On Thursday morning, I didn’t wake up to the sound of explosions, but to my brother shouting: “It’s over! It’s over!” For a moment, I thought I was dreaming. I wondered: what is happening? Has another loved one been targeted? What is over? Then he told me that Donald Trump had said it. “I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” the president wrote on his social media. For the first day in a long time, people in Gaza woke up to news that could be called happy. The ceasefire went into effect at noon. The sound of Israeli warplanes still echoed in the sky, but, for once, they didn’t feel frightening.
The first phase of the agreement only includes the exchange of prisoners. That means 20 Israeli hostages in Gaza thought to be alive and up to 1,950 Palestinians from Gaza. Israel has arrested hundreds of us over the past two years without reason. Among them are a relative of mine, detained after Israel’s bombing of the Tel al-Sultan displacement camp earlier this year, and Dr Hossam Abu Safieh, taken from his workplace while performing humanitarian duties in Kamal Adwan hospital.
