January 29, 2025
THE CEASEFIRE, ITS RAMIFICATIONS, AND THE PATH AHEAD
Last week, on Sunday, January 19th, a ceasefire between the Zionist entity and the Palestinian resistance went into effect.
The implementation of Phase 1 has begun, with a total of 3000 prisoners to be released in exchange for 33 Israeli hostages. The Zionist occupation forces have also begun their withdrawal from densely populated areas within the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians have begun their return to Northern Gaza. The details of the terms of this agreement reflect the defeat of Israel's occupation forces within Gaza by the Palestinian resistance and people.
From the outset of this war, Israel declared its war effort as existential in nature. The Zionist state's political and military leadership vowed to the world and to Israeli society that they would destroy Palestinian resistance militarily and politically, return the hostages by military force, ethnically cleanse and permanently occupy every inch of Gaza and build settlements in Northern Gaza.
As the war went on, Israel sought to accomplish those objectives through different strategies and plans, such as the General's Plan (a siege campaign of mass murder and starvation of the Northern half of the Gaza Strip), the division of Gaza in half to facilitate permanent occupation through the development of the Netzarim corridor, and the complete takeover of the Rafah crossing through the Philadelphi corridor.
This project of resettlement through the General's Plan became a priority for Zionist political leadership from October 2024 until the signing of the ceasefire agreement. Resettlement represented a perceived path of "victory" in light of the failure of the Zionist military to accomplish its goals of the destruction of Palestinian resistance and the return of hostages by military force.
Ultimately, the effort was met with fierce resistance, with the Palestinian resistance able to exact heavy tolls on Israeli occupation forces, especially in Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
The ceasefire agreement remains precarious, as only Phase 1 has been agreed upon. The variables governing the coming months are difficult to predict, such as the resolution of the internal crisis within the Zionist state's ruling class and the Trump Administration's ultimate orientation to the deal. What has been made clear, however, is that the Palestinian resistance and people have emerged victorious.
After 15 months of genocide, the scenes of the liberation of prisoners, the steadfastness of Palestinian people and resistance, and the return of Palestinians to their land constitutes legendary achievement for the Palestinian people. Through this genocide, the Zionist state sought to not only destroy every facet of Palestinian life and resistance, but, in the words of the late martyr Walid Daqqa, to sear Palestinian consciousness with defeat.
Instead, the Palestinian people have seared into the consciousness of the Zionist state, its military, and the world as a whole that the Palestinian people, especially our people in Gaza, are undefeatable.