For over two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, the term “ceasefire” often feels like a cruel illusion. While such agreements should offer a pause from attacks and bombings by Israel and a path to recovery for the Palestinians, instead they have repeatedly been followed by gunfire, drone strikes, and sniper attacks. The psychological and emotional burden on Gaza’s population is staggering, especially among children, who have grown up knowing nothing but bombings, displacement, and fear. Instead of learning and playing, children like 11-year-old Layan now instinctively duck for cover at loud noises. “My daughter doesn’t sleep without the light on,” her mother says. “She holds her little brother’s hand every night because she thinks that might protect them if the house gets bombed again.”
In the early hours of January 20, 2025, the Barbakh family in Rafah, Gaza, rejoiced at the news of a ceasefire by Israel. Thirteen-year-old Zakariya, born with a single lung, was especially hopeful. “Mom, now we can go look for my lungs!” he exclaimed, dreaming of a future where he could receive the medical attention he desperately needed. Tragically, less than 24 hours later, Zakariya was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while searching for firewood near his home. His mother, overwhelmed with grief, questioned, “He didn’t die from his disease; he ended up dying at the hands of the occupation. What did this child do?” Zakariya’s death is not an isolated incident. In the days following the ceasefire announcement, Israeli forces reportedly bombed and unleashed huge airstrikes on tents, killing many Palestinians including children, in separate incidents across Gaza. The ceasefire, intended to bring respite to the ground zero of suffering and resistance, has instead been marred by continued violence and attacks on Palestine. Israeli military operations have persisted, with airstrikes targeting various locations in Gaza. While Palestinians bear the brunt of bombings and blockades, the U.S. continues to provide diplomatic cover and billions in military aid to Israel, ensuring its impunity. The US administration, despite hollow rhetoric about “de-escalation,” has refused to impose conditions on military assistance or hold Israel accountable. Instead, it fast-tracks weapons shipments, including precision-guided ammunitions used in airstrikes that kill and shred the flesh of Palestinian women and children, or leave survivors limbless beneath the rubble of their own homes. This underscores a fundamental truth: U.S. Imperialism and Zionist settler- colonialism are intertwined, both relying on violence to maintain domination over oppressed peoples.
On April 18, 2025, Israeli airstrikes struck approximately 40 different locations across the Gaza Strip, killing over 60 Palestinians. This massive wave of bombings came despite ongoing ceasefire talks, further exposing Israel concealing genocide under the promise of ceasefire. Earlier in the month, on April 13, Israel carried out a devastating attack on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. Operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, the hospital was one of the few remaining centres offering critical care to injured people in Gaza. The attack displaced over 100 patients and forced the hospital to suspend its services. On the same day, another Israeli airstrike hit the Kuwaiti Field Hospital in the Muwasi area of southern Gaza, killing many Palestinians. The emotional trauma is compounded by the physical toll of a strangled healthcare system. Gaza’s hospitals are barely functioning. Medical staff operate in conditions most doctors in the world would consider a nightmare: lack of electricity, damaged facilities, and critically short supplies of medicines and equipment. During the most recent ceasefire period, hospitals that were already overwhelmed by Israeli attack injuries could not even receive electricity for incubators and life-support machines due to border restrictions and blockades. Cancer patients, dialysis patients, and children needing urgent surgeries are among those most at risk.
Malnutrition is also rising at alarming rates, especially among children. According to the UN, over 50% of children in Gaza suffer from some form of malnutrition due to food shortages exacerbated by the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and limited humanitarian access. Even during so-called “ceasefire windows,” shipments of food and aid are denied entry or often delayed, leaving families to go hungry in neighborhoods surrounded by rubble. Psychologists working in Gaza speak of “generational grief”, a phenomenon where children not only carry their own fear and pain, but also the mourning of their parents and grandparents who have seen decades of destruction and pain. Families who thought they were safe during a ceasefire often find themselves mourning new victims just days later, as shelling resumes without warning. Even as Israel continues its brutal assault on Gaza, Netanyahu faces increasing unrest in Tel Aviv where protests have intensified, with demonstrators demanding his resignation and a ceasefire deal. While these demonstrations remain focused on Israeli interests rather than Palestinian liberation, they reflect growing frustration with the government’s failures.
In Gaza, people don’t talk about peace anymore. They talk about whether the airstrike will come before or after the children fall asleep. The struggle does not end with a ceasefire. It ends when Palestine is free, when the Palestine’s stolen children brutalized in Israel’s torture dungeons and rotten prisons are unchained and return home; only when every inch of soil, from the river to the sea, is wrenched from Zionist claws and reclaimed by the people of Palestine, only when the last settler is expelled and the last prison wall crumbles will the land breathe free. Workers, students, and oppressed communities worldwide must stand together in solidarity against colonialism in all its forms.
