We Asked People in Gaza What They Think of the Ceasefire: “Just a Declaration, Not Reality”

Even though Israeli airstrikes killed at least people in Gaza on Tuesday the greater part of them civilians of them children U S President Donald Trump the self-proclaimed deliverer of Peace in the Middle East maintains that the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas still holds Among Palestinians in Gaza who survived Tuesday s attacks however there is a growing belief that the ceasefire agreement exists only on paper providing diplomatic cover that allows Israel to continue to kill The Intercept questioned residents in Gaza a multitude of of them students living in Gaza City whether they thought the ceasefire still held Fifty announced no Four mentioned the ceasefire was still in place but it was fragile and at hazard of falling apart Six expressed hope that the ceasefire would remain Residents described nights filled with explosions and mornings shadowed by tension as Gaza braced itself for what may come next Related Netanyahu Is Blowing Up the Gaza Ceasefire and Trump Is the One Losing Face I panicked and my body shook violently announced -year-old Aya Nasser a university learner who recalled Tuesday s attacks to The Intercept She was in bed when just after midnight she heard an Israeli missile explode meters from her home A second followed shortly after Nasser declared she later learned that the Israeli strike had hit a nearby home and killed nine people from a single family a grandmother a father a daughter-in-law four children and two grandchildren Nasser noted this was the third time an Israeli attack had targeted her neighborhood in the Al-Nuseirat camp since the ceasefire went into effect She did not think it was still in place The fear is indescribable she declared anticipating further attacks The occupation targets whoever it wants stopping and resuming the genocide every inadequate days as if playing with our lives When Israel disclosed its strikes on Tuesday Hala also had been shopping at a sphere for her upcoming wedding She rushed back to her home in Nuseirat and eventually fell asleep to relative calm But she was jolted awake when a missile struck their neighbor s home which caught on fire Hours later she received word that another strike had killed her fianc s cousin along with his wife and children Only their -year-old son survived For now Hala mentioned the wedding has been postponed while their neighborhood remains under threat of future attacks There is no ceasefire she explained The occupation targets whoever it wants stopping and resuming the genocide every scarce days as if playing with our lives Israel claimed its attacks on Tuesday had targeted senior Hamas fighters However the vast number of children killed and wounded in the strikes explained a different story Morten Rostrup a physician working with Doctors Without Borders at al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza City announced after Israel s airstrikes he treated several wounded children in the hospital s exigency room There is no doubt this is an attack on civilians he reported Do we really call this a ceasefire A Doctors Without Borders spokesperson announced their teams had treated patients wounded from the attacks with later dying in cure Tuesday s bombing forced -year-old mentor Esraa and her small children out of their home in Al-Zawaida which had already been damaged by previous attacks In the middle of the night she and her children went to stay in a tent with her parents and other relatives She commented they spent the evening with no access to water My baby clung to me tightly the whole time crying she recalled They keep bombing and killing people and then declare that the so-called ceasefire is still going on A -year-old writer and trainee also named Esraa called the ceasefire just a declaration not reality The bombs on Tuesday woke her up late at night while in her home in Nuseirat triggering memories of the previous two years of war They keep bombing and killing people and then declare that the so-called ceasefire is still going on she mentioned How so while lots of people are still losing family members Even after the Israeli military declared it resumed the ceasefire on Wednesday morning it carried out another airstrike in Gaza s Beit Lahiya area in the evening killing two more people In addition to its military barrages Israel continues to restrict the amount of humanitarian aid to enter the Strip choking its depleted markets leaving food unaffordable for countless In the first limited weeks of the previous ceasefire deal brokered in January Israel repeatedly attacked Gaza before shattering the deal utterly by killing more than Palestinians in a single day What -year-old novice Ali Skaik fears the majority he stated is that the situation in Gaza would mirror the ceasefire in Lebanon where despite having a supposed peace deal with Hezbollah in place for almost a year Israel has continued to attack and has killed more than civilians After the ceasefire Skaik moved into his grandfather s home in eastern Gaza City to the Al-Zaytouna neighborhood which sits near the dividing line of Israel s yellow line The Israeli military maintains control of portions of land on the other side Every night for the past week Skaik reported he s heard explosions stretching from p m until the morning For that reason I never really felt that there was a complete ceasefire in place he explained Related Trump s Gaza Ceasefire Deal Is Already Failing Palestinians The Gazans killed Tuesday represent roughly half of the Palestinians Israel has killed since the ceasefire went into effect on October Throughout the genocide Israel has killed more than Palestinians in Gaza according to official numbers from the Gaza Robustness Ministry though the true count is likely much higher As a large number of as others also remain missing whether killed in airstrikes and buried beneath rubble abducted by Israeli military forces or disappeared under other circumstances Bodour