ISRAEL-HAMAS TRUCE: TRUMP'S PEACE PUSH-DIVIDENDS OR DECEPTION?

In wars, there are no victors only victims. The truth of this statement becomes vivid only when war is viewed through a humanitarian Lens. It does not matter whether Israel wins or loses, whether Hamas does, or who outfoxed whom. What matters most are the lives of the war-battered the hapless and helpless people of Gaza and the Israeli hostages.

- By Ameen Izzadeen

The side that wages peace wins. As the late Pope Francis once said, “To make peace, one needs courage far more than to wage war.”

Yet the much-celebrated announcement of a ceasefire deal early yesterday, while it brightened the faces of the war-devastated Palestinians, also drew melancholic looks of indifference. In the past two years, they have gone down this path one too many times—only for hopes to turn into misery, lives into hell, and shelters into smithereens.

“Honestly, when I heard the news, I couldn't hold back my tears of joy. Two years of bombing, terror, destruction, loss, humiliation, and the constant feeling that we could die at any moment. Now, we finally feel like we're getting a moment of respite,” displaced Gazan Samer Joudeh told AFP.

Exhausted and drained of spirit after enduring Israel's bloody and inhumane bear-baiting for two long years with Zionist-worshipping Western governments cheering from the sidelines the Palestinians in Gaza are now too weak to even utter the word 'peace' aloud, let alone bargain for peace with justice. All they want now is respite from Israel's relentless bombardment and some food to feed their children and themselves.

Has the turning point the Palestinians have been waiting for over the past two years finally arrived? The coming days and weeks will tell whether they are being led to the haven of freedom or the abyss of perpetual colonial enslavement.

Even as US President Donald Trump proudly announced the breakthrough early yesterday, Israel was exploiting the window between the announcement and the mounting pleas to halt the bombing. In that space, it continued to kill and maim Palestinians and to destroy whatever remained standing in Gaza.