SPECIAL REPORT: By Qasem Waleed El-Farra

On October 19, Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of people in a blatant violation of US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan, which had come into effect just over a week earlier.

And a day after world leaders had gathered in Egypt to discuss implementation, I went back to my neighborhood in eastern Khan Younis on October 14 to gather anything that could protect me and my family against the approaching winter — clothes, sheets, wood, books even, for those cold nights where there will be little else to do but read.

I had not long been searching through the rubble of my home — which has been completely destroyed — when I heard shooting and saw people running.

I had been in enough of such situations to know not to ask questions. I left everything I had pulled from under the rubble and fled back toward downtown Khan Younis.

While we were — yet again — fleeing our area, I learned that an Israeli quadcopter had attacked a group of civilians in the area. One of them, I was told, was shot right in the heart.

I’ve faced death many times throughout the genocide. But this time was different. This was just one day after Trump, backed by a number of world leaders, announced a plan to bring peace to Gaza and the Middle East.

That day, Israel had also announced that Zikim beach, which is located in the Gaza Strip envelope, to enable the Israeli settlers there to “breathe again.”

When I arrived in my tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, I pondered just one question: Is this the ceasefire they want to bring us? Or do they just want to announce a cessation of violence, but have no interest in enforcing it?

Targeting global solidarity
As a person in Gaza who has been living through a genocide for two years and five major Israeli attacks on Gaza before that, the term “ceasefire” is selective and always shadowed with deadly threats.

As far as I have experienced, the word simply means that Israel is able to do whatever it wants. We aren’t.

More broadly, for Israel, ”peace” in Palestine equals a Palestine with no Palestinians, as Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior government ministers have made very clear.

Over the years, Palestinians have learned the hard way that when the colonial plans and their various institutional manifestations — from the Peel Commission in 1936 to Trump’s “Board of Peace” — are formed, allegedly to bring peace, the oppressed people’s rights are lost.

The reason is that behind the proposal, there is always a gun pointed at us.

Or, like how Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, put it: “Ceasefire according to Israel = ‘you cease, I fire.’”

💥Again: Ceasefire according to Israel=“you cease, I fire.” Calling it “peace” is both an insult and a distraction.
All eyes on Palestine: Israel must face justice, sanctions, divestment, boycott UNTIL occupation, apartheid and genocide are over and every crime is accounted for. https://t.co/K73I2177Ms

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 14, 2025

When I read through the Trump-Netanyahu 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, all I could think of is that we have gone back a century in time: It is another colonial promise of peace that includes everyone but Palestinians, the land’s native population.

Of course, in Gaza, we all want this ceasefire to hold, to save what remains of our home. Still, it does not take a genius to see that the ceasefire plan is nothing but a grotesque charade directed by Trump and Netanyahu — a desperate move to save Israel from being internationally isolated, especially after the unprecedented pro-Palestine demonstrations across the globe.

Thus, the plan deprives Gaza of the increasing momentum of world support, while also resulting in the continued loss of people and land in Gaza. It is either Netanyahu’s rock or Trump’s hard place.

On-off genocide
The ceasefire plan depends fundamentally on a phased Israeli withdrawal “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation that will be agreed upon between the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], ISF [International Stabilisation Force], the guarantors, and the United States.”

In more precise terms, there is no specified timeline.

This means that with Israeli troops withdrawal to the yellow line on the plan’s map, it is still in control of 58 percent of Gaza, and while some people might be able to return to their areas of residence, I cannot.

The plan has allowed Israel to do what it does best — stall, manipulate and deceive. By October 28, according to Gaza’s authorities, Israel had breached the ceasefire 125 times.

The killings continue, aid is still being hindered and the Rafah crossing remains closed, denying people travel to receive urgent medical treatment.

A significant reason for the continued killing in Gaza is that the Israeli withdrawal lines are tricky and ambiguous, even unknown to locals, especially those who live in the eastern part of Gaza.

On October 17, for instance, Israel killed 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family: seven children, three women and the father, as they returned to check on their house in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.

In my neighborhood, Sheikh Nasser, in eastern Khan Younis, neighbors marked a destroyed house with a big red sheet to warn others not to cross further.

We have witnessed two prior ceasefire agreements in the past two years of genocide. Both times I hoped they would bring an end to our misery. Many of us in Gaza remain very sceptical about this ceasefire, and we can’t afford to let hope in our hearts again.

Israel loves to fish in muddy water, or, like we in Gaza like to put it, ala nakshah, meaning that Israel is merely awaiting any slight excuse to resume the killing.

Netanyahu has repeatedly made it obvious that it’s either his political future or our future. For as long as he is in power, Israel will keep coming for us in an on-off genocide in order to make our misery constant.

This is the “peace” we are offered after two years of suffering the crime of crimes.

Qasem Waleed El-Farra is a physicist based in Gaza. His article was first published by The Electronic Intifada on 6 November 2025.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A temporary ceasefire and release of some Palestinians in a prisoner exchange is not a “peace agreement” and it is far from what is needed — ending colonisation; freedom for the >10,000 political prisoners still in Israeli gulags (also tortured, nearly 100 have died under torture in the last two years); return of the millions of refugees; and accountability for genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.

