[News] Senior Hamas leader says Israeli ceasefire violations aim to continue genocide through other means

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/senior-hamas-leader-says-israeli-ceasefire-violations-aim-to-continue-genocide-through-other-means/?ml_recipient=146406871559833031&ml_link=146406821405394062&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-02-15&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Senior Hamas leader says Israeli ceasefire violations aim to continue
genocide through other means
Tareq S. Hajjaj
February 14, 2025
------------------------------
[image: 130225_Rafah_AH_003-1536x1024.jpg]
Trucks carrying limited amounts of humanitarian aid and fuel continue to
enter Gaza through the Kerem Abu Salim border crossing in Rafah, February
13, 2025. (Photo: Ali Hamad/APA Images)

Developments over the past week have threatened to unravel the tenuous
ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Israel has consistently delayed
or obstructed the implementation of the major humanitarian stipulations of
the agreement guaranteeing the entry of fuel, food, tents, mobile homes,
and heavy machinery for the removal of rubble. The first phase of the deal,
which is currently ongoing, is supposed to see the entry of 200,000 tents
and 60,000 mobile homes, but as of the time of writing, only a fraction has
entered, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

Hamas has accused Israel of deliberately delaying and obstructing the entry
of aid into Gaza, describing it as “a new war on the Palestinian people.”
At the start of this week, the Palestinian resistance group’s military
spokesperson, Abu Obaida, had announced that Hamas would suspend the
release of more Israeli captives
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/hamas-suspends-releasing-israeli-captives-over-israeli-breach-of-ceasefire-terms/>
until Israel abided by the terms of the ceasefire. The announcement
elicited strident threats from the U.S. and Israel, with Trump vowing
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/trump-says-palestinians-wont-be-able-to-return-to-their-homes-in-gaza-under-his-plan/>
that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release them by
noon on Saturday, while Netanyahu said that Israel was prepared to end the
ceasefire and return to combat.

“We are committed to the timeline for releasing the [Israeli] prisoners in
accordance with the [ceasefire] agreement,” senior Hamas official and
politburo member Ismail Radwan told *Mondoweiss* on Thursday. “We are
committed so long as the Zionist occupation is [also] committed to it.”

“The Zionist occupation is evading its obligations under the ceasefire
agreement,” Radwan asserted. “The occupation’s goal is to deepen the
suffering it created through its genocidal war against our people.”

Radwan referred to a number of Israeli violations of the ceasefire
agreement, including opening fire on Palestinians and obstructing the
return of the displaced to the north, which Hamas documented and sent to
Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Drop Site News
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/hamas-report-israeli-ceasefire-violations-gaza-netanyahu>
obtained a copy of Hamas’s report, which lists a number of Israeli
violations of the ceasefire terms, including delays in releasing
Palestinian prisoners, obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid and
essential supplies, and “political violations” in the form of statements
from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailing Trump’s plan to ethnically
cleanse the Gaza Strip. The Hamas document says these incendiary statements
send “a clear message that the occupation does not wish to honor the
agreement and aims to implement Trump’s plan to displace Gaza’s residents.”

Despite U.S. and Israeli threats to resume the war, Hamas called Trump’s
bluff <https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/the-shift-hamas-calls-trumps-bluff/>
and continued to push mediators to exert pressure on Israel to adhere to
the ceasefire terms.

According to Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan in an interview with Al Araby
TV <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV8sVm1IVLU> on Friday, pressure from
mediators has compelled Israel to abide by the terms of the ceasefire.
Hamdan said that Hamas would be moving forward with releasing the next
batch of Israeli captives on Saturday as originally scheduled and that
Hamas will be ready to start negotiations regarding the second phase of the
ceasefire next Monday.

“In light of the Cairo talks that the movement’s delegation conducted with
the Egyptians, there is positivity,” Ismail Radwan said regarding the
ongoing negotiations in Cairo, asserting that there are “positive
indicators” for the continued implementation of the agreement. “We are keen
on the success of the agreement, and we hope that the mediators will
pressure the Zionist occupation to continue implementing it until reaching
the second and third stages, [which would lead to] the complete cessation
of the war and total Zionist withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”
[image: Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians have been erected in the
shadow of destroyed schools and buildings in the north of Gaza Citym on
February 11, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
(Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)]Tents sheltering displaced Palestinians
have been erected in the shadow of destroyed schools and buildings in the
north of Gaza Citym on February 11, 2025 amid the current ceasefire deal
between Israel and Hamas. (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images) *The same
genocidal mentality*

According to the director of the Gaza Government Media Office, Salama
Maarouf, the same mentality that governed Israel’s genocidal conduct
throughout the war continues to prevail during the ceasefire, “which tries
to deprive the residents of the Gaza Strip of their most basic rights and
their minimum requirements for human life.”

“What the Israeli occupation is doing, whether at present or during the
15-month holocaust, is a continuation of the policy of the 17-year siege on
Gaza,” Maarouf told *Mondoweiss*. “The occupation has not changed its
methods in dealing with Gaza.”

Regarding the entry of “caravans” — mobile homes — into Gaza as part of the
ceasefire deal, Maarouf told *Mondoweiss* on Thursday that “not a single
one” has entered, adding that “out of the 200,000 tents that were supposed
to enter, only about 73,000 have been sent — about 40 percent of the need.”

“Heavy equipment and machinery needed to remove the rubble have not
entered,” Maarouf continued. “Neither have generators to provide
electricity for shelters, nor solar panels or batteries.”

Israeli forces have killed 93 Palestinians in Gaza by direct fire and
injured over 800 others since the signing of the ceasefire agreement, says
the Gaza Government Media Office.

According to the ceasefire agreement, Maarouf said that Israel was supposed
to let in 50 trucks of fuel per day. “But fuel arrives in quantities far
below what was agreed upon. These and other issues, such as medical
equipment and supplies needed by the Ministry of Health…reflect the
occupation’s evasion of its obligations under the [ceasefire agreement’s]
humanitarian protocol.”

Beyond delaying or preventing the delivery of aid, Maarouf says that
Israeli forces have killed 93 Palestinians in Gaza by direct fire and
injured over 800 people since the signing of the agreement.

But the most dangerous aspect of Israel’s ongoing conduct, according to
Maarouf, is its “killing through thirst and disease,” which Israeli
authorities achieve by “preventing the repair of the water network and any
operations to restore and rehabilitate hospitals.”

“It is killing by withholding medicine, electricity, and shelter,” Maarouf
said.

According to Ismail Radwan, Israel’s conduct throughout the ceasefire has
effectively been a continuation of its war of extermination by other means.
“With American support, the Zionist occupation is trying to achieve through
this siege what it could not achieve through its criminal war of
extermination,” the Hamas leader told *Mondoweiss*. “And so we say: the
occupation will not achieve — whether through U.S. support, Trump’s plan
[for Gaza], or the siege — what it was not able to achieve through its
destructive criminal war.”
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