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

A senior Palestinian official told the BBC that Hamas would release three female soldiers on the first day of the ceasefire. The mediators in Doha are trying to start an early ceasefire on Thursday evening instead of Sunday.

Until the ceasefire comes into effect, the war that began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, continues. At least 12 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids on northern Gaza around the time of the ceasefire announcement.

In what has sometimes been an hourly ritual over the past 15 months, a video emerged from northern Gaza showing their bodies being removed from ambulances in sheets and placed in a queue outside the hospital.

The ceasefire is a major diplomatic achievement. It’s long overdue. Versions of the deal have been on the table since US President Joe Biden announced it in May last year. Hamas and Israel exchanged accusations of responsibility for the delay.

In Khan Yunis, Gaza, journalists working for the BBC filmed Palestinians dancing and cheering as it became clear that a ceasefire had been agreed.

Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza to report freely, so the BBC and other news organizations rely on brave Palestinian journalists to gather news for us. Covering the last fifteen months of the war would not have been impossible without it. Israel killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

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

“The pain has disappeared a little, although it is still there. We hope that the joy will overcome it. Let us release our prisoners and treat the wounded. People are exhausted.”

Beyond survival, there is little for Palestinians in Gaza to celebrate. Israel killed at least nearly 50,000 people. More than two million people were forced to leave their homes due to Israeli military operations.

Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 that killed about 1,200 people, most of them Israeli civilians, has devastated Gaza. According to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 50,000 people, both fighters and civilians. A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet says this may be a significant underestimate.

In Tel Aviv, it was also a bittersweet moment for the families and supporters of Israeli hostages, both living and dead. In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 women, the elderly, the sick and the wounded are scheduled to be released over the next six weeks in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees and prisoners – but the future of the remaining hostages depends on further negotiations. .

Negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, which calls for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of imprisoned Palestinians and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, are scheduled to begin sixteen days after the agreement.

The first big challenge is to ensure that the ceasefire holds. Senior Western diplomats fear the possibility of resuming the war after the first phase, which lasts 42 days.

The Gaza War had disastrous consequences throughout the Middle East. This did not lead, as many feared, to general war in the region — the Biden administration has claimed credit for that — but it led to geostrategic turmoil.

Hamas is still able to fight, but this is a shadow of what it once was. The International Criminal Court accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister of committing war crimes. The International Court of Justice is investigating a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide.

After Hezbollah intervened in Lebanon in the war, it was eventually crushed by the Israeli attack. This was a factor that led to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran and Israel exchanged direct attacks, which weakened Iran. Its network of allies and proxies, which Tehran called the “axis of resistance,” has been paralyzed.

The Houthis in Yemen have stopped much of the shipping operations between Europe and Asia that pass through the Red Sea. Now reports say they have declared their own ceasefire. Since they began attacking ships early in the war, they have said that only a ceasefire in Gaza would stop them.

With luck, political will, and hard diplomatic efforts, the ceasefire will hold despite the inevitable violations. With luck, it can stop the killing and return Israeli hostages, detainees and Palestinian prisoners to their families.

But after 15 months of war in Gaza, the conflict that has lasted more than a century is as bitter and intractable as ever.

A ceasefire does not end the conflict. The consequences of so much destruction and death will be felt for at least an entire generation.

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2025-01-16 03:50:00

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