The so-called Gaza ceasefire was not a genuine cessation of hostility, but a strategic, cynical shift in the Israeli genocide and ongoing campaign of destruction.<\/p>\n
Starting<\/a> on 10 October, the first day of the announced ceasefire, Israel transitioned tactics: moving from indiscriminate aerial bombardment to the calculated, engineered demolishing<\/a> of homes and vital infrastructure. Satellite images, corroborated by almost hourly media and ground reports, confirmed this methodical change.<\/p>\n As direct combat forces seemingly withdrew to the adjacent \u201cGaza envelope\u201d region, a new vanguard of Israeli soldiers advanced<\/a> into the area east of the so-called Yellow Line, to systematically dismantle whatever semblance of life, rootedness, and civilisation remained standing following the Israeli genocide. Between 10 October and 2 November, Israel demolished<\/a> 1,500 buildings, utilising its specialized military engineering units.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ceasefire agreement divided Gaza into two halves: one west of the Yellow Line, where the survivors of the Israeli genocide were confined, and a larger one, east of the line, where the Israeli army maintained an active military presence and continued to operate with impunity.<\/p>\n If Israel truly harbored the intention of, indeed, evacuating the area following the agreed-upon second phase of the ceasefire, it would not be actively pursuing the systematic, structural destruction of this already devastated region. Clearly, Israel\u2019s motives are far more insidious, centered on rendering the region perpetually uninhabitable.<\/p>\n Aside from leveling infrastructure, Israel is also carrying out<\/a> a continuous campaign of airstrikes and naval attacks, relentlessly targeting Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south. Later, and with greater intensity, Israel also began carrying out attacks in areas that were, in theory, meant to be under the control of Gazans.<\/p>\n According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 260 Palestinians have been killed<\/a> and 632 wounded since the commencement of the so-called ceasefire.<\/p>\n In practice, this ceasefire amounts to a one-sided truce, where Israel can carry out a relentless, low-grade war on Gaza, while Palestinians are systematically denied the right to respond or defend themselves. Gaza is thus condemned to relive the same tragic cycle of violent history: a defenseless, impoverished region trapped under the boot of Israel\u2019s military calculations, which consistently operate outside the periphery of international law.<\/p>\n Before the existence of Israel atop the ruins<\/a> of historic Palestine in 1948, the demarcation of Gaza\u2019s borders was not driven by military calculations. The Gaza region, one of the world\u2019s most ancient civilisations, was always seamlessly incorporated into a larger geographical socio-economic space.<\/p>\n READ:\u00a0UN humanitarian office warns Gaza situation remains \u2018extremely dire\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Before the British named it the Gaza District<\/a> (1920-1948), the Ottomans considered it a sub-district (Kaza) within the larger Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem<\/a> \u2013 the Jerusalem Independent District.<\/p>\n But even the British designation of Gaza did not isolate it from the rest of the Palestinian geography, as the borders of the new district reached Al-Majdal (today\u2019s Ashkelon) in the north, Bir al-Saba\u2019 (Beersheba) in the east, and the Rafah line at the Egyptian border.<\/p>\n Following the 1949 Armistice Agreements<\/a>, which codified the post-Nakba lines, the collective torment of Gaza, as illustrated in its shrinking boundaries, began in earnest. The expansive Gaza District was brutally reduced to the Gaza Strip, a mere 1.3 per cent of the overall size of historic Palestine. Its population, due to the Nakba, had explosively grown with over 200,000 desperate refugees<\/a> who, along with several generations of their descendants, have been trapped and confined in this tiny strip of land for over 77 years.<\/p>\n When Israel permanently occupied<\/a> Gaza in June 1967, the lines separating it from the rest of the Palestinian and Arab geography became an integral, permanent part of Gaza itself. Soon after its occupation of the Strip, Israel began restricting the movement of Palestinians further, sectionalising Gaza into several regions. The size and location of these internal lines were largely determined by two paramount motives: to fragment Palestinian society to ensure its subjugation, and to create military \u2018buffer zones\u2019 around Israeli military encampments and illegal settlements.<\/p>\n Between 1967 and Israel\u2019s so-called \u2018disengagement\u2019<\/a> from Gaza, Israel had built 21 illegal settlements and numerous military corridors and checkpoints, effectively bisecting the Strip and confiscating nearly 40 percent of its land mass.<\/p>\n Following the redeployment, Israel retained absolute, unilateral control over Gaza\u2019s borders, sea access, airspace, and even the population registry. Additionally, Israel created another internal border within Gaza, a heavily fortified \u201cbuffer zone<\/a>\u201d snaking across the northern and eastern borders. This new area has witnessed the cold-blooded killing of hundreds of unarmed protesters and the wounding of thousands who dared to approach what was often referred to as the \u201ckill zone.\u201d<\/p>\n