Al-Qalam 
The fact that President Donald Trump had okayed the latest Gaza massacre has proven that he is not a peacemaker but a warmonger, writes Iqbal Jassat.
The fury and intensity of missile strikes and deadly bombings across the besieged Gaza is not only the settler colonial regime’s continuation of the genocide but also a decisive rejection by it of the ceasefire it had signed onto.
The regime’s criminal leaders – particularly Benjamin Netanyahu – who is on the International Criminal Court’s wanted list, have sought every pretext under the sun to resume massacres of innocent civilians.
Despite the so-called “lull” in the interim period when the 1st phase of the ceasefire kicked in, Israel has been itching to shed more Palestinian blood to add to the thousands upon thousands of martyrs since October 7.
Overnight, while displaced Palestinians who have been subject to the Zionist regime’s inhumane blockade of food, fuel, medication and other essentials, and smack in the middle of Ramadan preparing Suhoor meals in makeshift plastic tents and bombed buildings, Netanyahu unleashed fiery terror upon them.
Within minutes, more than 400 civilians were killed, mainly women and children. A thousand or more injured with no means to be medically treated.
Reports indicate that the current military strikes are deadlier and wider in scale than the regular series of drone attacks Gaza has been experiencing during the weeks, Netanyahu defaulted by violating the original ceasefire terms.
In response to the current attacks, Hamas has slammed Israel for disregarding its obligations by overturning the ceasefire agreement.
Israel, which has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that went into effect on January 19, sought to fabricate new terms in an effort to justify blowing up the deal entirely.
Analysts Jeremy Scahill and Abubaker Abed point out that since January, Netanyahu has waged a campaign of sabotage and provocation, openly violating the terms of the agreement by hindering and outright blocking the delivery of aid into the Strip.
“While food and other supplies were permitted to enter Gaza throughout the first 42-day phase of the deal, Israel refused to allow almost any of the 60,000 mobile homes and only a fraction of the 200,000 tents to enter Gaza.”
Starvation
Though Netanyahu has sought to blame Hamas on fake charges of undermining the ceasefire, the reality is that he imposed a “total blockade on any aid, including food and medical supplies to the Strip and resumed its policy of using starvation as a weapon of war”.
On Sunday, Israel also cut off the electricity supply to Gaza, forcing a major desalination plant to slash its water output, severely limiting the amount of drinking water available to 600,000 people in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.
Hamas is known to have adhered to the agreement and was keen to maintain it, “but Netanyahu, looking for a way out of his internal crises, preferred to reignite the war at the expense of the blood of our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
According to a Haaretz report, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani demanded immediate international action to compel Israel to implement an immediate cease-fire, abide by the Gaza cease-fire agreement and return to negotiations.
That the demands by a key member of the mediation team are exclusively directed at Israel confirms the fact that contrary to Netanyahu’s claims, it is not Hamas that has violated the agreement.
This view is reinforced by media reports that the Hostages and Missing Families Forum has denounced Israel, not Hamas.
“The greatest fear of the families, the hostages and the citizens of Israel has come true – the Israeli government has chosen to give up on the hostages,” a spokesperson is quoted in Haaretz.
Indeed, Netanyahu’s right-wing terror thugs Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have not only welcomed the renewal of scorched-earth policies but gleefully exclaimed that the plans were prepared weeks ago.
Their excitement at the slaughter of innocent mothers and babies reveals more than mere approval. It confirms that Israel had no intention to honour the agreement and had plotted to blame Hamas to justify the current savagery.
Since the inception of the ceasefire in Gaza 60 days ago, the Palestinian resistance and responsible organizations have meticulously tracked repeated violations of the agreement by the Zionist regime, says the Palestinian Prisoner Network, Samidoun.
“At the same time, in order to protect their people, the Resistance has not once violated the ceasefire agreements nor retaliated against the Zionist war criminals.”
Izzat al-Risheq, a founding member of Hamas’s political bureau, stated: “The enemy will not achieve through war and destruction what it has failed to achieve through negotiations.”
Trump’s greenlighting of Israel’s bloodbath makes him directly culpable in a series of war crimes, including genocide and ethnic cleansing.
By having facilitated the wave of airstrikes by arming and funding Israel, as has been the practice of his predecessor, Joe Biden, Trump has proven – yet again – that far from being a peacemaker, he is, in fact, a warmonger.
Alon Mizrahi sums up the devastating news of a renewed genocide, immediately followed by harrowing images as a tsunami wave of shock, disbelief, and pain.
“Let’s allow these feelings to crystallize into even stronger resolution and conviction.”
*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK, Johannesburg
