The ceasefire agreement regarding the Gaza Strip can be welcomed as a modest reprieve from the immense suffering that the residents of that territory have endured for the past 15 months.
The Israeli military assault on the Strip has inflicted deaths that according to the official count has passed more than 46,600. This tally likely undercounts actual deaths by more than 40 percent, with the majority of fatalities being women, children, and the elderly.
This is in addition to all the other suffering from continuing military operations. There have been more than 111,265 reported injuries, including life-changing disabilities in an environment in which Israel has largely destroyed the healthcare system.
The agreement also commits Israel to allowing an increased number of trucks bearing badly needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Other benefits include the release of a number of Israeli hostages that Hamas took in its attack in October 2023. Also to be released are several hundred Palestinians whom Israel has imprisoned. The Palestinians can be considered hostages, too. Although some of those to be released have been given sentences of imprisonment, many of the Palestinians Israel incarcerates are held indefinitely without charge, incommunicado, and without legal representation.
Beyond those positive measures, there is little in the agreement just reached on which to hang much hope for significant progress toward peace and stability in that part of the world. Although a cessation of military operations interrupts some of the immediate suffering, it does not reverse the enormous damage that has turned what was already an open-air prison into a largely uninhabitable wasteland. The agreement reportedly provides for an Israeli withdrawal from major population centers and the Netzarim Corridor, in principle allowing families from the northern portion of the Gaza Strip to return to their homes, but many will be returning only to rubble.
