Still too early to celebrate ‘Palestinian Spring’ (updated)

Alameen Templeton

Early, green shoots of a Palestinian Spring are emerging even as “israel” ravages Rafah, with the US starting to rein in the Nazi  state and Hamas insisting America stand by its peace deal promise to ensure Tel Aviv doesn’t try to “cut and run” once captives are released.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan emphasised yesterday the success of the ceasefire rested on interconnectivity between the three phases of the deal. This was to prevent “israel” from retrieving its captives and then resuming the genocide.

And early signs are that the US intends curbing “israel’s” enthusiasm for atrocity. And its attack dog seems to be responding, for once.

The White House confirmed Tuesday it had halted a shipment of heavy bombs over concerns they could be used in the Rafah occupation.

“We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza,” the official told CNN.

The White House has confirmed it’s given its backing, as Markaz Sahaba correctly pointed out last week, to a “limited operation” in Rafah.

The Times of Israel reported Wednesday Biden administration officials “said the goals of the operation were legitimate, but warned that this assessment could change if the offensive expanded in scope and lead to an extended hampering of aid shipments”.

Even “israel” appears to be responding to treatment. Its police had already started arresting dozens of protesters who blocked an aid convoy leading into Gaza.

Members of a fascist organisation, Tzav 9, that tries to enforce the starvation genocide, were hauled off on Monday night – before the Rafah invasion – after blocking roads along the aid trucks’ route from Jordan to Gaza.

Local websites reported the rotesters punctured tires on at least one truck and damaged goods on another, throwing its cargo, including food, into the road.

“Israeli” television reported “officers are using serious violence to clear activists” and claimed that one protester was knocked unconscious, requiring medical care.

That would appear to show Tel Aviv has at last woken up to its responsibilities. How long it will last is the main concern of observers as they keep their eye on Rafah.

“What we’ve been told by our Israeli counterparts is that this operation last night was limited, and designed to cut off from Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza,” White House security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

“This does appear to be a limited operation so far, but it does to a great extent depend on what comes next,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said separately.

The US officials said they were concerned that the Rafah atrocity could take on the form of a “more significant military operation” which they continue to oppose due to a new and welcome concern for civilian lives.

“We have made clear that we don’t want to see a major military operation. This does look like a prelude to a major military operation. In terms of the policy response, we’ll see what happens next before we make those determinations,” Miller added.

“They have said, I think quite clearly, it’s no secret that they want to conduct a major military operation there. We have made clear that we oppose such an operation.”

The White House believed “israel’s” claim Hamas had been collecting revenue from Rafah border tolls. “So it is a legitimate goal to try and deprive Hamas of money that they could use to continue to finance their terrorist activities,” he said.

It appears US president Joe Biden is providing a face-saving out for his beleaguered conspirator, “Israeli” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“israel’s” Number One suspect in international war crimes investigations at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court has been told by his right-wing allies he can forget about a coalition government if he cancels the Rafah attack.

That would force an election which would probably unseat Netanyahu as “Israeli” leader, opening the way for the continuation of his criminal trial on fraud charges.

Palestinian resistance is holding onto its insistence that there’s no peace deal until “israel” ends the aggression. Various factions across Gaza kept up attacks on occupation soldiers, with Hamadan insisting on Al Mayadeen the Rafah crossing “will remain a purely Egyptian-Palestinian crossing”.

The White House seemed to differentiate between the latest Rafah incursion – hopefully as a kind of “last salvo” – and “israel” stated intention of displacing 100 000 Palestinians from the eastern part of the city.

Miller clarified that, while evacuating civilians ahead of a military operation made some kind of sense, Israel was not ensuring proper mechanisms to care for the evacuees once they’ve moved were in place first.

“Those people need to have somewhere to go and the places that they go to need to have sufficient food, sufficient water, sufficient housing, sufficient sanitation, and we have not yet seen a plan that would deliver that,” he said,

But there is also cause for alarm; “israel” and the US might also be trying to fudge the deal.

They’re saying the deal Hamas thinks it has accepted is not the deal “israel” proposed late last month.

“Hamas seemed to make clear in their public statements that they accepted that offer yesterday. That is not what they did. They responded with… a counter-proposal, and we’re working through the details of that now,” he said

In this regard, CIA chief Bill Burns had flown to Cairo along to discuss the issue with delegations from Israel, Hamas and Qatar.

Miller says they will try to “close the remaining gaps”, which has the resistance concerned as they are of the opinion the deal is done.