UPDATE: Israel is leaning towards resuming violence as Hamas says it can’t locate or extract all of the hostages’ dead bodies, writes Joe Lauria.
Benjamin Netanyahu reviews 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, Sept. 29, 2025. (White House /Daniel Torok)
Update: Israel is contemplating restarting the killing after Hamas said on Wednesday it could not return all the corpses of Israeli hostages without special equipment to locate and dig them out of the rubble that Israel created. Israel is using this hiccup in the ceasefire agreement to threaten to resume its genocide.
Though the deal “acknowledged that some bodies could be difficult to locate and may take more time to retrieve,” the NYT reports, the Israeli defense ministry issued this statement on Wednesday:
“If Hamas refuses to abide by the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the U.S., will return to fighting and work to completely defeat Hamas, change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the goals of the war.”
Donald Trump chimed in on social media: “The dead have not been returned, as promised.” With his typical bravado, showing who is in charge, he told CNN Wednesday: ““Israel will return to those streets as soon as I say the word.”
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Speaking to the Israeli nation about the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last Friday:
“Hamas agreed to the deal only when it felt the sword resting on its neck and it is still on its neck … Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized … If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. And if not, it will be achieved the hard way.”
So there’s only one way the genocide does not resume in Gaza: Hamas disarms and unconditionally surrenders to Israel and presumably, turns over all the dead hostages too.
The threat of more violence if this doesn’t happen is clear enough in Netanyahu’s words.
Other Israeli officials have promised the same.
Israel’s goal is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and its complete takeover.
The so-called deal that Donald Trump is getting credit for seeks to achieve this. It is no peace deal.
It does not settle any of the outstanding issues of the seven-decade-old Israeli theft of Palestinian land and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Or the killing of countless innocent civilians by a brutalizing Israeli military intent on defending and extending its gains.
All Trump’s deal does is hand total victory to Israel.
Hamas is to disarm and not take part in any future governing of the Strip.
The War Is Not Over
Of course Hamas is refusing to disarm at this point. And if they continue to refuse Netanyahu has spelled out what will happen. Trump can then kiss next year’s Nobel Peace Prize goodbye.
Israel would also again be condemned by most of the world as it resumes the killing and its defeat in the information war – a main reason it agreed to the ceasefire. (As well as regrouping an exhausted military to prepare for possible renewed war with Iran.)
Key to whether Hamas capitulates are other Arab states, principally the Gulf monarchies. They are pressuring Hamas to give up. They stand to get a piece of the action if Trump’s sick dream of a Gaza Riviera is realized on top of the decaying corpses of a significant part of society.
The Arab regimes are villains in this story almost as big as Israel and the United States. They have long ago resorted to lip service to the Palestinians to placate their own repressed and restless populations. Now they stand ready to cash in a bonanza because of a genocide they barely protested.
If Hamas gives up and Netanyahu gets his way — “the easy way” – there will still be a sizable population of Gazans to manage and pacify. The easiest way for the Israelis would be to put them on buses and move them out — if Netanyahu and Trump can finally find someone to take them. Perhaps they will pay the Egyptians enough. El-Sisi has his price.
If most of the Palestinians remain, they will probably wind up in shacks behind the gleaming casinos like in Batista’s Cuba. They would remain a headache for the Israelis, so it’s clear they would rather kick them out.
Under pressure from the most extreme members of his cabinet, Netanyahu’s government surviving depends on this happening, the easy way or the hard way.
The right way would be for the Palestinians to build back their own society the way they want with Israeli and U.S. reparations. And to govern themselves the way they want with the leaders they choose in a state of their own, free from the threat of renewed attempts at annihilation.
But the odds of that happening will be a lot worse than claiming the jackpot at the roulette wheel at Trump Gaza Casino.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
Of course they will. This is the only way they know how to live.
Nothing to see here folks but lots to smell. Move along , “. . .the smell of death is all around you , . . .!” nothing left to see here,
Was widely predicted. Israel’s record of making commitments, getting what it wanted, then breaking the commitment immediately afterward, is its established pattern.
