Why Israel Seeks a Temporary Gaza Truce To Keep Its Genocide Going

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By Qassem Qassem – Jul 20, 2025
Behind the talk of calm, Tel Aviv is redrawing Gazaâs borders, displacing its population, and laying the groundwork for permanent control, one truce at a time.
Twenty-one months into its brutal campaign against the Gaza Strip, Israel is again mulling a temporary ceasefire with the Palestinian resistance. Two brief truces have already collapsed into renewed bloodshed.
But is the genocidal war really coming to a close? This question looms over the proposed truce, raising doubts about whether Israel seeks an end, or simply a pause before its next assault.
This time, mediations led by Qatar and the US, with Egypt playing a minor role, are pushing for a 60-day cessation of hostilities. The deal hinges on a pledge from US President Donald Trump to extend the truce if talks progress.
Tel Avivâs day-after plans for Gaza
These negotiations reflect a deeper shift in the occupation stateâs security doctrine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly declared his intention to reshape Gazaâs future beyond a temporary lull in fighting.
He insists on disarming the resistance, dismantling Hamasâs authority and control, and eliminating any future threat from the besieged enclave. In Tel Avivâs vision for the âday after,â there is not even a role for the collaborative Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Strip.
At most, Israel may tolerate an occupation state-backed militia resembling the Yasser Abu Shabab group or deploy Arab security forces to support local merchants or clans in governing Gaza â until the PA is âreformedâ to Washingtonâs satisfaction, with Israel maintaining overarching security and military control.
This plan dovetails with the long-standing aspiration of Israelâs far-right government to re-establish illegal settlements in northern Gaza. Netanyahu is lobbying his army to construct a âtent cityâ in Rafah to forcibly relocate 600,000 Palestinians, a blatant demographic engineering scheme.
The 60-day truce proposal includes a phased Israeli withdrawal from west to east, a halt to air raids, permission for food and humanitarian aid entry, and a prisoner exchange. Unlike previous ceasefires, Trumpâs involvement is being marketed as a guarantee that the occupation forces will not resume attacks once the deadline expires â as they did immediately after the March truce.
Yet despite signs of possible relief for Gazaâs starving and besieged population, Israel still believes it has not achieved its core objective: dismantling Hamas. One unnamed Israeli official was recently quoted as saying: âThe flexibility weâve shown paves the way for an agreement, but Netanyahu clearly doesnât intend to end the war.â
Any upcoming truce is thus likely a pause to prepare the battlefield for the next round. Still, renewed war could prove challenging given the limits of the occupation army and the deepening cracks in its society.
Reconstruction as leverage and the Morag corridor ploy
As part of ongoing pressure, anti-resistance forces are using Gazaâs reconstruction as leverage. Israel has floated a deceptive offer to allow Qatari and international funds into Gaza during the truce, which is an attempt to lure Hamas into believing the war is truly ending. This is, in reality, a calculated deception by Israel to manufacture the illusion of an approaching end to war and draw Hamas into a false sense of security.
According to a report on 10 July by Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel has âtentatively agreedâ to Qatari participation in rebuilding the Strip, provided it does not monopolize the process. Other states are expected to co-fund reconstruction to prevent funds from reaching Hamas, although Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made their commitment to Gazaâs reconstruction conditional on the warâs conclusion.
A major sticking point is Israelâs new âMorag Corridor,â carved between Khan Yunis and Rafah to replicate the Philadelphia Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt. Much like the Netzarim axis that once bisected the Strip, the Morag route is presented by Israel as vital for its security. Tel Aviv plans to use the corridor to isolate the Rafah tent city from northern Gazaâeffectively creating a walled-off holding zone for displaced Palestinians.
Palestinian resistance factions have flatly rejected this scheme. Not only does it violate Palestinian sovereignty, but it would turn Gaza into a cluster of disconnected, besieged cantons, with Israel occupying nearly 40 percent of the territory.
