Hamas accepts proposal for Gaza Ceasefire

General Studies Paper-2

Context: Hamas announced its acceptance of a ceasefire proposal put forth by Egypt and Qatar, signaling a potential breakthrough in the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.

About

• The proposal includes a three-stage truce, each phase lasting 42 days.
• It includes a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a return of displaced Palestinians to their homes as well as an exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.

What is Hamas?

• Hamas is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist group and one of the two major political parties in the region.
• Currently, it governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
• Foundation: The group was founded in the late 1980s, after the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• Hamas as a whole, or in some cases its military wing, is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

Israel Palestine Conflict

• It is a decades long dispute between Israel and Palestine that began in the middle of the twentieth century when the Jews from various parts of the world were granted the homeland in present-day Israel by Britain.
• It is one of the world’s longest conflicts where Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which the Palestine state claims.
• Numerous attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the peace process by various groups of countries and the United Nation.
• With time, the countries around have normalized the ties with Israel through the Abraham Accord, Oslo Accord, etc.
• But the deadlock still persists and the world community is persistent in its effort to attain the two-state solution.

Present Conflict

• Backdrop of the recent attack: Hamas’s attack follows months of rising violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with stepped-up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.
• Issue over Jerusalem: Israel considers the whole of Jerusalem as its capital and not just a part of it. But Palestinians don’t agree with that and rather want it to be their capital of future independent Palestine.

Way Ahead

• Peace based on a “two-state solution” is much needed with the help of international organizations and can only be achieved from Israel-Palestine talks.
• Israel said the deal did not meet its “core demands” and its War Cabinet has decided to continue the Rafah operation. However it would send negotiators to Egypt to work on a deal.