Another great deal for Israel and Americans are viewed by other nations as signing off on it.
Take to the streets Sat Oct 18, 2025 and inform the world otherwise. United and resist or perish.
No Kings or fascists, defiance til death!
Make an agreement that you know the other side cannot keep to your satisfaction, then blame them for not keeping it. It’s an old sleazy trick.
Israel never stopped the genocide. They’re still blocking aid. They’re still killing people.
Essentially the only requirement in Trump’s “peace plan” falls on Hamas, the onus is solely on them to disarm. This tenet clearly cannot be fully verified. Ergo, Israel can merely declare that Hamas has failed to disarm, and the Jewish supremacists can continue their gruesome slaughter in Gaza.
Trump not receiving the Peace Prize next year should his overall “ceasefire” fail to hold will almost certainly end up having more to do with the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s antipathy toward the unapologetically obnoxious way that he carries himself rather than sincere objections to his meaningful complicity in the resumption of hostilities.
If one is María Corina Machado, or Barack Obama, or the Oslo Accord negotiators (Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat), or Aung San Suu Kyi, or Henry Kissinger, having the requisite veneer of civility that adds just a spoonful of sugar to make the ricin-contaminated castor oil of their murderous Orwellian policy agenda go down more smoothly from a PR standpoint, then the Nobel Committee is quite generous with their bestowal of Peace Prizes.
The repeated propensity of the Norwegian Parliament in general and the Nobel Committee in particular to betray the intentions of Alfred Nobel is chronicled in detail by the late Fredrik S. Heffermehl in his two books: “The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted” (2010) and “The Real Nobel Peace Prize: A Squandered Opportunity to Abolish War” (2023).
I have a low opinion of both sides but it is amazing the Palestinians have continued to pursue the fantasy of defeating Israel militarily for so many generations. It was never possible, and it was always going to end this way.
What is for you a fantasy is for the Palestinians a fight for dignity against those who stole their land and killed their children.
Your statement reflects a shallow understanding of what Zionism has been intentionally doing to Palestinian Arabs, who were 95% of Palestine’s population in 1897 at the time of Herzl’s first Zionist congress. There were two choices. Either capitulate and give up all your rights, or resist. What would you have done?
even ben gurion, who proclaimed/founded the state of israel
in may 1948, assessed the palestinian situation quite accurately.
patrick lawrence – in his oct 13, 2025 article for CN: Let Us Now
Bury the Truth (Again) – quotes him, and i mention only an excerpt here:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel.
It is normal; we have taken their country. […] we have come and we
have stolen their land. Why would they accept that?”
my forefathers committed the holocaust. one nakba followed.
now others unfold before our eyes. i feel i can’t afford to have
“a low opinion of both sides” bc these catastrophes have done
and are doing irreparable damage to our hearts and souls, i.e.
to our willingness and our capability to co-exist in peace and
in deep respect for one other.
even ben gurion, who proclaimed/founded the state of israel
in may 1948, assessed the palestinian situation quite accurately.
patrick lawrence – in his oct 13, 2025 article for CN: Let Us Now
Bury the Truth (Again) – quotes him, and i mention only an excerpt here:
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel.
It is normal; we have taken their country. […] we have come and we
have stolen their land. Why would they accept that?”
my forefathers committed the holocaust. one nakba followed.
now others unfold before our eyes. i feel i can’t afford to have
“a low opinion of both sides” bc these catastrophes have done
and are doing irreparable damage to our hearts and souls, i.e.
to our willingness and our capability to co-exist in peace and
in deep respect for one other.
[not to mention the fact that the west/global north have no intention of
loosening their tight grip on the region’s natural and human resources,
nor will they relinquish what they consider their geopolitical power there.]
As Miko Peled says, “The solution is one state in historic Palestine with equal rights for all citizens.”
Looks like the empire will have to be dismantled for that outcome.
One state is the only moral solution to this ongoing nightmare, yet it hardly ever gets discussed. Rather, we are kept distracted by infantile schemes about real estate development and casinos, while children starve to death. Its difficult to see the Empire sinking much lower.
