After two long and excruciating years of war in the Gaza Strip, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has come into effect. There have been at least 67,938 deaths reported over the last two years. What does the ceasefire agreement actually mean? It states that Israeli troops will be withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, Israeli hostages, deceased or alive, will be released, and Palestinian prisoners will be released.
As thousands of Palestinians are released from prison in Israel, they return home to absolute destruction. Almost all of them are homeless. Most of their family members are in critical condition or deceased. A former prisoner named Aldi Abu Taha says, “I entered Gaza today and found it to be like a scene of Judgement Day. This is not Gaza. Where is the world? Where are all the people?” Despite the tragedies they returned to, large crowds greeted the freed prisoners in Beitunia in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Khan Younis in Gaza. They were given traditional keffiyeh scarves as a show of nationalist pride. Some were lifted onto people’s shoulders. While others sank into chairs, exhausted.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is the longest-running and most violent dispute in the world. The start of their conflict started almost a whole century ago in 1948 because after the Arab-Israeli War, the Gaza Strip came under Egyptian control and absorbed a large population of Palestinian refugees. But what caused the recent war that happened on October 7, 2023? Israel was struck surprisingly by Hamas. At around 6:30 a.m., there were thousands of rockets launched into Israel. Once the militants were inside, they attacked dozens of communities and military bases. During these attacks, they also went after a music festival near Re’im, killing 360 people. Militants also took 251 hostages and took them back to Gaza. After this attack, Israel retaliated and launched a massive military offensive to destroy the Gaza Strip and expectantly get the hostages back.
Categories:
Israel and Hamas War: Israel Ceases Fire
After 2 consecutive years war, Israel comes to a ceasefire agreement.
Story continues below advertisement
Donate to GHS Stampede
Your donation will support the student journalists of Graham High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.
More to Discover
About the Contributor
Ariana Harrington, Contributor
Ariana Harrington is a senior in high school, even though she’s only 17, but it’s okay, she can’t help it. She’s not currently in any extracurricular activities, but plans on being in the newspaper and maybe even Art Club. Ariana’s very outgoing, but it takes her a little bit and open up to get to that point. She’s also very caring and loves taking care of people in their time of need. However, she’s not the best at comforting people when they are crying; she kind of just waits until they’re done to talk, but she’ll definitely help! The main thing she enjoys doing in her spare time are going on walks or hanging out with her aunt. Art, animals, makeup, and music are the main things that she likes. Anytime she walks into a pet store of any kind, she will be found holding a snake. She dislikes overtly negative people; if they’re going through something, she understands, but being negative for no reason really gets on her nerves. After she graduates, she plans on going to cosmetology school to pursue a career in Esthetics.