Netanyahu has declared there will be no cessation of hostilities in Gaza. He must be persuaded otherwise

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed Israel will not agree to a cessation of fighting with Hamas, comparing the attacks on 7 October to the atrocities of 9/11.

“Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbour or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of 7 October,” he said in a press conference. “Calls for a ceasefire are a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.”

His words come as plumes of smoke, the images of tanks trundling through virtual moonscapes of rubble, the children killed during the bombings, and the testimony of trusted media and international aid agencies all confirm that the plight of Gaza is worsening by the day.

Some of the little aid that is trickling through the crossing at Rafah has been looted from the United Nations depot – lawlessness apparently driven by desperation. Never free of economic pressure exerted by Israel, since the atrocities of 7 October the territory has been under siege and constant bombardment. In the name of an all-out war for survival and with the unalienable right of self-defence, Israel has deprived the people there of food, water, medicines and electricity.

Hamas, a terrorist organisation known to use its own people as human shields, says 8,000 Palestinians have been killed. Some 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced, and 600,000 are sheltering in UN-run facilities. The humanitarian catastrophe is upon us. It will get worse if Israel and Hamas fight a merciless war that could last for weeks if not months. The unspeakable horrors in the kibbutzim of southern Israel have indeed provoked more unspeakable horrors across Gaza, and the spiral of violence promises to intensify – and to spread and spiral out of control.

Just this weekend the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) claimed it had targeted some 600 Hamas military infrastructure targets; and now the IDF is expanding its ground invasion and has repeated its warnings to Gaza’s residents for them to move south. A decisive moment has come with the order – and it is effectively an order – from the Israeli authorities for the remaining patients and staff of al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City to leave.

The obvious problem is that, even were it justifiable on legal grounds and in pursuit of Israeli war aims to destroy Hamas, who may be based under or near the hospital, it is not practicable. The need for urgent medical facilities, exacerbated by the siege and bombardment, doesn’t dissipate simply because the IDF issues an edict.

The hospital, like any such facility anywhere, contains vulnerable sick people who are unable to move. They cannot be evacuated, and everyone knows what will happen to them when the Israeli armour and air force start their operations. The IDF says it will avoid civilian casualties where it can – it does not target the innocent in the way Hamas terrorists have done. Yet there will be blood.

Even now there are reports from the hospital, plausible in the known circumstances, that surgeons are performing amputations without anaesthetic, there is no clean water, and the staff are exhausted. The social infrastructure of Gaza is collapsing. The south of Gaza seems no more safe and secure than the northern parts; so much so that some who moved down are now returning, if only to die in their own homes.

Against this background an immediate temporary ceasefire is essential. A pause is needed to allow hospitals such as al-Quds to treat and ready patients for transportation. It is necessary to allow an orderly delivery of aid. It also creates space for diplomatic efforts to attempt to keep the conflict within the rules of war and to save as many innocent lives as possible.

Renewed efforts can be made to free the hostages or at least to protect their welfare. Israel’s allies can reconsider their options as the reality of this war becomes clearer. They cannot and should not dictate to Israel as to how it answers an existential threat; but as candid allies with varied interests in the region, America especially has a right to be heard about the conduct of the war.

The debate of who is to blame for this humanitarian crisis is well under way but far from decided. Nor can it probably ever be. It is not Israel’s fault that Hamas embeds itself into civilian communities and, so it is claimed, houses itself in and under hospitals, mosques and other places normally sacrosanct. That is against the rules of law. There are hundreds of miles of tunnels under Gaza where Hamas operates, a subterranean world in which, the Israelis claim, they store water, food and fuel desperately needed by the civilian population, as well as weaponry and hostages. Israel has to gain access to these tunnels to get at Hamas fighters and to rescue hostages, and that can only be done via “boots on the ground”.

On the other hand, Israel cannot allow itself to be in a position where it forfeits international support, nor suffer under the delusion that terrorism can ever be fully and eternally defeated militarily. It is a hydra, and Israel still lacks an exit strategy. The war may well be long and arduous for the IDF, and will certainly be conducted in the most unpromising of environments for a modern conventional army – urban rubble and deep tunnels laced with booby traps.

It does Israel no good when the wider world sees pitiful, twisted bodies of children dragged out of the wreckage. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, for example, today makes the sensible argument for a proportionate response by Israel, in its own interests: “If the goal is to end terrorism, my experience tells me that action should be as targeted as possible and avoid any sense that it is disproportionate or indiscriminate … It should not be taken in haste but with a clear, understood plan for the aftermath.”

Those are wise words, and if the first duty of combatants is to protect innocent civilians, then a way must be found, via the Qataris or Egyptians, say, to have Hamas and Israel reach a tacit arrangement for the verifiable provision of life-saving aid to Palestinians.

If not, then the catastrophe will be still more cataclysmic, and the tragedy that much harder to emerge from.