Leaks and briefings point to massive investment in Gaza and the West Bank with the help of the Saudis and others, anxious to ingratiate themselves with the White House. Never has a peace plan been the subject of so much vilification before it has been published. In a few weeks’ time, after Ramadan, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is to unveil what Trump calls his “deal of the century”. Netanyahu responded with a pledge to start formally annexing illegal settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu has, of course, been emboldened by the unstinting support of Donald Trump – who recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, closed down the Palestine Liberation Organisation office in Washington, slashed aid to the UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, and on the eve of last month’s Knesset election recognised Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. He has been heavily criticised for failing to defeat Hamas and in effect using it as a partner in his struggle against Palestinian statehood by maintaining the debilitating split between Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel’s newly re-elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, putting together the most rightwing government in the country’s history, had little to say about this bout of fighting. The immediate trigger for this round of violence was the now routine shooting of Palestinians on the border with Israel, where the year-long “marches of return” have highlighted hopelessness and sustained the culture of resistance generated by Israel’s siege and the mutual hostility between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Cynics suggest that Israel may launch military action after the Eurovision song contest is held in Tel Aviv next week. “The war hasn’t been averted, only postponed,” as one Israeli minister commented on Twitter. Electricity and fuel supplies should be boosted.Īmid speculation about what happens next, one thing is certain: it could all happen again, any time – before or after 2020, when Gaza reaches the point, long predicted by the UN, of being “uninhabitable” for its 2 million population. Palestinian fishermen will be able to operate farther out to sea.

Millions of dollars donated by the Gulf state of Qatar will continue to pay official salaries and help needy families. The ceasefire negotiated by Egypt and the UN should ease the punishing blockade imposed by Israel since the Islamists of Hamas took over Gaza in 2007. Twenty-five Palestinians and four Israelis was a modest death toll compared with summer 2014, when 2,250 Palestinians and 67 Israelis were killed in Operation Protective Edge. Over the Bank Holiday weekend, coinciding with the start of the Ramadan fast for Muslims and the run-up to Israel’s Independence Day, it was touch and go whether the latest outbreak of violence – fatalities on the border, rockets fired into Israel, airstrikes against the Gaza Strip – would escalate into all-out war. It’s time to get off the fence and resolve this most toxic of global conflicts in the only way possible ‘Amid speculation about what happens next, one thing is certain: it could all happen again, any time.’ Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images

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