On 14 July, Netanyahuâs government submitted a third withdrawal map to mediators. Leaks reveal that Israeli forces plan to remain in a 900-meter belt near Beit Hanoun and a 3.5-kilometer strip east of Rafah. In a post on X, Kan political correspondent Gili Cohen, citing sources familiar with the negotiations, said that Israel is now showing âflexibilityâ on broader withdrawals from Rafah and the Morag axis.
But Rafah remains the core obstacle to any deal. Israel insists on cramming 600,000 Palestinians into the southern city, either to push them into Egypt, where alarm over Israeli designs is mounting, or force them toward the sea. Tel Aviv and Washington are actively probing third countries to receive Gazaâs expelled population.
Hamas: No Partial Truce, Only Comprehensive Deal With War-Ending Guarantees Acceptable
A tactical pause, not a peace plan
Netanyahuâs real goal is to secure strategic gains for the post-war phase. During his visit to Washington earlier this month, he sought a written US assurance that would allow Israel to resume its war, even under a formal ceasefire.
He plans to wield this assurance as political cover at home, particularly to placate extremist coalition partners like Itamar Ben Gvir (Jewish Power) and Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism), who demand total war and Hamasâ annihilation.
Netanyahuâs envoy and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer put it bluntly in a 14 July podcast interview with US columnist and political advisor Dan Senor:
âRight now, what weâre trying to do is get to a ceasefire ⌠the minimum requirement is that the force responsible for the Oct. 7 attack is no more. They have lost control of Gaza due to their decision to act.â
According to Walla News, Netanyahu convinced Trump to delay the agreement by an additional weekâbringing the timeline closer to the end of the Knessetâs summer session (late July). The paper noted that Trump is âtired of the war,â but Netanyahu managed to buy time, though what he offered in return remains unclear.
The proposed truce cannot be viewed in isolation from Israelâs broader strategy. Far from signaling the warâs end, it is a calculated intermission. Tel Aviv seeks to redraw Gazaâs demographic and security map, while Hamas focuses on regrouping and fortifying its battlefield presence.
Netanyahuâs recent moves prove that this is no pursuit of peace. What Israel wants is a lull long enough to dismantle Hamasâ political infrastructure, impose buffer zones, and reengineer the population through its âtent cityâ blueprint.
Palestinian affairs analyst Michael Milstein mocked Tel Avivâs âday afterâ vision in a 13 July column in Yedioth Ahronoth, arguing that Gaza has become a constant testing ground for flimsy Israeli schemes that collapse shortly after being proposed. He described Israelâs latest military campaign as a âferocious effort devoid of dramatic gains,â noting that its aggression in northern Gaza ahead of the last ceasefire produced no lasting achievements. These include past attempts to build isolated âbubblesâ of alternate governance in Gaza, and the so-called âGeneralsâ Plan,â which failed to yield results even amid heavy attacks in the north. He pointed to the long record of failed experiments, from the village leagues in the West Bank, to the occupationâs backing of the Kataeb militias in Lebanon, to the eventual collapse of the South Lebanon Army. These models, he wrote, reflect a deeply flawed understanding of reality, rooted in the belief that brute military force can compel Hamas to disarm, surrender, or abandon Gaza entirely.
He noted two competing camps inside Israel: one that seeks phased withdrawal while postponing Hamasâ fate, and another pushing for full reoccupation based on the racist logic that âArabs are only deterred by losing landâ and that âsettlements prevent terrorism.â
Rather than a moment of transition, this seems to be a continuation of Israelâs campaign by other means. So long as Tel Aviv avoids a political reckoning for its war on Gaza, every ceasefire will be a battlefield in disguise. Between a fleeting truce and a deepening occupation, Gaza stands today at a decisive crossroads â one where the illusion of peace masks a relentless colonial project.
Kassem is a Palestinian journalist, he worked for the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper for 15 years, specializing in Palestinian and Israeli affairs.