\n<\/p>\n
Gaza City \u2013<\/strong> Peace, in both the physical and mental sense, feels far away in Gaza.<\/p>\n A ceasefire may have officially been in place since October 10, but Israel continues to conduct occasional attacks, with more than 450 Palestinians killed in the three months since.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n It is not just the attacks \u2013 daily life in Gaza is also shaped by siege and displacement, and a sense that living conditions will not improve any time soon.<\/p>\n Amid this exhaustion came the announcement on Wednesday by the United States of the beginning of the ceasefire\u2019s \u201csecond phase\u201d. This phase is about \u201cmoving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction\u201d, said US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in a social media post.<\/p>\n The new phase includes a new Palestinian technocratic administration, overseen by an international \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d, chaired by US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n But while everything may sound workable on paper, the reaction from Palestinians in Gaza \u2013 one that mixes cautious hope and deep scepticism \u2013 is shaped by their lived experience since the beginning of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of political decisions are distant from the reality faced in Gaza\u2026 our daily life that is filled with blockades, fear, loss, tents, and a terrible humanitarian situation,\u201d said Arwa Ashour, a freelance journalist and writer based in Gaza City. \u201cEven when decisions are made to ease the suffering, they are obstructed by the Israeli occupation authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople want everything back like it was before the war: schools, hospitals, travel,\u201d Ashour said. \u201cIf the Board of Peace is going to resolve all these crises, then we welcome it. But if it\u2019s unable to do so, then what is its benefit?\u201d<\/p>\n Ashour explained that after two years of war and more than 18 years of governance in the Palestinian enclave by Hamas, there is a desire for change in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople want to be part of the process of creating the future, not only to accept the implementation of decisions that have already been made,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The governance model envisaged in the second phase of the ceasefire plan does have a Palestinian component.<\/p>\n Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority (PA) deputy minister, will head the Palestinian technocratic committee that will manage daily life. But that committee will be overseen by the Board of Peace, to be led by Bulgaria\u2019s former foreign and defence minister, Nickolay Mladenov.<\/p>\n Mladenov \u2013 who has worked as a United Nations diplomat in the Middle East \u2013 is seen as an administrator, but one who may not be capable of pushing back against Israel and representing Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cDecisions made without the meaningful participation of those most affected reproduce the same power structures that enabled this occupation and genocide,\u201d Maha Hussaini, head of media and public engagement at Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera. \u201cExcluding Palestinians in Gaza from shaping their future strips them of agency and turns reconstruction and governance into tools of control rather than recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n For Hussaini, justice after a war in which Israel has killed at least 71,400 Palestinians and destroyed vast swathes of the territory cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n \u201cPeace does not mean silence after bombardment, nor a pause between wars,\u201d she said. \u201cFor Gaza, peace means safety, dignity, and freedom from collective punishment. It also means justice: recognising the harm suffered, restoring the rights of victims, and holding perpetrators accountable. Without justice, what is called \u2018peace\u2019 becomes only a temporary arrangement that leaves the genocide intact.\u201d<\/p>\n Palestinian political analyst Ahmed Fayyad said that ultimately, Palestinians have little choice but to go along with Mladenov and the Board of Peace model, even if there is a sense that they are handing over the administration of Gaza to foreigners.<\/p>\n \u201cPalestinians don\u2019t have the luxury of choice to accept or refuse Mladenov,\u201d Fayyad said. \u201cNo one \u2013 the Palestinian Authority and the Arab [countries] \u2013 wants to disrupt the agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n But Fayyad described several potential stumbling blocks, including internal Palestinian divisions between the Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, and its longtime rival Hamas.<\/p>\n The analyst also believes that the demilitarisation of Hamas \u2013 which the US and Israel insist upon, but which Hamas says is an internal Palestinian matter \u2013 will also likely cause problems.<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael might attach the demilitarisation to the reconstruction or the opening of [border] crossings, and investments in the education and health sectors,\u201d Fayyad said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is complicated, and it is all subject to Israeli security conditions,\u201d he continued, adding that the formation of a new Palestinian security force that met Israel\u2019s onerous requirements would take a long time because the process was not spelled out in Trump\u2019s ceasefire plan.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will reflect negatively on the civilians who yearn for an improvement to their daily harsh reality and suffering in tents, amid outbreaks of disease and the collapse of all economic and social life,\u201d Fayyad said.<\/p>\n The announcement of the second phase of the ceasefire \u2013 a move that should have been seen as a sign of positive improvement \u2013 seems disconnected to the reality on the ground for Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is more fear than hope,\u201d said Hussaini, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. \u201cNot because people in Gaza lack resilience or imagination, but because experience has taught them that moments labelled as \u2018turning points\u2019 rarely translate into real protection or accountability. Hope exists, but it is fragile and constantly undermined by the absence of justice and by decisions imposed from outside.\u201d<\/p>\n And the most influential outside force is Israel \u2013 the power that has bombarded Gaza not just in the last two years but in several previous wars, and controls access to Gaza, and the air and sea that surrounds it.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Israel tries its best to distance Gaza from any political solutions, which would end with Palestine\u2019s right to self-determination,\u201d said the analyst Fayyad. \u201cIsrael wants Gaza to be a disarmed zone; its people\u2019s biggest concerns are the daily struggles of life, without caring about any political solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIsrael doesn\u2019t want any future political solutions for Gaza. These are the concerns of the Authority and the Palestinians. Israel doesn\u2019t want independence in decision-making in Palestine,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n The daily struggle of life is all Sami Balousha, a 30-year-old computer programmer from Gaza City, can think about.<\/p>\n Balousha described peace not as a political agreement, conducted in far-off meeting rooms, but as physical safety and a routine.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is simply to sleep at night assured that I wake up the next morning, not dead, or I won\u2019t get up in the middle of the night because of the sound of bombing,\u201d Balousha said. \u201cIt is getting up the next morning and going to work, and being sure that I will be able to get home safely, not suspiciously turning around all the time, afraid of a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n Balousha said that he had been displaced with his family 17 times \u2013 moving from place to place to escape Israeli attacks. The mental turmoil of the past two years means he no longer looks to the future, and instead focuses on the here and now.<\/p>\n \u201cTomorrow is far away, and I have no control over it,\u201d Balousha said. \u201cWe can\u2019t imagine the near future and plan it. We\u2019ve been stuck in this loop for two years. The reality has always been strangely hard and unexpected.\u201d<\/p>\n Like many others, Balousha feels disconnected from international decision-making.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t have a deep understanding of the Palestinians\u2019 needs in Gaza. I don\u2019t think that we are being listened to seriously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It is why he ultimately does not have much faith in any solutions being cooked up for Gaza, and is instead fearful that his current horror will become a permanent reality.<\/p>\n \u201cI am afraid that the coming generations accept the new reality of living in an open grave, to accept the tent as a home, to grow up not knowing the great days of Gaza,\u201d Balousha said.\u00a0\u201cPeople only want an end to this all, no matter what the solution is, no matter who makes it, all that matters is the end of this misery at any cost. People are tired, so tired of this all, but want to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gaza City \u2013 Peace, in both the physical and mental sense, feels far away in Gaza. A ceasefire may have officially been in place since October 10, but Israel continues to conduct occasional attacks, with more than 450 Palestinians killed in the three months since. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Palestinians excluded?<\/h2>\n
Israeli spoiler<\/h2>\n
Reality of life in Gaza<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"