A TIMELINE to the cessation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, even a 60-day ceasefire itself, is likely to be announced on Monday during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu`s White House meeting with President Donald Trump after Hamas said it had responded `in a positive spirit` to the latest US proposal. It could lead to a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from northern Gaza.

A `ceasefire` was agreed to during the run-up to Trump`s inauguration the outcome of considerable arm-twisting of Israel`s psychopathic regime in which even Netanyahu`s extreme views were dwarfed by those of his coalition partners who wish to ethnically cleanse occupied Palestine of its rightful Palestinian owners. The latest cessation may be shaky too. The earlier ceasefire lasted from February to March and Israel`s massacre of civilians resumed after it reneged on the promise to move to the `second phase`, which would have delivered a permanent ceasefire.

The details of the new agreement emerging in different media reports suggest a 60-day ceasefire followed by the phased release of Israeli hostages numbering 50, including nearly three dozen bodies in Hamas captivity since Oct 7, 2023, in return for the release of Palestinian hostages. (The Western media calls them prisoners in Israeli jails but since most have been imprisoned without due process, on the military court`s `administrative orders`, they, too, are hostages).

According to Western media reports, the new agreement will allow for the provision of direly needed food and other humanitarian aid through established international aid organisations, and not the infamous `Gaza Humanitarian Foundation`. The US-backed GHF rose to infamy when some of its employees discovered their conscience and anonymously told the BBC among others that they saw starving Palestinians, who were queuing for sacks of flour, shot by sadistic security contractors without provocation. IOF whistle-blowers also mentioned shooting starving Palestinians in queuing pens.

The new deal will also see IOF withdraw from some parts of northern Gaza where it has increased its occupation footprint, but till it happens, any withdrawal will be questionable because Israel has progressively squeezed theGaza population into tinier and tinier `secure` zones and even bombed those with heavy bombs and missiles.

While the widely mentioned death toll of mostly civilian Palestinians killed by IOF stands at around 57,000, and includes over 12,000 children, some researchers have referred to far higher numbers. Even an Israeli cabinet member talked of `1.8 million people in Gaza`, whereas pre-October 2023, the figure was said to be between 2m to 2.2m. Even if one were to take the lower number, the death toll would be four timesthan the widely quoted figure.

This is just part of the picture. The systematic destruction of Gaza`s infrastructure fromwater, power and sewerage systems to schools, hospitals and some 80 per cent of homes can mean only one thing: `elimination of Hamas`, as the Israeli leaders described their war goal, is a window dressing to disguise a far more sinister agenda the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by rendering the Strip uninhabitable and leaving the battered yet proud and courageous Gaza Palestinians no other option but to think in terms of relocating.

This view is substantiated by the zeal with which the IOF has gone after healers, doctors, surgeons, nurses, mobile paramedical staff, ambulances and hospitals. Men and women of learning, professors, educators, lawyers and similarthoughtleadershavebeen alsotargeted over the entire 21 months of a mostly one-sided war where US-supplied weaponry, including 500pound bombs with targeting kits, has been used to slice off the top layers of the Palestinian intelligentsia. The long-term consequences of this `brainpower obliteration` will not be known formonths, even years.

After decimating Gaza and waging an unprovoked war against Iran, Netanyahu`s ratings have risen in his country. Also, as the Guardian notes, soon the Israeli parliament and top court will take a three-month recess. This means that Netanyahu will not face a vote of no-confidence by coalition partners more genocidal than him if he agrees to a ceasefire deal. At the same time, he will get respite from prosecution for several weeks, which many sceptics say was the cause of this prolonged genocidal military campaign.

In the Middle East, shaky despotic regimes may heave a sigh of relief. They took one position in public over Palestine and another privately as was evident in their role in ensuring uninterrupted supply to Israel of all its imports including energy and also defending the Zionist state by intercepting (and allowing the US to intercept) missiles and drones fired over their airspace by Iran and Yemen Houthis. There is obviously a gulf between the rulers and the ruled. Where the rulers are docile, the people are angry.

While the starving Gaza Palestinians will, of course, welcome any respite from the ethnic cleansing that each of them has witnessed or been affected by, through the loss of loved ones and the destruction of their homes, it remains to be seen what is in store for them over a longer period beyond the first 60-day phase. Is the Arab rebuilding and rehabilitation plan still on the drawing board or will the narcissistic Trump push to realise his Gaza Riviera dream? Over the past months, reports of plans to relocate the Gaza population to as far away as Libya have trickled out. Each time Trump or others in the know are asked, they say there will be no forced relocation. Only voluntary.

When there are ruins where your home was; when there is no school or hospital or no civic infrastructure worth its name left standing; no food or water; and when Israeli drones and warplanes are hovering overhead, one wonders if any relocation will be forced or voluntary. The will of the Palestinians has baffled the world previously.

Can they display it again, despite suffering relentless and indescribable pain for 21 months? • The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir @hotmail.com