Truce in Gaza. Cartoon of 18/01/2025 in CTXT
The truce agreement was approved with 24 votes in favour and eight against after a long meeting that lasted well into the early hours of Saturday morning.
The ceasefire will come into effect at 8.30am Gaza-Israeli time (06:30 GMT) on Sunday 19 January.
The agreement comes after five months of bombardment and all kinds of atrocities with a sad toll of more than 47,000 Palestinians killed, more than half of the buildings destroyed and 92% of the houses destroyed leaving the Strip in a worrying humanitarian crisis.
In a first phase, which could last six months, a thousand Palestinian prisoners will be exchanged for Israeli hostages; curiously, the media only call the Israelis "hostages". The first exchange could take place as early as Sunday 19.
Two lists have been circulated: that of the 33 hostages to be released during the first phase of the agreement and that of the first 95 Palestinian prisoners to be released on Sunday.
Over approximately a month and a half, Israel will be withdrawing its troops from Gaza, allowing displaced people from the north of the Strip to return to what remains of what were once their homes.
The ceasefire, in the absence of a final peace agreement, is always good news, but the situation on the ground is dramatic and humanitarian organisations estimate that after fifteen months of bombardment, at least 100 trucks a day with aid of all kinds are now urgently needed to enter the area.
The Palestinians' joy at the end of the bombing and the withdrawal of almost all the soldiers of the genocidal state of Israel is more than understandable, but this does not mean an end to the occupation or to Israel's colonising aspirations. Not to mention that the same people who now claim to have made the truce possible are the same people who have not only done nothing to prevent the genocide, but have facilitated it by arming the occupying army and legitimising its crimes.
