[Salon] Fwd: Haaretz: "For Palestinians, the Relief of the Gaza Cease-fire Belongs to Others." (10/09/25.)




For Palestinians, the Relief of the Gaza Cease-fire Belongs to Others 

Palestinians waiting on the coastal road to Gaza City on Thursday in preparation to return to the city following the cease-fire announcement.
Palestinians waiting on the coastal road to Gaza City on Thursday in preparation to return to the city following the cease-fire announcement. Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP 

After two years and two days of war, Israel and Hamas announced on Thursday that they had reached an agreement on the first phase of a deal to finally end the fighting in Gaza, including the release of the 48 Israeli hostages, both living and dead, and a number of Palestinian prisoners.

In Israel, people celebrating in the streets shed tears of relief and hostages' families waited by their phones. In Gaza, Palestinians took their first deep breath in two years, not because they now felt safe, but because they had survived.

On Palestinian social media, videos of children in Gaza dancing in celebration mingled with quiet posts of remembrance; photos of friends and relatives killed, mourning those who never got to see this day. One man wrote online: "And when the war ends, mother, who will return from those who have departed? Will my father and my siblings return? Will our home return? Will my leg grow again? Will my friends return to their seats?"

While the world cheers for U.S. President Trump's brokered cease-fire, Gaza's joy, if it exists, is laced with mourning. Those in Gaza who survived will have to face these two years of loss – of tens of thousands of lives, of homes, jobs, education, and ambition. Thousands of children won't feel the comfort of a parent reassuring them that no bombs will fall tonight. Parents who lost all their children are now left with no one to celebrate beside. Friends' group chats that once buzzed with jokes and late-night messages now sit in silence, the members gone.

When I texted a man from Gaza to congratulate him on the cease-fire, he replied, "Congratulations to you. You'll put your mind at peace with our news now." His words cut through the noise – a reminder that for many Palestinians, even relief has become something that belongs to others.

The cease-fire, if it holds, marks the end of the longest and most devastating war in Gaza's history, though the word "end" feels hollow for most Palestinians. They have seen cease-fires before, watched them collapse, and lived through the violence that followed. The reprieve they feel is real, but so is the fear.

For Palestinians, the cease-fire – sold in Israel by Prime Minister Netanyahu as a way to "achieve all our goals and expand peace with our neighbors" – is a rearrangement of violence. Gaza remains sealed off from the world, its economy destroyed, its health system in ruins, and Netanyahu's goals of occupation and displacement endure.

Israel's international allies also hail the deal as a "peace plan," a phrase that says more about their desire for closure than change on the ground. Western governments that armed or financed the war in some way are ready to move on. But there is no peace without justice, and no justice without accountability. These leaders must go further to ensure Palestinians enjoy the same right to safety that Israelis will now reclaim.

This is not a story of two sides finally finding peace. It is a story of two peoples who will wake up tomorrow under two very different skies: one free to heal, the other trapped in the ruins.

The cease-fire may end the war for Israel, but for Palestinians it is only the beginning of another long fight – to rebuild, to remember, and to be seen.




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