I Have Hope for This Ceasefire, But It Can’t Undo Two Years of Genocide |
When I heard that the latest round of ceasefire negotiations was happening, I felt nothing. I had zero interest in these talks. Countless times I’d followed the news and put my hopes into the idea that the politicians would decide it was time to stop the massacre of my people. Countless times I’d been disappointed.
On October 9, 2025, at 2 a.m., it was quiet outside my family’s tent, where we’ve family has lived since Israel drove us from our home in Gaza City. I was reading the latest news like a child searching for even the smallest hope of going back home.
“This is a great day for the world,” the U.S. president said when the first phase of a ceasefire agreement was announced. “This is a wonderful day, a wonderful day for everybody.”
It has taken two years of unrelenting genocide for us to finally hear this. I keep wondering: Is it real? Might our suffering actually end soon?
This partial ceasefire deal comes amid the most horrific phase the Gaza Strip has witnessed since the war began. Gaza City has been under a rapidly advancing Israeli occupation, putting the roughly 200,000 people who remain there into unimaginable circumstances. According to the latest reports, Israel has displaced nearly 900,000 people from the city.
I became one of them just one month ago. It feels like a whole year. I left everything behind and fled to the south, where........