We have been watching as Gaza was destroyed. In my opinion, the Israel, Hamas cease-fire is too little, too late. The January 15, 2025 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas presented the best, though precarious, opportunity to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages after 15 months of conflict. Even a temporary cessation of hostilities, allowing for the liberation of hostages and a surge in life-saving humanitarian assistance to Gaza, is a welcome reprieve from the horrors and sacrifices of warfare. A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas is a welcome reprieve from the catastrophe we have seen in the Middle East. It is also a tragic reminder of the lives lost and the ones that the fighting has permanently altered. The world, unfortunately, watched as Israel decimated Gaza following the deadly October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, although one new analysis estimates the number is closer to 64,000. Nearly 2 million Palestinians, accounting for 90 percent of Gaza’s population, have been displaced. While Hamas’s October 7 actions should be condemned, we cannot lose sight of the Palestinian lives lost. The rest of the world watched as thousands of civilians died, hospitals bombed and Gaza reduced to rubble. I admire Western democracy, condemn suicide bombings and yearn for Arabs and Jews to live in peace and harmony. The ceasefire is welcome, but there is no clear path forward and not much to celebrate. The Gaza war has been a tragedy and a failure for all. After the Hamas October 2023 attack, Israel waged a war that martyred tens of thousands of Palestinians without so far accomplishing its goals either of completely dismantling Hamas or of freeing all hostages. Americans enabled this killing by providing billions of dollars in weaponry, making a mockery of lofty talk of a “rules-based international order.” What has all this war achieved? Thousands of Palestinian children are amputees and 377 aid workers have been killed. I fear that the message of futility of endless war has not gotten through to either Israel or Hamas. A reciprocal process of dehumanisation has led each side to conclude that the only thing the other understands is brute force. So both have engaged in horrific violence, with credible accounts of torture, rape and atrocities by each side. As per the UN chief for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, more than 3,000 Palestinian children under the age of 5 have been killed, starved and frozen to death. Israel has not shown much humanity toward the children of Gaza. A Times investigation found that the Israeli authorities severely weakened protections for civilians during its bombings. Now we have a cease-fire, but is it more than a pause? I normally corner the market for hope, but I find it hard to be optimistic about Middle East peace. Meanwhile, negotiators on Gaza have pushed the knottiest issues to later phase of the agreement. That is what Middle East negotiators always do, because it is the only way to get anywhere. I fear we will not reach the end of Phase 2 and Phase 3 of this cease-fire agreement. The people of Palestine are entitled to heritage of their land as a free people with dignity, not living in apartheid and depending on food aids from donor agencies. There have been sustained liberation struggles by the Palestinians led by Hamas. Hamas is an idea; you cannot kill an idea! Hamas militants are not villains; they are freedom fighters and heroes to the people of Palestine and the Arab world. The ceasefire agreement extracted in Doha between Israel and Hamas is not going to signal the end to crises between Palestine and Israel or peace in the Middle East. It is wishful thinking that Israel and Palestine will be at peace some day; not with that kind of brutal savagery and resentment that they hold against one another. Hamas recruits 15,000 fighters despite Gaza war. Gaza is in ruins but Hamas is still alive. Who has won the war? Is it the side that killed more people or is it the side that destroyed more enemy sites or is the side that simply survived? In Gaza, this is a question worth looking at. When the war started, Israel had massive but vague goals, they wanted to eradicate Hamas, to destroy their fighters and leadership. 15 months on, have they eradicated Hamas? I do not think so. Intelligence agency reports the opposite. Hamas has recruited 15,000 soldiers since December 2023. Let us put this number in context. Israel claims to have killed 20,000 Hamas soldiers; however, Hamas claims to have recruited 15,000 fighters in the same time period. This is clearly what Netanyahu had planned. He states not what Israel’s goal was. Even, Netanyahu said in his UN address last year as, “if Hamas stays in power, it will rearm, regroup and attack us again and again as it has vowed to do. Hamas has got to go.” But Hamas has not gone. They are definitely weaker though than in October 2023 but are controlling and parading through Gaza. Which makes one wonder what did Israel achieve? Netanyahu was offered this same deal in May 2024 but refused. Seven months later, he has accepted the very same deal. The cost of Netanyahu’s deal is 46,000 dead Palestinians. In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave. Rebuilding Gaza, if the ceasefire reaches its final phase, will take several years at least. Major questions about Gaza’s future, political and otherwise, remain unresolved. The Gaza ceasefire is huge news. But the costs of its delay have been devastating. The Palestinians express incredulity at how the previous Biden administration had continued to publicly blame Hamas as the obstacle to a ceasefire, when it was clear to all involved that Netanyahu was the problem. So long as the Palestinian people live under occupation, and the Israeli government steadily consolidates that occupation as a single undemocratic state, neither Israelis nor Palestinians will ever know the security and peace that both people desire and deserve. The path toward both will require a level of vision and courage that is currently in very short supply. The writer is an ex-banker and a freelance columnist. She can be reached at tbjs.cancer.1954 @gmail.com