There is no ceasefire, but there is an ongoing Nakba and an ongoing genocide
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A news report by AlJazeera this week stated that Israel violated the ceasefire 497 times in 44 days since 10 October. Lauded by the international community, the ceasefire was supposed to bring an end to airstrikes, starvation and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, as well as the return of Palestinians to the rubble of their homes in Gaza. But ceasefire in diplomatic rhetoric falls even short of a veneer as Israel continues its genocide with a slower pace.
Israel can further violate the ceasefire with UN Resolution 2803, which places the US in control of Gaza for Israel’s colonial expansionist plans. Israel – a genocidal entity that has violated the ceasefire hundreds of times – determines the coordination of the US plan. Which means that as a reward for committing genocide, Israel gets the freedom to determine the pace of genocide, now that the worst has been normalised.
Even mainstream media is reporting on Israel’s ceasefire violations. Two weeks ago, the BBC noted that Israel destroyed over 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect, although it also made sure to add the comments of an unnamed Israeli military spokesperson saying that Israel was acting “in accordance with the ceasefire framework”.
According to the US, there was no genocide in Gaza. According to the Palestinian people and the majority of the world’s people, there is genocide in Gaza and there is no ceasefire in Gaza. What term does one coin for a non-existent ceasefire? Or a ceasefire that only exists in diplomatic agreements that provide impunity for Israel’s genocide?
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What will the non-existent ceasefire mean in terms of Gaza’s reconstruction and military occupation amid a normalised, slow-paced genocide? There is talk of partitioning Gaza, but the likelihood of colonial expansion is even greater. And all is happening under the guise of a ceasefire with no validity and no implementation.
The only time we should be uttering the word ceasefire is to point out that there is no ceasefire. Other than that, the entire world should be pointing out that Israel is continuing its colonial expansion through genocide. Ceasefire rhetoric is an imposition upon Palestinians. It renders them defenceless just as much as the genocide did. The Israeli military now controls 53 per cent of Gaza. What did Zionist leaders do when they were granted 55 per cent of Palestine? History is repeating itself and the international community is concealing evident links under ceasefire rhetoric.
As the international community does its best to fade Israel’s genocide into oblivion, so will Gaza be depleted. The UN will continue with its statistical data, possibly since the “ceasefire”, thus marking an end to what is actually a continuation. And the usual terminology, linked to the non-existent ceasefire, such as humanitarian aid, food, displacement, education, Israel killing Palestinians, will once again be classified as individual violations of international law, instead of actions contributing to an ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land. The ceasefire does not exist, the Nakba never ended, and it is incumbent upon the UN, particularly given its complicity with colonialism, to join the dots for the rest of the world and finally divulge what a travesty it has created out of human rights and international law.
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