On January 15, 2025, Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement, bringing Israel’s punitive military campaign in the Gaza Strip to a temporary halt. While this agreement will allay tensions in the short-term, Israel will soon be confronted with tensions on multiple fronts.
The latest ceasefire resembles various attempts that have been pursued since November 2023—when a truce temporarily stopped combat in Gaza, although this cessation in hostilities came about in a different political and strategic landscape. The November 2023 truce saw the Israelis and Hamas agree to a temporary ceasefire where they exchanged several prisoners. However, the deal fell apart owing to Hamas’ demands that Israel completely remove troops from Israel and Israel’s demands that Hamas fully demilitarize and exit the political scene in Gaza for good.
Since then, Israel has been on a rampage. Not only has Israel committed a veritable campaign of ethnic cleansing that has resulted in the killing of close to 50,000 Palestinian civilians and the internal displacement of 1.9 million people, it assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September 2024 and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar the following month. Thanks to a U.S.-backed Islamist insurgency in Syria, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024, dishing out another critical blow to the so-called “Axis of Resistance.”
“On and on and on it goes, where it will stop, nobody knows.” This war is going on and the statistics are horrifying and the actions are very questionable, no matter what has happened in the past. People on both sides have to watch out that this does not escalate beyond what it is now otherwise the disaster will be total and complete.