Long-overdue Gaza ceasefire may stop the killing, but won’t end the conflict

A Palestinian official told the BBC that Hamas would release three female soldiers on the first day of the ceasefire. Mediators in Doha are trying to resume the ceasefire, Thursday evening instead of Sunday.

Until the ceasefire is restored, the war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 will continue. At least 12 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in northern Gaza during the declaration of an end to the conflict.

What has sometimes been an hour-long ritual in the past 15 months, a video has emerged in northern Gaza showing bodies being taken out of ambulances in sheets and lined up outside a hospital.

Cessation is a great diplomatic victory. It’s already too late. Changes to the deal have been on the table since they were announced by US President Joe Biden in May last year. Hamas and Israel have blamed each other for the delay.

In Khan Younis in Gaza, journalists working for the BBC filmed Palestinians dancing and singing as it became clear that their end had been agreed upon.

Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza to report freely, so the BBC and other media organizations rely on brave Palestinian journalists to get us the news. Narrating the past 15 months of war would not have been possible without them. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Umm Muhammad, an elderly Palestinian woman, told one of our reporters that she feels happy and relieved.

“The pain is a little over, though it is still there. We hope it will be overcome by joy. Let our prisoners be freed and the wounded receive treatment. The people are tired.”

Other than survival there is not much to celebrate for the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has killed at least 50,000 people. More than 2 million people have been driven from their homes by the Israeli war.

Israel’s response to the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that killed nearly 1200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, has left Gaza in ruins. According to the Hamas health ministry, the Israeli attack has killed around 50,000 people, both fighters and civilians. A recent study in the medical journal Lancet says that may be a gross understatement.

In Tel Aviv, it was also a painful time for the families and supporters of the Israeli hostages, living and dead. In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 women, elderly men and the sick and injured should be released in the next six weeks in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and prisoners – but the fate of the rest of the hostages depends on the negotiations. .

Negotiations on the second part of the agreement, to release the rest of the captured Israelis to return the prisoners and for the Israelis to leave Gaza are supposed to start in the sixteenth day of the agreement.

The first major challenge is to ensure that the ceasefire is implemented. Senior Western diplomats fear that after the first 42-day phase, the war will resume.

The war in Gaza has had a major impact on the Middle East. It has not, as many feared, led to a major war in the region – the Biden Administration has said it has – but it has led to geostrategic turmoil.

Hamas is still able to fight but is a shadow of what it was. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. The International Court of Justice is investigating a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide.

After Lebanon’s Hezbollah intervened in the war, it was eventually crushed by an Israeli attack. This is what led to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran and Israel traded directly – weakening Iran. His network of allies and proxies that Tehran called the Axis of Resistance was crippled.

The Houthis in Yemen have stopped most of the ships between Europe and Asia that pass through the Red Sea. Now reports say that they have declared a ceasefire. Since the attack on ships at the beginning of the war he said that only a ceasefire in Gaza would stop them.

Fortunately, with political will and diplomatic persistence, the ceasefire will hold despite the inevitable violations. Fortunately, it can stop the killing and return Israeli prisoners and Palestinian prisoners and prisoners back to their families.

But after 15 months of war in Gaza, the conflict that has lasted for more than 100 years is very painful and impossible.

Stopping fighting does not end the conflict. The effects of so much destruction and death will be felt for a generation, at least.