When I heard that the cease fire in Gaza had begun, I was reminded of a family photo.
In the picture, Sabreen Sakani smiles contentedly at her bright eyed 3-year-old daughter, who sits snugly on her father’s lap, both of them looking out at the photographer. It’s a picturesque family setting, with a Christmas motif behind them, complete with red stockings hanging on the wall and holiday ornaments. The picture is not dated, but it had to have been in late 2022, and Sabreen probably already knew she was pregnant with her second child.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
In April 2023, Sabreen, her husband Shukri and 3-year-old daughter, Malak, were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their family home in a designated safe zone in Rafah, Sabreen at that time 30 weeks pregnant. That unborn child, named Rouh Sabreen (the soul of Sabreen), would be rescued by doctors performing a posthumous cesarean section -- captured by an NBC News crew — on her mother’s dead body. Little orphan Rouh Sabreen died five days later.
Sabreen and her family are relatives of my wife, and the tragic news devastated us — again. Our family has been especially hard hit by Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, with more than 120 family members being killed by the more than 85,000 tons of bombs Israel has dropped on the 2.2 million people of Gaza, the equivalent of almost six Hiroshima atomic bombs.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The days after: Cautious optimism.
Fifteen months after the war in Gaza began, the day after has — hopefully — finally arrived. Lost along the way has been the lives of more than 47,000 Palestinians, along with more than 1,000 Israelis. The cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel, the first phase of which went into effect Sunday, hopefully brings to an end Israel’s devastation of Gaza.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but, based on painful experience, I also am well aware that Israel’s bombardment and killing of Palestinians can easily be restarted, especially considering that the extremist elements of the most right-wing Israeli government in history stands opposed to the cease fire and continues to call for the continuation of the atrocities in Gaza.
But for today, at least, there is a palpable sense of relief, even as the monumental reconstruction process is set to begin. Most important and urgent, the cease-fire deal calls for Israel to finally allow humanitarian aid — 600 trucks per day — to flow freely to all parts of Gaza, ending starvation as a war policy.
As Palestinians flow out of their tent camps and stream back to their homes — 90% of which have been destroyed or damaged by Israel’s carpet-bombing campaign — they will find all manner of infrastructure devastated. Hospitals, schools, universities, churches, mosques, water and electric infrastructure. All must be rebuilt.
As the process of reconstructing Gaza begins, so, too, must the process of rehabilitating Israel begin, one that includes recognizing Palestinians as human beings and granting them equal access to the political and economic opportunities so easily afforded to citizens of Israel.
The way forward
As devastating and bleak as the past 471 days of the Israeli onslaught have been, one can point to the occasional instances that offer hope and a way forward. Chief among them has been the alliance that has grown among Muslims, Christians and Jews, of all political stripes, who recognize that Israel’s genocidal acts are in no way representative of American and Western ideals. That those who would perpetrate one of the worst violations of human rights since the genocides of Darfur in Sudan, Myanmar, Rwanda and Ethiopia must first be challenged and stopped and then be held to account. In that spirit, this nascent coalition must devote itself to altering the United States’ blind support and rearming of an extremist Israeli government that has abandoned respect for the standards of international law.
As the Trump administration takes power, it has an opportunity to forever change the face of the Middle East and usher in true democracy in Israel and the Palestinian territories. If Israel is to continue to occupy and subjugate the Palestinians in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza while continuing to illegally expropriate their land, it must also usher in true democracy by extending Israeli citizenship and the right to vote to all the peoples of that land, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity. Israel must turn away from and dismantle the apartheid system it has created to protect its internationally recognized illegal settlements, and allow all people equal rights under the law, including the right to vote and be represented at the national level.
To that end, American Jews and other supporters of Israel must recognize that Israel’s actions in the past 15 months in Gaza are in no way representative of the noble values of Judaism — or any other religion for that matter. Support of Israel — whether by Jews or Christians, Republican or Democrat — must be conditioned on Israel abiding by international law and the Geneva Conventions, which serve as the bulwark of the current international order. Accordingly, Israel must be held accountable for its capricious and reckless disregard for international law, as has been pointed out by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and countless other organizations and institutions.
It is incumbent that those who support Israel demand that it shed its status as a pariah state, and to do that is to recognize the indigenous Palestinian population, humanize them and grant them the right afforded to all Israelis, namely the right to live in peace and have a voice in the political process that shapes their future. To do less — and to consign the Palestinians to continued subjugation under an apartheid system that has relegated them to second-class status with no say in the political decisions that shape their and their children’s lives — is to go back to a pre-Oct. 7, 2023, status quo, one equally unacceptable today as it was on Oct. 6, 2023.
Nidal M. Ibrahim is former executive director of the Arab American Institute and former publisher of Arab American Business Magazine.
About the Author
