Only justice will give Gaza ceasefire meaning

THERE is now, at last, a ceasefire in Gaza. The bombs have stopped falling, the skies no longer scream with drones, and the death toll, for the moment, has paused its upward march.

- DUGAN BROWN

But to speak of peace, or even of “progress,” in the shadow of so much devastation, is to mock the very notion of justice. What has been achieved is not peace; it is merely silence, a silence purchased with tens of thousands of Palestinian lives, and one that conceals the deeper crime that the world refuses to confront: the complete and deliberate evasion of justice.

Justice was never part of the ceasefire negotiations. It was never raised in the corridors of power or the emergency sessions of the UN Security Council. The world’s diplomats spoke of “humanitarian pauses,” “confidence-building measures,” and “mutual restraint,” as though this were a symmetrical conflict between equals.

Yet there is nothing equal about a people trapped in an open-air prison and an occupying power armed with one of the world’s most sophisticated militaries. Justice was not sidelined, it was erased.