By Nour Mohamed
It has been 48 days since Trump’s ceasefire agreement was signed. When it was declared, Palestinians collectively felt a moment of relief after two years of relentless Israeli bombardment, starvation, forced displacement, and more.
However, almost immediately after the so-called ceasefire was announced, with Donald Trump cheerfully claiming it was ‘the historic dawn of a new Middle East”, Israel resumed its attacks on the Palestinian enclave, violating the truce more than 490 times in just 44 days, according to the Gaza Government Media Office on Saturday, and killing 342 civilians.
The most recent attack took place on Thursday, when 32 Palestinians were killed in strikes across Gaza. An entire family was removed from the civil registry in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, when their house was hit.
It was an ordinary day, much like those that had followed two years of genocide. Gazans were desperately searching for food and water; some worked to repair their dilapidated tents, while others mourned the loved ones they had lost in previous Israeli attacks. Yet once again, Israel abruptly shattered the fragile sense of normalcy.
Israeli violations extend beyond direct attacks; Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians, even after they have endured two years of famine.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), only half the required food aid is currently reaching Gaza, while Palestinians say total aid deliveries amount to just one-quarter of what was agreed under the ceasefire. They are also preventing the entry of nutritious foods, including meat, dairy and vegetables, as well as much-needed medicine, tents and other materials for shelter while flooding its markets with processed, high-calorie items.
Trump told a Palestinian reporter last week that “we are making a lot of progress” and Palestinians “like him” and were “doing well”.
But Gazans see his brokered ceasefire as a cover for the ongoing displacement, genocide, and erasure of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Yet, despite this, Israel continues to receive unprecedented diplomatic, financial, and military support, the latest was the UN Security Council adaption of Resolution 2803 on November 17, in a “day of shame”, endorsing Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, a plan Palestinians see it a way to “strip them of their right to manage their own affairs.”
And still, Western media and world leaders continue to call it a ceasefire, while some governments, even those that once claimed to have halted arms exports to Israel over the genocide in Gaza, have resumed those shipments. In effect, the international community is enabling Israel to carry on with its genocidal campaign, largely shielded from accountability.
And Palestinians are still waiting to see whether the promises of the ceasefire will ever reach their tents so they can begin life again, and whether that ceasefire will hold beyond its initial phases. They are exhausted, with life around them feeling completely extinguished, and they fear that the Israeli violations are not merely military tactics but, in their view, part of Netanyahu’s vision to seize as much of Gaza’s land as possible.
