The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel is first and foremost a welcome relief for the Palestinians in Gaza who are suffering the most brutal and horrific genocide. For 15 months, they have endured bombings, killings, threats, imprisonment, hunger, disease and other unimaginable sufferings every day for ordinary people, let alone survival and survival.

The agreement will not come into effect until at least Sunday, January 19, 2025, exactly one day before Donald Trump takes office as President of the United States. While some attribute the deal’s success to the Trump administration’s unique ability to pressure Israel, it is crucial to stress that Trump is a master of political theater and undoubtedly wanted Israel to agree to a ceasefire before he took office, So that he can use this to enhance his political capital. In other words, Trump did not force Netanyahu to accept the deal because he truly wanted peace and order, or even because he was truly committed to all three phases of the deal. Rather, his actions are likely motivated by personal political calculations to enhance his reputation and advance his administration’s agenda.

We don’t know what was said privately and what agreements were reached between Trump’s team and Israeli officials, but what we do know for sure is that the Trump administration is not interested in establishing a fully sovereign Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, and does not Opposes Israel’s plan to annex large areas of the West Bank. In fact, some reports suggest that the Trump administration may have promised Netanyahu U.S. support for annexing certain areas of the West Bank in exchange for his acceptance of a ceasefire that Israel may not even comply with after the first phase the agreement. If that happens, Trump will get what he wants, which is a political victory, and Netanyahu will get what he wants, which is continued settler colonization of Palestine.

The main reason for pessimism about the deal is that it does not guarantee phases two and three, in which Israeli forces will fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip and displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to all areas of the Strip, as well as the Gaza Strip comprehensive reconstruction. Peeling will take place.

It needs to be emphasized that after more than 15 months of genocide, Gaza has been reduced to rubble. Much of the Las Vegas Strip is uninhabitable. People cannot simply return to flattened neighborhoods, buildings with no running water, functioning sewage systems, or electricity and fuel; no schools, universities, clinics or hospitals to use, no businesses to operate, etc. wait. The economic system has collapsed, and people’s basic survival is completely dependent on foreign aid. Disease is widespread and many silent killers, such as toxins from Israeli bombs, are circulating in Gaza’s atmosphere, soil and water. Israel’s indiscriminate attacks have resulted in the total annihilation of many families, the fragmentation of others, and the orphaning of many children. Many people became weak and unable to provide for their families. After all this destruction, it’s unclear how Palestinians can live a “normal” life.

Questions about the governance of the Las Vegas Strip remain murky at best, and there’s certainly nothing in the agreement that addresses the core issues or leads to long-term solutions. Long-term problem solving is critical. In the best case scenario, the agreement may end this specific act of genocide, but it certainly does not address the heart of the problem: Israel’s structural genocide against the Palestinians.

The structural genocide against the Palestinians, what Palestinians call the ongoing Nakba, does not just refer to one or two specific genocidal events, such as the Nakba of 1948 or the genocidal attacks on Gaza; Seek to eliminate the settler colonial genocidal structure of Palestinian sovereignty, end Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland, expel Palestinians from ever more lands, and demand exclusive Israeli and Jewish sovereignty from rivers to seas. This genocidal structure operates through various methods of elimination and expulsion.

The genocide the world has witnessed and continues to witness in Gaza, involving mass killings, mass displacement and mass destruction that renders the land uninhabitable, is clearly one of these means, but not the only one. There is also progressive displacement and expulsion; preventing economic development and creating economic dependence; erasing Palestinian history and culture; fragmenting the Palestinian population; depriving people living under occupation of their rights, freedoms and dignity so that they feel forced to leave; and political obstruction Palestinian sovereignty and so on.

So the real question is: even if a ceasefire goes through all three phases, can this structural genocide be ended? The answer is obviously no, since there are no other means of structural genocide by Israel involved in the ceasefire.

This structural genocide must be continually named, exposed and opposed. As long as Israel’s settler colonial project remains obscured or downplayed in diplomacy and public discourse, the core problems will continue unabated, and assuming we even get a significant reprieve with this move, we’ll be back to this absolute A moment of horror and indescribable pain. ceasefire agreement. Without serious and sustained pressure on the State of Israel, and without states and institutions around the world seeking to economically and politically isolate the State of Israel until Israeli settler colonialism is dismantled, we will find ourselves trapped in a permanent structure of genocide , a pressure cooker that will eventually be unleashed in a larger war of total annihilation. For the international community, now is not a time for celebration or self-congratulation, but for serious political and economic action against Israel to stop the ongoing genocide in all its different forms against the Palestinian people.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.