At the very last moment, before the ceasefire took effect, the bombs kept falling, one final show of vengeance to soothe bruised pride. The psychopath could not end his war without one last performance. And then, silence.
What follows is devastation. An ocean of grief for Gaza, for what was lost, erased, annihilated. Ninety-two percent of its people have no home to return to. Hundreds of bodies are still being pulled from the rubble. Fifty-eight thousand children are now orphans, and there are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere else in the world. No language can hold this kind of pain.
There is a flicker of relief: for the first time in months, 92 people will not die today. But relief is not peace. It is only the breath one takes between sobs.
And even those breaths are interrupted – and sometimes stolen – as Israeli forces continue to break the terms of the ceasefire agreement: 7 Palestinians were targeted and killed while inspecting the rubble of their homes. Reports of car bombs being remotely detonated at the rate of 10 per day have continued to injure and kill many more. And now, Israel is also refusing to open the Rafah crossing, cutting in half the amount of aid agreed upon in the so-called “peace” Plan.
In the West Bank, the olive harvest, once a season of life, has again been transformed into another battlefield, where Israeli settlers assault farmers under the watch of soldiers who protect them (research estimates Israeli settlers have decimated at least 800,000 olive trees since 1967 – the equivalent of 33 Central Parks – a potent reminder that this did not start on October 7th, 2023). Occupation does not rest. It simply shifts its weight.
A few hundred Palestinian hostages were released this week in line with the ceasefire agreement – people taken from their beds, their hospitals, their shelters, without trial, without record – while the world’s media ignored and chose not to see. But, as of late September, Israel held over 11,000 Palestinians from the West Bank in prison, thousands without charge, thousands more under “administrative detention,” and hundreds in the invented category of “unlawful combatants.” Many of those abducted from Gaza remain missing.
How can any human being not cry when the newly freed return home after years of hell? And how can any heart not break watching people in Gaza sift with their bare hands through the lunar dust of their city, searching for their loved ones’ remains?
Let’s say it clearly: Israel did not fight in Gaza. It destroyed Gaza, house by house, street by street. It did not destroy Hamas; it destroyed life itself.
These are not metaphors. They are the factual conditions of genocide. And those who celebrated, excused, or denied it, or simply said, “It’s complicated,” are part of its machinery. No one needs to say “I support genocide” to enable it. Silence is enough, and Canada is complicit in continuing its arms trade with Israel.
Now, as the cheers fade, remember the thousands still held in camps under starvation and torture. More than 87 Palestinians have already died in Israeli camps since October 7th, 2023. They are not “prisoners.” They are hostages, people taken by a state that denies them rights, humanity, and the power to speak their own names.
Our silence keeps these camps open.
If this ceasefire is to mean anything, it must be more than a pause. It must mark the beginning of justice:
- An end to occupation.
- An end to apartheid.
- The rebuilding of Gaza, not as ruins patched with charity, but as a living, thriving home.
- The recognition of the Palestinians’ right of return.
- And the prosecution of those who ordered and carried out war crimes, in The Hague
“The last day of occupation will be the first day of peace.”
— Marwan Barghouti
Only then can the words “never again” recover their meaning. Only then will the day after truly be the first day of peace.
