A blame game has ensued in the U.S-proposed Gaza ceasefire conversation.

U.S Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has blamed Hamas for the ceasefire deadlock in Gaza, stating that Israel had already accepted the U.S proposal.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that the US is unsatisfied with Hamas’s response to a ceasefire proposal “because it took a long time and then included amendments that delayed reaching an agreement”.

However, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed, leaving the proposal in limbo and the blame game ongoing.

Hamas won’t settle for less, and Israel can’t have it way either.

According to US-based defence think tanks, Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP), Hamas’ recent ceasefire proposal amendments demonstrate that the Palestinian armed group is “confident that it is winning in the Gaza Strip.”

“Senior Hamas officials have repeatedly expressed confidence that Hamas will survive the war, despite Israeli military pressure,” the ISW/CTP say in their Gaza report.

“Hamas forces throughout the Gaza Strip remain combat effective and are trying to reconstitute. Hamas has also begun trying to reassert its political authority in some parts of the strip,” the war monitors added.

Isolation And Pariah Status Of Israel Growing

Israel has been officially added to a UN blacklist of countries that harm children.

Chris Gunness, the former spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said that the Israeli military’s inclusion on a UN “blacklist” of countries that harm children will increase the country’s isolation and further diminish its international standing.

“This is the ultimate list of shame that Israel has been put on because the killing of children breaks the ultimate taboo,” Gunness told a news agency.

“Some of the groups and countries on this list include Boko Haram, ISIS [ISIL], al-Qaeda, Russia, Myanmar. This puts Israel in a list of some of the most appalling regimes and groups in the world,” Gunness said.

He added, “Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also there, including, by the way, Israeli settlers for the things they are doing in the West Bank.”

“Given the totality of what we are seeing in terms of accountability mechanisms: We’ve got the ICJ – the International Court of Justice – the International Criminal Court. We have reports coming up from the Human Rights Council. I think as things build up, so the isolation and pariah status of Israel will be continual, and continually reaffirmed.

“I think that will have consequences as people see the totality of what is going on.”
Chris Gunness

Additionally, Human Rights Watch Director of child rights, Jo Becker, said that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s inclusion of Israel on the UN’s list of countries that commit “grave violations against children” in armed conflict was “fully justified.”

Becker stated that though the UN had already attributed 8,700 child casualties to Israel’s military between 2015 and 2022, “in 2023, the scale of the violations was apparently too large for the Secretary-General to ignore.”

She added, now the UN Security Council must “hold those responsible to account and make clear that children are off-limits in armed conflict.”