After 15 months of the most horrific live-streamed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has been forced into an interim ceasefire. How long it will last is anyone’s guess but Israel’s contempt for any restraining agreements doesn’t offer much hope.
The deal to stop the bombs and to allow food and medical aid into Gaza with a prisoner exchange and nominal ‘freedom’ to move within Gaza, has been celebrated by those on the ground who’ve survived and endured horrors we cannot imagine and by those of us who’ve watched all 460 days of the genocide in shock, anger and despair.
However, the ‘day after’ scenario begs the question—what will be tangibly different now for Palestinians in Gaza and throughout the rest of the Occupied Territories than before October 7, 2023 and what is a just resolution? Human rights lawyer and former UN Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Craig Mokhiber, put it succinctly hours after the ceasefire announcement,
A return to the cruel status quo before October 2023 is not the day after, it’s the day before. The genocide & siege must end, its perpetrators & collaborators must be held to account, Gaza rebuilt, the apartheid regime in Israel dismantled, the occupation ended, the entire land decolonized, society de-zionized, Palestinians freed across the land & those in the diaspora allowed to come home, and a new dispensation must be established based on full & equal human rights for all Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That is the struggle. That is the only “day after.”
These four lines encompass what Palestinians have been fighting for since 1948. In every way possible they have sought justice, never accepting the loss of their land and the obscene Israeli military occupation and apartheid regime. Now with the relief that the bombs and starvation will stop for the time being, over two millions Gazans will still be trapped in the tiny strip of land they were herded into during the Nakba—the world’s largest open-air prison and now the site of the world’s greatest shame. They will still not be able to travel to the rest of Palestine just a few kilometres away or to their homes and land within Israel. Israel will still control what goes into and out of Gaza and occupy up to 700 metres inside Gaza’s border with Israel. And, it appears they will still control movement along the Netzarim Corridor, and that troop withdrawal from this 47 square kilometres of bulldozed land in the middle of the Gaza Strip, will be staged and certainly not immediate.
For Palestinians living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel and as refugees in Lebanon, Syria, or Jordan, things have not improved—they’ve gotten worse. Attacks throughout the West Bank by settlers and the IDF and now the Palestinian Authority, have escalated. Israeli drone strikes and IDF attacks have killed 800 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7 with many thousands indiscriminately rounded up and imprisoned. Israeli politicians have publicly stated that this will continue and that the Palestinian territories in the West Bank will be formally annexed and become part of Greater Israel—something Trump supported in 2019.
The expansionist aims of the Israeli state are no secret but largely ignored or supported by our politicians. The UN has most recently ruled that all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories are illegal and must be removed along with all the military personnel and infrastructure. Reparations must be made and justice imposed on those guilty of the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Israeli apartheid must be dismantled and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees must be enforced. However, for this ruling to have teeth requires real action on behalf of all countries that subscribe to international human rights laws. That means immediate political, economic and cultural sanctions as a bottom line—as was done to end South Africa’s apartheid regime in the 70s. That means boycotting and banning all Israeli sponsored cultural, academic and sporting participation internationally. That means targeting the complicit corporations that trade with and support the Israeli state and that means demanding our government acts now to sanction and stop facilitating any military contracts with Israel.
The movement for justice for Palestine will continue and Boycott Divestment and Sanctions must intensify to support Palestinians who will continue to rightfully demand justice, freedom, self determination and an end to the 77-year Nakba that has plagued them.