Hope mixed with grief as ceasefire enters second day in Gaza
The end of the first day of the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has sparked a wave of hope. But at the same time, it is mixed with grief for families who have lost their loved ones.
There have been significant developments in the past 24 hours.
We have been closely monitoring the flow of aid supplies to the Strip, and yesterday we saw dozens of humanitarian convoys carrying fuel and essential, life-saving humanitarian needs, including food and water.
Approximately 300 humanitarian aid trucks have been sent to the north of the territory, which has been cut off from essential basic services and supplies.
At the same time, families are trying to cope with the situation under the hum of the Israeli drones that we can clearly hear at the moment on the ground.
Israel’s ‘structural genocide’ will only end when military, diplomatic support is cut: Analyst
Pietro Stefanini, political analyst and researcher at the University of Edinburgh, said while there is a relief that a ceasefire deal has been reached in Gaza, the cessation of fighting does not end “the structural genocide” that Palestinians have faced since 1948.
“It has really been one of the most intense genocidal wars in recent history,” Stefanini told Al Jazeera.
“We are now at a point where over 90 percent of housing units have been destroyed or damaged, which means that at least 80,000 homes have been rendered uninhabitable. Schools, universities, hospitals, health centres. No sector has been spared from the almost total destruction,” Stefanini said.
“What we have seen in the past is that Israel causes massive destruction and pays no consequences,” he said, adding that to “break this cycle”, support for Israel must end.
“If international governments are serious about wanting to help rebuild Gaza, they must first create the conditions that prevent Israel from – in the future – attacking what may be rebuilt,” Stefanini said.
“One way to do that would be to fund the reconstruction while also cutting the massive economic, military and diplomatic support that Israel is provided.”
Gaza’s traumatised children will need more than aid brought in on trucks: UNICEF
Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson with the UN’s agency for children, UNICEF, said the challenges ahead are “tremendous” in terms of the provision of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
And when it comes to saving the lives of children in Gaza amid the total deprivation that they have faced, “a ceasefire on its own isn’t going to take that suffering away”, Bollen told Al Jazeera.
“Some of the aid that children in Gaza need is not aid that we can bring in on trucks. Every single child in Gaza today is deeply, deeply scarred and traumatised by what they’ve witnessed,” Bollen said.
“They’ve gone through things that no child should ever have to witness,” she said.
Palestinians mourn the death of their relatives who were killed in an Israeli air strike on their shelter in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on January 14
Essay Pro