a university participant announced he has grown accustomed to living through Israel s ceasefire violations and has learned to mistrust Israel s speeches and pursuit of peace finding strange comfort in invariably expecting the worst from Netanyahu s executive What ceasefire are we talking about Bodour stated He laughed when appealed the question about whether there was still a ceasefire in Gaza The scattered bodies The destroyed houses The orphaned children What ceasefire are we talking about The scattered bodies The destroyed houses The orphaned children Israel reportedly notified the Trump administration before conducting its strikes on Tuesday and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly accused Hamas of failing to return the remains of deceased Israeli hostages and firing on Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza Hamas has denied responsibility for the attacks As bombs began to rain down on Gaza Trump on a trip to Japan reported reporters inside Air Force One that he supported Israel s strikes The Israelis hit back and they should hit back Trump mentioned blaming Hamas for an Israeli soldier s death At the same time he insisted that nothing s going to jeopardize the ceasefire Vice President JD Vance minimized Tuesday s bombings as little skirmishes here and there And Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously predicted there would be bumps along the road but we have to make it work Those bumps are Israel gets to violate the ceasefire wherever it sees fit revealed Tariq Kenney-Shawa a U S framework fellow at Al-Shabaka who is Palestinian and whose family is from Gaza As long as it doesn t return to that full-blown full-on assault or a full-on blockade Trump has much to gain from continuing to tell the constituents that the ceasefire is holding even while Israel kills dozens of Palestinians in Gaza Throughout his second term Trump has positioned himself as a so-called peacemaker and his inner circle including his son-in-law and ceasefire negotiating group member Jared Kushner have voiced interest in growth projects in Gaza to reap a profit in the wake of Israel s destruction Trump has further expressed interest in leveraging the ceasefire in an attempt to finish the Abraham Accords which would normalize Israel s relationships with Arab countries and fast-track Trump s procedures goals and personal financial interests For Trump and for the Israelis what matters is the appearance of a ceasefire revealed Khaled Elgindy a visiting scholar at Georgetown University s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies who helped negotiate deals between Palestinian leadership and Israel in the past The ceasefire plan in numerous methods was Trump s way for providing diplomatic cover for Israel which had been under increasing pressure from the international society amid images of famine and genocide to allow it to continue its military control over the Strip Kenney-Shawa commented Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza I think none of us should be surprised that Israel has continued urgent the ceasefire Kenney-Shawa revealed It very much still fits into the Trump administration s bigger picture because as long as they can kind of say that there is a quote-unquote ceasefire in effect as long as they can say At least it s better than before that enables the U S and the rest of the international society to let up on the pressure on Israel and to return to business as usual Israel has also spent the ceasefire demolishing structures within parts of Gaza it continues to occupy Kenney-Shawa mentioned such tactics are meant to make the Strip even more uninhabitable to ultimately force Palestinians out of Gaza the ultimate goal of Israel s campaign For Trump and for the Israelis what matters is the appearance of a ceasefire The morning after Tuesday s bombings Tasneem a -year-old homemaker in Gaza accused Trump of lying asking Where is the ceasefire they talk about Commented an English lecturer in Gaza announced that even with the ceasefire in place he has felt constant exhaustion and misery given the ongoing attacks He dismissed the term ceasefire as just a media trick There is still recognition in Gaza that the frequency and scale of Israel s attacks since the ceasefire have decreased from the two previous years of genocide Tuesday s bombings however returned things back to the pre-ceasefire average daily death toll of shattering illusions of peace The uncertainty is crippling for plenty of Mervat a -year-old homemaker noted she feared the resumed attacks would again displace her and her family and that they would again face famine conditions She declared as long as Israel s occupation continues there is no safety Exclusively knowing that the agreement is still in place offers a psychological reassurance disclosed Aseel a -year-old university trainee in Gaza Yet news of its violation or the return of genocide imposes an unimaginable weight and traps you in an endless cycle of worry Believers in Islam are encouraged to maintain hope and trust in Allah s mercy and a large number of people who spoke to The Intercept disclosed they had hope that Allah would restore the ceasefire but presently they don t see it as in place Hend another university attendee revealed she d lost trust in the agreement Though she felt the ground shake during Tuesday s bombings she revealed she still has hope for peace and that we can feel safe Such hope began to fade after Tuesday s attacks reported Marah a -year-old English literature candidate at Islamic University of Gaza She declared there can only be peace in Gaza with the removal of Israeli occupation in the territory When the ceasefire went into effect she mentioned I tried to reclaim even a small part of life before October but everything collapsed again in an instant Fear returned along with the sounds of bombing and the smell of death The post We Questioned People in Gaza What They Think of the Ceasefire Just a Declaration Not Reality appeared first on The Intercept