The death of Haniyeh, a significant figure in Hamas’s political and diplomatic structure, has raised serious questions about the future of ongoing ceasefire negotiations. American officials had recently indicated that these talks, mediated by Qatar, the United States, and Egypt, were close to yielding a temporary ceasefire and a potential hostage release deal.
However, the assassination has cast doubt on the feasibility of these efforts moving forward.
“the West Bank is a tougher nut to crack”
what do you mean by that? Hamas has little to no influence there, and it is governed by a civilian government that was democratically elected. In fact, they’ve been trying to hold new elections, something that Israel has been blocking for years now. There is little to no violence coming from the West Bank.
Contrary to that, illegal settlements (both under Israeli and international law) are tacitly or overly supported by the Israeli government. What is needed is a full Israeli withdrawal back to the internally recognized borders and internationally supervised democratic elections. That is the only way a lasting peace can be build there.
I mean how the occupation can end. It’s not obvious how that can happen, even though it obviously should. Go on Google Images, then search ‘topography of Israel and the West Bank’. If a nascent civilian government of Palestine falls to Hamas or similar forces then they’d be overlooking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They’d have a throughline to Iran via Syria-Lebanon. That’s not a risk Israel can take.
This simply isn’t correct. Hamas operates in much of the West Bank, as do allied groups like the Jenin Brigades and Lion’s Den in Nablus. They’re also enormously popular among West Bank Palestinians.
So democratic that the current President Abbas is currently serving the 19th year of his 4-year term.
This is misleading at best. They’re not trying to hold new elections, because every single opinion poll for about 15 years now show that Fatah would lose badly and certainly Hamas would become the new government of the West Bank, which would finally shatter the possibility of there ever being a Palestinian state. That doesn’t serve Fatah or Israel. Israel therefore keeps Fatah on life-support as the least-bad option.
Because it’s been suppressed by Fatah in co-operation with Israeli security services who’ve been operating in the West Bank before and after October 7th.
By the way, right at this moment thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank are out marching in support of Hamas and against the killing of Ismail Hainyeh: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/dismay-in-gaza-and-rare-open-support-for-hamas-in-west-bank-after-haniyeh-killing/
what makes you think there’s little to no violence in the west bank? Are you basing that on media coverage of incidents, or on same comprehensive data source?
not saying there is no violence at all, but there were only about 40 Israeli fatalities in and around the West Bank in all of 2023, as opposed to close to 500 Palestinians killed in the same time span:
https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/WB_info-graphic_15_Dec_2023.pdf
That is despite the fact that Israeli Settlers are routinely and violently displacing Palestinian people in these territories and resentment against Israel is higher than it has been in a long time. Considering that only a few hours away, their perceived national brethren are involved in an active war against Israel, that number is staggeringly low, and would likely be even lower if Israel kept its illegal settlements in check.
The overwhelming majority of violence in the West Bank is committed against Palestinians, not by them.