There’s not a lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reviewing the U.S. peace plan for Gaza with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and other members of the Israeli delegation during a meeting with President Donald Trump at at the White House on Sept. 29. (White House /Daniel Torok)
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article
Israel continued to hammer Gaza with military explosives on Thursday despite the announcement of the first stages of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Israel always does this. When normal people get a ceasefire agreement they think “Good, this means we can finally stop fighting and killing.” Whenever Israelis get a ceasefire agreement they go, “This means we have to hurry up and kill as many people as possible before it takes effect.”
But it does appear that the killing and abuse will at least diminish for a time, which is an objectively good thing no matter how you slice it.
The first stages of the agreement reportedly entail a partial withdrawal of IDF troops, Israel’s starvation blockade officially ending, humanitarian aid being allowed into the enclave, and both Israel and Hamas releasing captives and stopping the fighting.
Drop Site News reports that according to Hamas sources, subsequent ceasefire phases will entail “No surrender, no disarming, no mass exile, but most of all a permanent end to the war.”
SCOOP: this is the agreement document between Israel and Hamas under the title “Comprehensive End to the Gaza War” – including the signature of the mediators. More details of my story – at @kann_news pic.twitter.com/1qGPGFck7q
— Gili Cohen (@gilicohen10) October 9, 2025
It remains to be seen if there will be any movement toward a lasting ceasefire beyond the first stage. When an agreement was reached late last year it never made it beyond the first phase and then the Trumpanyahu administration declared a siege and resumed the killing.
The far right members of the Netanyahu regime certainly seem like they don’t expect the ceasefire to hold.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that Israel has a “tremendous responsibility to ensure that this is not, God forbid, a deal of ‘hostages in exchange for stopping the war,’ as Hamas thinks and boasts,” and that “immediately after the hostages return home, the State of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza.”
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued similar remarks, saying that he and his Jewish Power party will use their leverage to dismantle the Netanyahu government if it “allows the continued existence of Hamas rule in Gaza.”
Netanyahu himself has been studiously avoiding any talk of commitment to a lasting ceasefire, mostly limiting his public statements to the significance of freeing Israeli hostages.
Notice how it doesn’t say words like “ceasefire,” “withdrawal,” or “end of war.” pic.twitter.com/HqSWje4313
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 9, 2025
So there’s not a whole lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.
If it does, we can only surmise that the U.S. and Israel calculated that the worldwide PR crisis created by the genocide was getting too severe to sustain, which would be a win for all of us.
Trump has gone on record to say that “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”
Either that, or they calculated that they’re going to need all their firepower for a planned war with Iran. Which would of course be terrible for everyone.
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This article is from Caitlyn’s Newsletter and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
One thing we have learned the hard way over the last two years if we hadn’t learned it before is international law doesn’t exist. If it did, there would be a whole lot of Israeli and Western government leaders on trial right now at The Hague. There would also be quite a few “news” organizations facing the same fate. But they roam free and continue to lie to their populations about atrocities committed against unarmed innocent human beings including children.
Israel is a nation of out of control mad dog religious monsters. It’s government , it’s citizens and supporters, and the people around the world that enable it’s Fascism. It was born of the wet dream of Satan after WWII, and foisted on the rightful inhabitants of the area, the Palestinians. The sooner it is ended, the better for the rest of the world. America is it’s equally insane enabler.
If it was necessary to give these rotten Zionazi people some sort of reparations for what Nazi Germany did, Why didn’t Germany provide it? What does Palestine have to do with it?
Religion is a terrible basis for the creation of a country , especially on other people’s land.
Palestine absolutely should not have paid for the crimes of the Nazis. But Germany has paid reparations to Israel after a 1952 agreement.
hxxps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany
And Israel used it to punish Palestine for it’s supposed sin of daring to exist as a people in the area (Maybe it wasn’t called Palestine) since before Judaism even existed, before Christianity existed and so on .
Citing that 1952 agreement, just makes it all the worse. The question comes back: What does Palestine have to do with it? True justice to the victims of the Holocaust would entail letting them stay in their home countries, not paying them to go away, or paying them to go take over the home of someone who had nothing to do with the Nazis’ crimes.
I can see Germany now: Here, take this money Bitck, and go away. America will find a place for you and they will make it happen (with their guns, etc. )
Israel has never honored its agreements, so I don’t see Caitlin Johnstone’s cautious hailing of good news.
They broke the last ceasefire agreement in Gaza and they broke the ceasefire in Lebanon. They’ve killed UN peacekeepers. They murdered negotiators.
Israel is a bunch of mad bombers. You cannot negotiate with mad bombers, you can only defeat them and bring them to justice.
I agree and meanwhile eyes are off West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, etc.
I think it was Max Blumenthal or Aaron Mate who said Netanyahu turned around after his speech to the world about the Ceasefire and affirmed in Hebrew to the Israeli public nothing had changed. I’m pretty sure I remembered that otherwise my mind has resorted to making things up because everything seems so bad, ghastly awful. Given the intensity of the slaughter, given Netanyahu’s lies, given his decapitation habits, given the wanton murdering of little itty bitty children extremes, given Netanyahu’s probable wet dreams of going down in Zionist history as fulfilling the Zionist promise – I cannot imagine he’d bow down for any restraint. Not now, not ever.