sources almost coincide that Trump's envoy exerted serious pressure on Netanyahu, and after the Israeli prisoners' file topped the priority of the Israeli political debate when Israel finished its war with Hezbollah, as the majority of the Israeli public sees the need to retrieve Israeli prisoners, even if the price is to stop the war, it - that is, that Israeli submission - is linked to the steadfastness of the movement Hamas, and its ability to renew and adapt in the midst of the war, and its continued fighting until the end, and the occupation inflicted escalating losses in the area most affected by the occupation's violence, i.e. the northern Gaza Strip.

Israel and the United States bet on a rapid breakdown of Hamas within three to five months due to the exceptional Israeli force taken in this war, which can be understood from statements by then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on December 20, 2023, two and a half months after the beginning of the war, when he said:  "If Hamas gives up its weapons, the crisis will end immediately."

This means that the United States had not seen signs of a break from Hamas and the war in its third month, and then the American and Israeli bet returned looking forward to the collapse of Hamas after the martyrdom of its leader Yahya Sinwar and the exit of Hezbollah from the battle, and the start of the plan to destroy the northern Gaza Strip and displace its population, but the mistake of this bet again put the war in front of the reality of its length, which exceeded the expectations of the Israelis and Americans, and in a way that the Israeli circumstance affected by this war cannot bear, with its increasing economic, human and propaganda losses. Diplomacy is in an intolerable situation for a small country that lacks strategic depth and cannot continue without U.S. supply.

The strategic repercussions of this war will not become clear until years later, on Israel and the Palestinians, as well as in the region and the world.

The steadfastness of Hamas not only forced Israel to sign an agreement it rejected, but also prevented the continuation of the Israeli push to consolidate its Zionist project in Palestine and the region through a comprehensive victory, according to Netanyahu's expressions, that does not tolerate discussion and is not ambiguous, so that this steadfastness is what thwarted the series of strategic consequences of the multiple patterns of occupation, military and settlement, and re-engineering, to widespread or complete displacement.

Surrender, even if it seemed at the time to some that would stop the killing, would have opened a wide gate to the Israeli time that is long on Palestine and the region, and in a way from which the Palestinians cannot rise for the next century, and necessarily as well, it will not be the hour that prevents Israel from continuing the massacre.

This is related to the careful assessment of this war, starting from the "Al-Aqsa flood" until its end if this agreement remains in place, as the current awareness is necessarily related to the enormous humanitarian catastrophe caused by the occupation on the Palestinians in Gaza, which means that questions about Hamas' goals from the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation will remain valid and legitimate, but the strategic repercussions of this war will not become clear until years later, on Israel and the Palestinians, as well as in the region and the world.

If Israel has not been able to erase the shame of the seventh of October, the word of the young Palestinians, who are today in the stages of childhood and adolescence and have lived through the horrors of war, will say their word years later whether Israel has managed to despair the Palestinians of resistance and its usefulness, or not.

As for Hamas, which emerged from this war with this agreement if it were to be stable, and despite the fact that it will face heavy and difficult tasks, the greatest of which is the open humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, and its link to its presence in the Gaza Strip, especially in terms of administration, and related regional and international relations, including the nature of the balances after this war, which also revealed the limitations of the axis of resistance, on the other hand, it has established itself in the conscience of the masses a serious and sincere movement that fought epic and valiant fighting on Unprecedented in the entire history of the conflict.