Hamas and Israel have reached a precarious moment with the ceasefire accord they agreed on 15 January. The agreement, which paused the war, contains three phases, each lasting 42 days. Phase one provided for a staggered Israeli-hostages-for-Palestinian-prisoners exchange, the redeployment of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) from Gaza’s heavily populated parts to a narrow buffer zone inside its borders, the unimpeded return of the approximately 700,000 people who were displaced from the territory’s north and a substantial increase in the inflow of humanitarian aid trucks, which Israel’s severe wartime restrictions had prevented.
For Gazans, phase one amounted, literally, to a difference between life and death. It stopped the war Israel launched after Hamas’s 7 October surprise attack, during which 1,200 Israelis were killed and another 250 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliation turned Gaza into a hellscape. It left more than 48,000 Palestinians dead—more than half of them women, children, and the elderly—and destroyed or damaged 60 per cent of Gaza’s buildings, creating 42 million tonnes of debris. Nine out of ten Gazans fled to other parts of the Strip at least once, and many were forced to move multiple times. The draconian restrictions Israel imposed on essential inbound supplies created severe shortages of food, water, and medicine, made worse by the IDF destruction of critical infrastructure. Consequently, hunger, malnourishment and disease were widespread.
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