Palestinians have greeted the news of a ceasefire with a mixture of joy, relief ─ and fear that Israel will restart the war on Gaza.

Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a “peace plan” after days of negotiations.

The Israeli security cabinet has to approve the agreement on Thursday night. As many Palestinians rejoiced in Gaza, Israel greeted the announcement with air strikes, murdering at least 10 Palestinians and injuring 49.

Israel will withdraw its military to an agreed line, while Hamas will release Israeli settlers it captured on 7 October 2023. The Palestinian national liberation organisation said the agreement meant “an end to the war, the occupation’s withdrawal from it, the entry of aid and a prisoner exchange”.

Alaa, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, said, “My feelings are mixed with happiness and with worries because we want a ceasefire to be final.

“We want all the stages in the ceasefire deal to be done without any disruptions. We want it to be done without any breaking ─ we don’t trust the Israeli side, we don’t trust Netanyahu.”

She added, “All the Palestinians who have endured these two years of suffering and displacement and targeting want to have rest.

“People were running from area to area, living in fear. War was unimaginable ─ it left no space even for crying. People want to grieve in peace and remember their relatives and loved ones.

“For the first time people will be safe ─ without thinking of running, without thinking of being targeted.

“But we are still worried about the ceasefire deal because we don’t trust Netanyahu.”

Western leaders hailed the ceasefire agreement as a stepping stone towards “peace” in the Middle East.

The leaders of Arab regimes, namely Egypt, piled pressure on Hamas to sign the agreement.

But the deal is a “phase one” of Trump’s “20 Point Plan” for Gaza. It is a colonial land-grab that would put Trump in charge of Gaza alongside veteran war criminal Tony Blair ─ and represents a continuation of the genocide.

3 important takeaways from the ceasefire

There are three important takeaways from the ceasefire. First, Trump is the big winner ─ but he could end up the big loser.

What are Trump’s calculations? He is dealing with the US’s imperial overstretch and a decline in its ability to dominate the world.

The Trump administration wants to focus on the US’s main rival, China, and inter-imperialist competition in Asia and the Pacific. It will hope this deal puts an end to the war while securing Western interests and Israel’s dominant position in the region.

Trump is a staunch supporter of Israel and boosted its far right. But he’s sought to build links with Gulf States and the new regime in Syria ─ something a never-ending genocide won’t bolster.

Today, Trump has staked his credentials as a “peace maker” capable of ending “forever wars” on this deal. And the pressure is ever greater after his attempts to cut a deal over the Ukraine war have faltered.

But this doesn’t mean Trump will automatically get his way. The rocky path to a ceasefire has shown up the tensions in the relationship between the US and Israel.

Israel is the watchdog state of US imperialism in the Middle East and its genocide would not be possible without US arms and funding. But it has developed to become a powerful capitalist state, no longer wholly dependent on US aid, and grown as a regional imperialist power.

And, after two years of genocide, it is the ascendent power in the regional system of competition between Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey.

Israel’s rise as a regional imperialist power means it is able to strain at the leash more ─ and push for more war even if it’s against US wishes.

The scale of the genocide has caused tensions between the US and Israel under Trump and “Genocide Joe” Biden before him. Sections of the US ruling class feared that the scale of its assaults could spur resistance against Arab regimes that are part of US imperialism’s infrastructure in the region.

But Netanyahu knows that, when push comes to shove, the US will back its watchdog state in the region. He has spread war ─ on Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, Syria and Qatar ─ and sought to use each new escalation to lock in Western support.

However, the relationship hasn’t fundamentally changed ─ the tail is not simply wagging the dog. This was clear when Israel launched its attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the summer.

He came in behind Israel with air strikes on Iran ─ threatening a wider war ─ but then quickly declared a ceasefire. Initially, Israel tried to keep up air strikes, but then stepped back when Trump really put his foot down.

The Israeli bombing of the Hamas offices in Qatar in Doha, a US ally that was hosting negotiations, caused further tension with the US.

As Trump will want the deal to succeed, he will pressure Israel not to violate the ceasefire. But there are dynamics within the Zionist state that pull in the other direction.

Second, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has scored a victory over the release of Israeli hostages. But the divisions inside the Israeli state remain and the far right is already demanding a return to war after the hostages are released.

Israel has sought to grab more and more Palestinian land, but it’s always been obsessed with maintaining a Jewish demographic majority. “Only a state with at least 80 percent Jews is a viable and stable state,” said the first prime minister David Ben Gurion.

Zionist settler colonialism swings between apartheid and genocide as a way of dealing with the “problem” of Palestinians. It has come down firmly on the side of genocide in the wake of 7 October.

Israel’s inability to crush Palestinian resistance drives divisions inside the Zionist state ─ and a march rightwards in politics and society.

Sections of the Zionist state, including generals and spooks, were against taking over Gaza and getting bogged down in occupation. But far right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir have pushed for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza ─ and repeatedly put the brakes on a ceasefire.

Netanyahu relies on their far right parties and they have both come out against the deal.

On Thursday. Smotrich said, “Immediately after the hostages return home, the state of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza, so that it no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

Smotrich emphasised that the pendulum should not swing back from genocide to apartheid. “It is also imperative to ensure that we do not revert to the misconceptions of 6 October,” he said.

He warned that Israel shouldn’t “become addicted again to artificial calm, diplomatic embraces, and smiling ceremonies”.

There are “liberal” Zionists who criticised the Netanyahu government. Such forces would often criticise Netanyahu for putting a mythical “absolute victory” ahead of a securing the return of the hostages. After the hostages’ return, that line of attack on the government no longer works.

The “liberals” who want a return to the status quo of apartheid have been pushed further to the margins.

Moreover, Israel has become the ascendent power in the Middle East and will not simply back down. It has a history of using upheavals in the balance of power in the region to reshape it in its own interests and those of US imperialism.

All that means there will be pressure for a return to war.

Third, it shows up the limits of Hamas’ strategy of relying on regional powers such as Iran.

We will always back the right of Palestinians to resist by any means necessary. We proudly said, “Victory to the Palestinians,” on our newpaper in the week after 7 October and would do so again.

But armed struggle, and a reliance on support of regimes in the region, will not defeat Western imperialism’s watchdog state.

Many hoped that the “Axis of Resistance” ─ Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas ─ would inflict defeat on Israel.

But Iran has been weakened, the Syrian dictatorship has fallen and Hezbollah’s leadership was decapitated.

And, much more fundamentally, the alliance was based on bolstering the position of the Iranian regime in the region.

The regime has its own regional calculations and ultimately has left the people of Gaza to die.

What’s the alternative? Hope lies with a return of the force we saw during the Arab Spring of 2011 when revolutions toppled Western-backed dictators and isolated Israel.

There will be no simple “re-run” of the Arab Spring in response to the genocide. The legacy of counter-revolution hangs over the region.

But key states in the region that neighbour Israel have seen more advanced capitalist development.

This process helps create a larger working class able to challenge its own rulers and the imperialist order across the Middle East.

Our task remains building a Palestine movement that can break our rulers’ ties with Israel.­­­