But two months later, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 500 times, killing at least 356 Palestinians, and taking the total death toll in Gaza to above 70,000.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has clarified his position, saying that the war “is not over”.
Analysts say the rate of Israeli killings of Palestinians in Gaza has slowed since the ceasefire, but for all intents and purposes the war continues.
“If you break genocide down to its essence, it is not just mass murder,” Mohammed Shahada, a visiting fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.
“It is also destroying the ability of the population to live together as a group, and this is being achieved through large-scale destruction (of infrastructure), killing, ethnic cleansing and starvation,” he said.
political theater and spectacle
Instead of a relief for Palestinians, analysts say the ceasefire gave the international community an excuse to stop focusing on Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The US-backed ceasefire agreement was intended to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza and begin aid distribution to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, where famine has been declared.
“Finally, we have peace in the Middle East,” US President Donald Trump announced from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where the Gaza peace summit was being held.
But Israel continued the attack. It has also failed to allow the entry of aid money it had agreed upon, destroyed more than 1,500 buildings, and expanded deeper into Gaza, cutting people off from their homes.
Shehda said, “This is theater because everyone was fed up with the genocide and wanted it to disappear and not be resolved. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen.”
Gaza has been in the media spotlight since the ceasefire began.
“Of course, the main difference is the lack of media coverage, which was one of the intended purposes of the so-called ceasefire,” Lebanese Palestinian researcher and writer Elia Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
“There is much less pressure on Israel today than there was on October 10, and there is no sign of accountability on the horizon.”
‘Israel’s genocide is not over’
The harm being done to Palestinians in Gaza has also been noted by Amnesty International, which last week released a legal analysis of what it called “an ongoing massacre in the occupied Gaza Strip”.
Agnes Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, said, “The world should not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.”
The analysis cites the number of Palestinians killed since the ceasefire took effect, Israel’s restrictions on relief, humanitarian and medical supplies, and how Israel’s blockade and siege of Gaza has led to famine, and thus increased susceptibility to diseases.
Callamard said, “So far, there is no sign that Israel is taking serious steps to reverse the deadly impact of its crimes and there is no evidence that its intentions have changed.”
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said on 1 October, before the ceasefire, that 100 people a day were dying in Gaza, most of them from Israeli military operations or shelling at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution points.
Since the ceasefire, people are still dying directly from military operations, albeit less per day, and the foundations of Palestinian society in Gaza still lie in ruins.
Defense analyst Hamze Attar told Al Jazeera, “Israel is continuing its genocide in Gaza, but its pace is different; the destruction of homes continues and the killing of Palestinians continues, and the Israeli yellow line of occupation in the Gaza Strip is part of the genocide.”
“The genocide is not just about killing people, but about preventing people from returning to their homes and creating a new reality in the Gaza Strip.”
bus massacre
One of the main conditions of the ceasefire was for Hamas and other Palestinian groups to return detainees to Gaza. Hamas has returned all surviving detainees and all but the bodies of two dead detainees: an Israeli policeman named Ran Gwili and a Thai citizen named Sudthisak Rinthalak.
According to Israeli media, one of the remaining bodies may be returned in the coming days. For months, Israel’s most ardent supporters claimed that the return of the captives would end the war.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem earlier said the group had shown “commitment to fully completing the exchange process and ongoing efforts to finalize it despite significant difficulties”.
As far as Israel is concerned, it has released 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and returned the bodies of more than 345 prisoners who died in its prisons. Many reportedly showed signs of torture, mutilation and hanging. However, Israel has not eased its pressure on the people of Gaza.
“As soon as the ceasefire goes into effect, no one cares about the details, giving Israel free rein to do whatever it wants,” Shehada said.
As for the United States, which helped pressure Israel into the agreement, Shehada said Trump is more interested in the spectacle of peace than “the situation on the ground,” adding that Israel systematically violates the ceasefire, making it difficult for mediators to maintain it.
The ultimate goal, he said, was still the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.
Analysts say that in Gaza, as in Lebanon or Syria, Israel has undermined peace agreements. Netanyahu has claimed that his goal is to destroy and eliminate Hamas, although analysts have repeatedly doubted his stated intentions.
Ayoub said, “This confirms what we already knew: The goal is not to defeat an armed enemy, Hamas, but to ensure that life in Gaza cannot be sustained for long.”
“This is straight up genocide.”
<a href