I’m a bit more optimistic than Mr Lauria considering Erdogan’s involvement. According to the MEE, Erdogan has promised to take care of the Hamas, possibly Syrian style without senior leadership , ideology or titel. It may not be a god news but a way of stopping never ending illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank and avoiding them in GAZA.
Piece of shit is too mild a term for Trump,Israel and the people who aided and supported the Genocide The French people had the answer back in 1789.
It would be extremely foolish to think those who stand to profit from the riches off of developing the beautiful sea front property will give that up. For Netenyahu its power, for Trump et al its money. Now that the Palestinians have been starved, decimated, demoralized and weakened, Israel doesn’t need a “war”. They have already “won” and it won’t be hard to continue the campaign with a few incursions here and there while maintaining military control. Of course it isn’t over.
This is a land and oil grab motivated by money and Racism.That is two of the reasons the U$ supports Israel mm Another is the blackmail being held over the head of Congress
If / when this ends , the hard or easy way , humanity /civilization in its present bed ridden diseased state will forget and accept the “hiatus” until such time as the hope of getting out of that bed is only to relive what laid you there in the first place .
The present solution is the day in , day out peering over the bed’s edge and seeing ,on the floor , the impression of your last footprinted step , wishing to use it once more .
Now hoping to set foot on uncharted floor , to flee the gloom of the bed’s sore .
To just rollover , or get up , looking back , running away ?
Whats the point ? The outcome ? How long ? Another 100 years ?
IN THE GOULISH GLOW of THE NEON OF GALLIVANTING GREEDY TRUMP the GAZA GUZZLER
The First Formal International Window of Opportunity for Peace, Irreparably Broken
Nota bene:
The key to ‘peaceably’ resolving the disastrous forthcoming issue back then, which is the now, is what humanity is bearing witness to as this is being written, is lost forever.
That key was broken by Israels acceptance of the United Nations (UN) Partition Plan, Resolution 181 of 1947, which, from the get-go was already arbitrarily skewed in Zionism’s favor.
The deceit of the Zionists formally began in their ‘accepting’, without question, the biased in their favor, terms of resolution 181.
The indigenous Arab Palestinians, as well as the surrounding Arab States, rightfully rejected, outright, the unjust geographic division of the land being ceded to European interlopers who totally disregarded the legitimate Arab majority’s claims and concerns.
The surrounding Arab armies first invaded Israel on May 15, 1948. It was, and is known as the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, begun the day after Israel declared its independence on May 14th 1948
The invading forces included ARMIES from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, with support from Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, unlike the one-sided attempted genocide of the Palestinian population by Israel – militarily and technologically reputedly ‘ranked among the strongest in the world, on a qualitative basis” against a ragtag ‘army’ organized for local defensive purposes, very poorly equipped, initially disorganized, and made up of diverse and mismatched individuals.
For the institutional ultra-Zionist regime of Israel today to claim self-defense for their acts of savagery committed, since at least 1967 (for 58+ years), against human beings who have been forced against their will to be refugees, incarcerated in the “world’s largest concentration camp” is laughable. It is Israels disgrace and casts shame on the notion of a civilized humanity.
Thus, the retaliatory invasion by the surrounding Arab states, in support of the Palestinians just claims first began.
The proposed Jewish state having been allotted approximately 55% of the whole territory while the projected Palestinian Arab State had been arbitrarily assigned about 42%. The cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem were designated to be a “special international regime” to be administered by the UN.
And here we are, always in the continuous PRESENT state of affairs!
Note:
Data ‘facts’ gleaned from diverse academic historical sources, over time.
Thankyou.
You bring to light the Arab-piece in this puzzle.
It seems that no outside or inside entity — except a few peaceniks around the globe — care for Palestinians and their nation. Peaceniks without physical power.
It would seem that the Palestinians are doomed to negation as are the Armenians and Native Americans.
Non-violent protest is the only valid & longterm response.
Thank You Joe
Trump should be awarded The Nobel Piece Of Shit Prize.
Ha! Love it!
… if only he were the only problem.
Or the Nobel “Peace” of shit prize. He derserves both.