Lebanon Achieves Ceasefire, But Palestinians in Gaza Have Only One Hope

in Jabalia In a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Hajja Em Khalid listened to the news “day and night” on his small transistor radio; It was one of the few objects he chose to take with him when he left home due to the war.

The old-school radio had been playing to Em Khalid news of various Israeli crimes since the 1970s. It accompanied him through the many battles he witnessed. Radio connects him to the world.

Five and four of his siblings 50% of his descendants were killed in Israel’s “belt of fire” in December 2023; I grew up hearing the term in Gaza, the Palestinian version of “carpet bombing,” or a series of intense airstrikes aimed at destroying local infrastructure.

“Israeli statements about progress in negotiations turned out to be a mirage.”

“I have been following the news obsessively since the war began,” he said. “Every time I had reason to hope that I would be able to embrace my grandchildren again, Israeli statements about progress in negotiations turned out to be a mirage.”

Israeli and Western leaders claimed that the assassination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar could be a turning point in the Israeli war. For example, the Biden administration has long identified Sinwar as an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire agreement.

When Sinwar was killed, President Joe Biden said it was an “opportunity” for a ceasefire. However, at a press conference held shortly after the murder, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the fight would continue: “The war, my darlings, is not over yet.”

This was just the latest example of the Biden administration giving false signals that this brutal war is in its final stages.

The West’s misplaced optimism, even if it was just a performance, did nothing to help the Palestinians, who had mostly lost all reason for hope.

Despite the announcement of a negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday night as Israel intensified its attacks on Beirut, there remains no realistic hope of ending the genocidal war in Gaza.

As a Palestinian from Gaza, it has been painful to watch politicians sell false narratives of hope to my people over the past year. Western leaders are gaslighting us.

For example, Em Khalid thought that Sinwar’s killing in October would end the offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip; This was an idea openly promoted by US officials.

“This is what Israel has promised over and over again,” he said.

In the end, the result was the same: no deal. It seems that a ceasefire could even work for Lebanon, but Palestinians in Gaza are doomed to only hope.

My Unfulfilled Hopes

At the beginning of the Israeli ground offensive, I watched from my home in the north as thousands of leaflets dropped from Israeli planes. They passed on orders telling us to evacuate to so-called “safe areas” in the south.

On October 9, 2023, before we had a chance to follow orders, Israeli warplanes bombed our densely populated neighborhood.

My arm was seriously injured in the bombing. My mother, who worked at the United Nations, and my sister, a physiotherapist, were killed.

My father, my surviving siblings, and I fled south. We thought we would be gone for a few days and then go back home.

Like thousands of displaced families in southern Gaza, we moved into a makeshift tent in November 2023, where it was freezing in the winter and very hot in the summer.

A few days later, when I suggested to my father that we build shelves inside our tent to make it more welcoming, he reacted angrily. “Are you crazy, Ahmet?” He warned me. “It’s just a matter of time. We’ll be back in a few days.”

We lived with the fear that history would repeat itself and that a new Nakba was at the doorstep. Little did we know that the horrors we would live to tell about our present would be overshadowed by those of the past.

I chose the only way out of Gaza. It is now blocked. My family is stuck.

We longed to return to where our home once stood, especially to visit the graves of my mother and sister. The mission may be tragically impossible: The Israeli army has reportedly unearthed and transported many bodies from cemeteries in Jabalia.

The days spent in tents turned into months. I left Gaza at the beginning of March at my father’s insistence. My injured arm needed surgery and of Gaza health infrastructure mostly destroyedHe was supposed to go to Egypt.

I chose the only way out of Gaza. It is now blocked. My family is trapped and there is no end to the war in sight.

No one in Gaza knows whether they will be reunited with their family members abroad. I constantly ask myself: “When will I hug my father and siblings again?” And I follow every news of the ceasefire talks, only to have my own hopes dashed when they inevitably lead nowhere.

The narratives put forward by American politicians and the media repeat Israel’s claims about the limits of its war effort, despite all the evidence.

Speaking to Fox News in November 2023, Netanyahu said, “We are not trying to conquer Gaza, we are not trying to occupy Gaza, and we are not trying to rule Gaza.”

The current siege in northern Gaza and many other military operations belie his words.

“I’m Not Sure This Will Be Done”

When Israel invaded Rafah in May, Netanyahu promised a “limited” operation against Hamas militants. The White House at the time reflect optimism About Cairo-based negotiations between Israel and Hamas; American officials took Israel at its word.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “Our Israeli counterparts told us that this operation was limited and designed to eliminate Hamas’ ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza.”

Instead of a targeted, limited campaign, there were devastating massacres.

Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city and once a promised “safe zone”, has turned into a dust-covered ghost town.

“In Gaza, we thought the Rafah ground offensive would lead to the end of the war because that’s what Israel said around the world,” Yosef, a 26-year-old university lecturer from Rafah, told me on the phone recently. Yosef currently lives in a makeshift tent in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“The occupation authorities in Israel are tormenting us with optimism.”

“The occupation authorities in Israel are tormenting us with optimism,” he said. “They use hope to kill us. “Hope is now nothing but another deadly tool that Israel uses against humanity in Gaza.”

Yosef added, “This is more disgusting than their lethal bombs because you have to die not once, but often!”

After Refah, the words kept coming. In August, Biden heralded the coming ceasefire: “We are closer than ever.” However, according to news at the time, Israel had not made any reasonable concessions to pave the way for an agreement to be expected. A senior Hamas official said The BBC said no progress had been made and mediators were “selling illusions”.

Even US officials acknowledged that optimism that a ceasefire was approaching was misplaced. “There is no deal imminent,” said a US official, speaking anonymously. said Journalists in September. “I’m not sure this has been done.”

The Torment of Losing

The Israeli army launched its ground offensive against Southern Lebanon at the beginning of October, again using the lie that it would be a decisive operation against Hezbollah militants. The “sensitive” operation included attacks on densely populated areas. random explosions related to booby trapped electronics resulted in the killing of more than 3,500 Lebanese.

After months of violence and destruction in Lebanon, a ceasefire agreement was reached on Tuesday; It went into effect Wednesday morning. In the final hours of the negotiations, Israel stepped up missile attacks on the heart of Beirut.

When I heard about the impending ceasefire in Lebanon, it reminded me of Israel’s past deadly escalations in Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021—just before temporary ceasefires came into effect. The ceasefires brought a great sense of happiness and relief that we had survived. However, the pause in the massacres brought with it its own pain: taking stock of the great destruction and losses.

Today, our feelings for the Palestinians of Gaza are again contradictory. We wish relief to the Lebanese people who are subjected to violence for the sake of Gaza. It saddens us that we are still being massacred. The ceasefire in Lebanon reminds us that we are still treated as subhuman.

Following the victory of President-elect Donald Trump, who promised in his campaign to bring lasting peace to the Middle East, some Palestinians I spoke with once again expressed their hope for an end to the genocide. However, Trump is Netanyahu’s closest political ally and friend.

Palestinians like me, who are waiting for their loved ones with fear, remain in a terrible uncertainty.

We cannot trust Israeli or American leaders to talk about a ceasefire, but we still look forward to our own day when we can experience the final hours before the ceasefire, when we can truly imagine the end of the deadliest year in our history. recent history.