A ceasefire has finally been signed, but what does that mean? Gaza has been faced with under heavy carpet bombing, “evacuations”, white phosphorus, fires, and all kinds of other tragedies for the past almost 500 days at a scale larger than ever before. Because as we know, this has been going on for much longer than 400 something days. But now with this ceasefires, Gazans have been given some time to breath. Palestinians are finally allowed back into North Gaza which they had been forced to “evacuate” to “safety”. The bombs may have paused in Gaza, but what are Palestinians returning to? Gaza has been totally obliterated with rotting corpses spilling out of the rubble, the air is filled with smoke and debris, and there are a countless number of apocalyptic sights.
Before starting, I feel like it is worth mentioning that as of January 2025, there are more than 10,200 Palestinian hostages being held in Israel (according to Humanti Project). Thats probably not a number you’ve seen if you solely rely on main stream news. Something else that you might also not know is that trials for Palestinian hostages have a conviction rate at a whopping 99%. Furthermore, the rate of abductions in the West Bank has jumped to 120 people a day.
A ceasefire was called on January 19th, 2025. It’s been about a month since then and we are able to see the effects of said ceasefire. As of February 17th of this year, 24 Israeli hostages have been released and hundreds of Palestinian hostages have been released. Apologies for not being able to find the exact number of Palestinian hostages released but I can tell you that the next exchange that was supposed to happen, if Israel had not violated the ceasefire deal, 620 Palestinians would return. This is supposed to be one of the biggest prisoner releases of the ceasefire deal. Speaking of Israel violating the ceasefire deal, according to Code Pink, as of February 14th, Israel violated the ceasefire 269 times (documented times). This includes the following (Statistics from Humanti Project, News Cord, and AJ+ News) :
- 118 killed (as of February 12th)
- 822 injured (as of February 12th)
- Blocked entry of construction equipment to clear the about 50 million tonnes of rubble
- Only allowing 8,500 aid trucks from the 12,000 agreed aid trucks to enter Gaza (as of February 10th)
- 600 aid trucks are supposed to enter Gaza daily but Israel is significantly going below this requirement, sometimes only allowing 150 trucks
- Refusing to allow necessary medical equipment into Gaza
- Only 120 patients from the 1,000 agreed patients have been allowed to leave for medical treatment (as of February 12th)
- This does not include the more than 2,500 children that need to evacuate for medical reasons
These are just some of the many violations committed by Israel. Just on the numbers alone, it is clear that even a ceasefire, what we have all been protesting for, isn’t enough for Palestinians to have a moment of rest. The chaos doesn’t end in Gaza. According to AlJazeera, as of February 23, about 40,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been displaced. They have also been told that they will not be allowed back into their homeland. Not only is this a very clear violation of the ceasefire agreement, but it is the West Bank being annexed.
Hostages
As we are witnessing hostage exchanges, let us point out the conditions. I’ve already mentioned the astronomical difference in the number of Palestinian hostages and Israeli hostages, so I instead wanted to focus on the conditions of said hostages. In the first exchange, 3 Israeli hostages were released by Hamas on a stage. Each of the hostages carrying a certificate (indicating that they passed Arabic classes), gift bags, and wearing a smile. On the other hand, Palestinian hostages returned to their families starved, eyes popping out of their head in shock, injured, and at a loss for words considering how long some of them had been captured and tortured. On February 22, pictures were released of an Israeli hostage kissing the forehead of a Hamas militant before leaving. Now that’s something you definitely won’t see posted by the main stream media.
Hamas, despite being so heavily vilified by the media, has shown their humanity in more ways than one, especially during this hostage exchange. Brown and black men have historically always been vilified and labeled as dangerous, controlling, and violent. During this genocide, we have watched Palestinian men literally move heaven and earth to save their people. And now, more than ever, their humanity has been put on blast during the hostage exchange. They showed that even though they have been living in hell, they still took care of the hostages they had. And no, this is not a secret, you can easily find pictures of Palestinians going home after being tortured for an extended period of time and Israelis going home healthy and taken care of.