EVEN as the ceasefire in Gaza continues and the exchange of Palestinian and Israeli prisoners  proceeds, there is absolutely no scope for the enormous solidarity movement diminishing or even pausing its activities.

For one thing, there is the non-negligible possibility that Israel will break the ceasefire at the end of its first 42-day phase.

Netanyahu is under strong pressure from the overtly fascist elements in his governing alliance to do so, elements which did not support the suspension of fighting to begin with.

And Israel is also showing in Lebanon its willingness to disregard agreements reached as its forces remain across the border, in breach of the deal signed with the Lebanese government.

It will use as pretext the evidence of the continued power of Hamas amid the Gazan ruins. This merely exposes the absurdity of Israel’s stated aim of eliminating Hamas altogether.

Hamas will only diminish when it loses support among the Palestinian people. While this has not been put to the test in elections for many years, since the Palestinian Authority has not held any and Gaza has been under Israeli blockade since Hamas won the 2006 poll, it is more than likely that its resistance to Israel’s genocidal onslaught has entrenched its backing among the Palestinians.

Indeed, the outgoing Biden administration in Washington conceded that it may have recruited as many new combatants as it has lost over the 15-month conflict.

Furthermore, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas marks only a reconfiguration of the attempt to erase the Palestinian people from history – its genocide in effect.

The new phase has been signalled by President Trump’s demand that more than two million Palestinians be deported wholesale from their homeland and deposited in Jordan or Egypt.

He is exploiting the cataclysmic devastation in Gaza consequential upon the US-funded Israeli bombardment to argue that it is no longer livable.

Trump’s proposal has met with a warm welcome from the Israeli right, who see in it a large step towards the realisation of their genocidal programme.

It has been rejected, however, by the two Arab states, both because they do not want to play host to the militant Palestinian people for fear of the impact on their own bankrupt regimes, and also since overt collaboration in the betrayal of a national cause with near-unanimous support among their peoples would damn them before history.

But it must be assumed that Trump will persist, using all the considerable financial and military leverage the US enjoys over deeply corrupt ruling elites.

The project of Palestinian erasure is also going full tilt in the West Bank, with Israeli state and settler violence intensifying since the Gaza ceasefire.

As in Gaza, the aim is through a combination of massacre, arson and land seizures to drive the Palestinian people out of their homeland.

The action of Israel in banning the operations of refugee agency UNRWA, responsible for 60 per cent of assistance to displaced Palestinians, also aims at making life impossible for its victims.

The British government makes a show of wringing its hands over the multiple atrocities and breaches of international law that Israeli conduct daily entails, even in the middle of a ceasefire.

In reality Starmer is in full support of the Netanyahu government, even if not as demonstratively as Trump. British state backing for Israel – diplomatic, military and political – is unstinting.

So it is vital that the pro-Palestinian majority in Britian makes its voice heard louder than ever, the more so in the face of stepped-up efforts to block peaceful protest.  The brave people of Palestine have the right to expect our ongoing support.