That is why this global uprising (intifada) will not stop until freedom, justice, and equality are attained.

Here are brief answers I gave to questions about the agreement for Gaza:

1. How has life in the West Bank changed for you and your community during the past two years of conflict?
The West Bank has been illegally occupied since 1967 (ICJ ruling) but it was not merely an occupation but intensive colonisation and ethnic cleansing. The attacks on our people accelerated in the last two years with over 60,000 made homeless in the West Bank and denial of freedom of movement (including hundreds of new gates installed in these two years separating the remaining concentration camps/ghettos of the West Bank ).

2. What is your assessment of the new peace deal that brought an end to the fighting in Gaza?
It is not a peace deal. It is an agreement to pause the genocide which will not work because the belligerent occupier — “Israel” — has not respected a single agreement it signed since its founding. Even the agreement to join the United Nations was conditional on respecting the UN Charter and UN resolutions issued before and after 1949.

This continued to even breaking the signed ceasefire agreement of last year. I have 0 percent confidence that this latest agreement would be respected even on the simple aspect of “pausing” the genocide and ethnic cleansing going on since 1948.

3. In your view, why did war drag on for two years despite multiple ceasefire attempts?
Simply put because colonisation can only be done with violence. And the war on our people has gone on not for two years but for 77 years without ending (sustained by Western government support). Israel as a colonisation entity is the active face of colonisation. The USA for example broke similar agreements for “pauses” in colonisation with natives in North America and broke every single one of them.

Israeli military occupation on the environment.        Video: Greenpeace

4. What kind of humanitarian and environmental toll has the conflict taken on Palestinian society?
It is now well documented from UN agencies, human rights groups (like Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, even the Israeli group B’Tselem). In brief it is genocide, ecocide, scholasticide, medicide,
and veriticide. (More at: ongaza.org )

5. Why do you think it took the IDF so long to rescue all the hostages?
The terrorist organisation that deceptively calls itself “IDF” (Israeli Defence Forces) was not interested in rescuing their captives (not “hostages”) and they only got people back via exchange of prisoners (not rescue).

The IGF (Israeli Genocide Forces) actually killed many of their own soldiers and civilians
on 7 October 2023 by activating the Hannibal directive to prevent their capture. The resistance was aiming to capture colonisers (living on stolen Palestinian lands) to exchange for some of the more than 11,000 political prisoners illegally held in Israeli jails. (Again see ongaza.org )

6. How significant was international involvement — particularly from the US — in reaching the final agreement?
This is the first genocide in human history that is not executed by one government. It is executed by a number of governments directly supporting and aiding (participating). This includes the USA, UK, France, Egypt, Germany, Australia etc. Many of these countries have governments dominated or highly influenced by the Zionist agenda.

Under the influence of a growing popular protest against the genocide around the world, some of those countries are trying to wiggle out from pressure in an effort to save
“Israel” from growing global isolation. Trump was blackmailed via videos/files collected by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghiseline Maxwell (Mossad agents). He is simply a narcissistic collaborator with genocide!

7. What concrete steps do you think are necessary now to turn this peace deal into a sustainable, lasting solution?
Again not a “peace deal”. What needs to be done is apply boycotts, divestments, sanctions (BDS) on this rogue state that violates the international conventions (Geneva Convention, Conventions against Apartheid and Genocide). BDS was used against apartheid South Africa and needs to be applied here also. (For more: bdsmovement.net )

8. How do you see the Palestine Museum of Natural History contributing to rebuilding and healing efforts in the aftermath of war?
Our institute (PIBS, palestinenature.org) which includes museums, a botanic garden, and many other sections is focused on “sustainable human and natural communities” Our motto is respect: for ourselves (empowerment), for others (regardless of religious or other background), and for nature.

Conflict, colonisations, oppression are obviously areas we challenge and work on in JOINT struggle with all people of various background.

9. Looking ahead, what gives you optimism—or concern—about the future relationship between Palestinians and Israelis?
What gives me optimism first and foremost is the heroic resilience and resistance (together making sumud) of our Palestinian people everywhere and the millions of other people mobilising for human rights and for justice (including the right of refugees to return and also environmental justice).

What gives me concern is the depth of depravity that greedy individuals in power go to destroying our planet and our people and profiting from colonisation and genocide.

About 8.5 million Palestinians are refugees and displaced people thanks to Zionism and Western collusion with it. A collusion intent on transforming Palestine from multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multireligious, and multilingual society to a racist Jewish state (monolithic).

Dr Mazin Qumsiyeh is a Bedouin in cyberspace; a villager at home; professor, founder and (volunteer) director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, Occupied Palestine.

Notes:
World Court Findings on Israeli Apartheid a Wake-Up Call: International Court of Justice Makes Clear Call for Reparations

The 7 October 2023 reminded us of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

7 October 1944! Prisoner Revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize as before was not given to the any of the hundreds of deserving nominees but given instead to rightwing pro-genocide María Corina Machado. She dedicated her prize to Donald Trump and had previously aligned with the worst rightwing parties throughout Latin America as well as the genocidal regime of Netanyahu (and even asked them for help to topple her own elected government).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz