The Revolutionary Communist Group salutes the Palestinian people for forcing a hard-fought ceasefire and halting the rain of Zionist bombs and massacres in Gaza. As recognised by the liberation organisations, any agreement with imperialist sponsorship comes with high risks. But in the face of immense pressure, the resistance retains its weapons, preserves its cadre and totally rejects foreign rulership.
The ceasefire between the Palestinian liberation forces and the Israeli state came into effect on 10 October. It was the result of the imperialist United States’ recognition that its Zionist ally could not defeat the Palestinian resistance militarily and that Israel was becoming more and more isolated on the world stage, as solidarity around the world with the Palestinian liberation struggle continued to surge despite all attempts to quash it. Under Trump’s ’20-point plan’ it is clear that imperialism hopes to achieve diplomatically what billions of dollars’ worth of military support for Zionism have failed to achieve on the battlefield – that is, the defeat of the Palestinian liberation movement. While many questions remain, what is clear is the urgent need to intensify anti-imperialist solidarity in Britain and across the world.
13 October saw the implementation of the ‘first phase’ of the ceasefire, agreed during negotiations to end the aggression on Gaza. 1,968 Palestinian political prisoners, mostly from Gaza, were released in exchange for 20 Israelis held by the resistance. Among the released Palestinians were leading PFLP member Kamil Abu Hanish, PIJ Jenin commander Iyad Abu al-Rub and Mahmoud Qawasmeh, a senior member of Hamas. There had been hopes that higher ranking leaders would form part of the deal, and Hamas spokespersons reveal that this remains a key demand. The comprador Palestinian Authority (PA) lobbied reactionary Gulf regimes to prevent the release of popular Fatah figure Marwan Bargouthi.
The 20-point plan presented by Donald Trump on 29 September followed months of scheming by shady think-tanks around his colonialist ‘Riviera’ proposal for Gaza. With the close involvement of the Tony Blair Institute, it has been touted as a ‘peace’ initiative for the entire region, though it focuses on Palestine. The plan’s key points include:
- Gaza to become a ‘terror-free zone’;
- Hamas and the resistance to ‘commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons’;
- aid to be distributed;
- Israeli forces to withdraw to agreed lines;
- an Arab and international ‘International Stabilisation Force’ to replace the Zionist occupation;
- ‘Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza’; and a ‘special economic zone’ would be created.
According to this plan, the Gaza Strip would be ruled initially by a transitional regime headed by Trump and Blair until such time that the PA is able to take the reins. However, far from accepting the demilitarisation of Gaza for imperialist exploitation and ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the Zionist regime, the Hamas-led resistance has stood firm, and has not laid down its arms.
Two years of genocide have seen numerous plots to liquidate the Gaza resistance, all scrapped and superseded by further Zionist-imperialist conspiracies:
- An October 2023 blueprint for ‘resettling’ the Gaza population in the Egyptian Sinai.
- A January 2024 plan for expelling Palestinians to an artificial island in the Mediterranean.
- The July 2025 revelation that the occupation was planning to entrap the population in a concentration camp in Rafah.
- Constant Zionist declarations that the resistance has been ‘cleared’ from areas of confrontation – Khan Younis, Jabaliya, Gaza City – only for guerrillas to re-emerge and deal punishing blows to the occupiers.
- A long series of operations to ‘destroy Hamas,’ including the latest waves of ‘Gideon’s Chariots.’
While the British left can decry that this agreement merely exposes a ‘business deal’ (RCP) or the ‘limits of Hamas’ strategy’ (SWP), reality is more stubborn. Any analysis which demotes or ignores the leading role of the armed resistance in beating back every offensive of the Zionist genocide is chauvinist rather than socialist in content. Backed by US, British and EU imperialism, and by regional reactionaries, the Zionist entity aimed to destroy the Palestinian people and their resistance organisations. It has not succeeded.
The run-up to the ceasefire exposed deep rifts among the occupiers and their backers. Zionist Cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich labelled Trump’s proposals as a ‘resounding diplomatic failure’, while Trump laboured to convince Netanyahu not to be ‘so fucking negative. This is a win. Take it!’ Yet by 13 October, the ‘president of peace’ was received rapturously in Tel Aviv, promising in the Knesset that normalisation with all Arab states was on the horizon. Speaking to reporters, Trump worried that British Labour war criminal Blair may not be an ‘acceptable choice to everybody’. The period to come will expose these contradictions even more: Trump has in mind a ‘peace board’ to rule Gaza in the interim, while British and EU states have already recognised the corrupt PA as a ‘state’ of Palestine. The imperialists have spent years cooking up these neocolonial solutions, while Zionist terror on Gaza has killed well over 68,000 Palestinians and displaced over 2 million.
As Hamas has pointed out, Trump’s plans for economic zones and direct imperialist control are aimed at ‘liquidating the Palestinian cause and denying the established national rights of our people’. Revealing that the organisation would not be attending the Sharm al-Sheikh ‘peace’ summit the following day, Nazzal said on 12 October that negotiations are a ‘raging battle’, where the resistance fights to retain its weapons and its right to represent the people. Reiterating that this is the position of a unified resistance, the PFLP stated:
‘We reject foreign guardianship and affirm that the administration of Gaza must be purely Palestinian, with Arab and international participation in reconstruction and recovery.
‘The world today stands by us and supports our right to freedom and self-determination. Global action and the pursuit of the occupation and its leaders must continue even after reaching a ceasefire agreement, so that Palestine remains alive in the conscience of the world until the occupation is removed.’
The isolation of the Zionist state is a product of the Palestinians’ refusal to submit, backed by regional resistance forces among the Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi and Iranian people. Deepening the crisis of imperialism means building on the kinds of militant movements on student campuses in 2024 and which paralysed the Italian state in 2025. That millions continue to mobilise internationally on the side of oppressed Palestinians exposes the failure of state terror, even while ruling classes clamp down on militant action and anti-imperialist politics.
Under a warmongering, imperialist Labour Party supportive of Zionist colonisation for over a century, the British ruling class has backed the slaughter on Gaza politically, economically and militarily. Politicians of every parliamentary trend have condemned the resistance to the genocide. Meanwhile, Labour imprisons those who put themselves in the way of the war machine, criminalising Palestine Action and other activists as supporters of ‘terrorism’. They claim that supporting the legitimate demand for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea is offensive and attack calls to globalise the intifada as violent. Britain’s Labour politicians are offended by the violence of the oppressed but never the oppressor. Facing down this growing assault on our right to protest means standing with the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and all who resist imperialism. The time to increase pressure on the Zionist regime is now.
Sanctions now!
Victory to the Palestinian resistance!
