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

SPECIAL REPORT: By Ali AbunimahIsrael smuggled one of its soldiers out of Cyprus, apparently fearing his detention on charges related to the genocide in Gaza, according to Dyab Abou Jahjah, the co-founder of The Hind Rajab Foundation.

Abou Jahjah, a Belgian-Lebanese political activist and writer, told The Electronic Intifada livestream last week that his organisation was stepping up efforts all over the world to bring to justice Israeli soldiers implicated in the slaughter of tens of thousands of men, women and children over the last 15 months.

You can watch the interview with Abou Jahjah and all of this week’s programme in the video above.

Gaza Ceasefire Day 5. Video: The Electronic Intifada

Speaking from Gaza, Electronic Intifada contributor Donya Abu Sitta told us how people there are coping following the ceasefire, especially those returning to devastated homes and finding the remains of loved ones.

She shared a poem inspired by the hopes and fears of the young children she continued to teach throughout the genocide.

Despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued to attack Palestinians in some parts of Gaza. That was among developments covered in the news brief from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedman, along with the efforts to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation.

Israel’s genocidal war has orphaned some 40,000 children in Gaza.

Contributing editor Jon Elmer covered the latest ceasefire developments and the resistance operations in the period leading up to it.

We also discussed whether US President Donald Trump will force Israel to uphold the ceasefire and what the latest indications of his approach are.

‘There is an openness to the glee and celebration of genocidal violence in Israel that I think goes beyond anything we saw during the Iraq war or during apartheid in South Africa.’

-Ali Abunimah, Executive Director of The Electronic Intifada @intifada, was arrested by Swiss… pic.twitter.com/cMLV5tLp3K

— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) January 26, 2025

And this writer took a critical look at Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Edgar Budde.

She has been hailed as a hero for urging Donald Trump to respect the rights of marginalised groups, as the new president sat listening to her sermon at Washington’s National Cathedral.

But over the last 15 months, Budde has parroted Israeli atrocity propaganda justifying genocide, and has repeatedly failed to condemn former President Joe Biden’s key role in the mass slaughter and did not call on him to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Pursuing war criminals
In the case of the soldier in Cyprus, The Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint, and after initial hesitation, judicial authorities in the European Union state opened an investigation of the soldier.

“When that was opened, the Israelis smuggled the soldier out of Cyprus,” Abou Jahjah said, calling the incident the first of its kind.

“And when I say smuggling, I’m not exaggerating, because we have information that he was even taken by a private jet,” Abou Jahjah added.

The foundation is named after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was in a car with members of her family, trying to escape the Israeli onslaught in Gaza City, when they were attacked.

The story of Hind, trapped all alone in a car, surrounded by dead relatives, pleading over the phone for rescue, a conversation that was recorded by the Palestinian Red Crescent, is among the most poignant and brazen crimes committed during Israel’s genocide.

According to Abou Jahjah, lawyers and activists determined to seek justice for Palestinians identified a gap in the efforts to hold Israel accountable that they could fill: pursuing individual soldiers who have in many cases posted evidence of their own crimes in Gaza on social media.

The organisation and its growing global network of volunteers and legal professionals has been able to collect evidence on approximately 1000 Israeli soldiers which has been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In addition to filing cases against Israeli soldiers traveling abroad, such as the one in Cyprus, and other recent examples in Brazil, Thailand and Italy, a main focus of the foundation is individuals who hold both Israeli and another nationality.

“Regarding the dual nationals, we are not under any restraint of time,” Abou Jahjah explained. “For example, if you’re Belgian, Belgium has jurisdiction over you.”

Renouncing their second nationality cannot shield these soldiers, according to Abou Jahjah, because courts will take into account their citizenship at the time the alleged crime was committed.

Abou Jahjah feels confident that with time, war criminals will be brought to justice. The organisation is also discussing expanding its work to the United States, where it may use civil litigation to hold perpetrators accountable.

Unsurprisingly, Israel and friendly governments are pushing back against The Hind Rajab Foundation’s work, and Abou Jahjah is now living under police protection.

“Things are kind of heavy on that level, but this will not disrupt our work,” Abou Jahjah said. “It’s kind of naive of them to think that the work of the foundation depends on a person.”

“We have legal teams across the planet, very capable people. Our data is spread across the planet,” Abou Jahjah added. “There’s nothing they can do. This is happening.”

Resistance report
In his resistance report, Elmer analysed videos of operations that took place before the ceasefire, but which were only released by the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, after it took effect.

He also previewed Saturday, 25 January, when nearly 200 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for four Israeli female soldiers.

There have been mixed messages, with Trump recently telling reporters he was not sure it would hold, but also intriguingly distancing himself from Israel. “That’s not our war, it’s their war.”

We took a look at what these comments, as well as a renewed commitment to implementing the deal expressed by Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy, tell us about what to expect.

As associate editor Asa Winstanley noted, “this ceasefire is not nothing.” It came about because the resistance wore down the Israeli army, and statements from Witkoff hinting that the US may even be open to talking to Hamas deserve close attention.

‘Largely silent’
By her own admission, Bishop Mariann Budde has remained “largely silent” about the genocide in Gaza, except when she was pushing Israeli propaganda or engaging in vague, liberal hand-wringing about “peace” and “love” without ever clearly condemning the perpetrators of mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians, demanding that the US stop the flow of weapons making it possible, or calling for accountability.

This type of evasion serves no one.

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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz