The ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel is primarily a welcome relief to the Palestinians in Gaza who are suffering from the worst and most horrific acts of genocide. For 15 months, they endured daily bombings, killings, threats, imprisonment, starvation, disease, and other hardships that most people can hardly even imagine, let alone live and survive.

The agreement will not enter into force until at least Sunday, January 19, 2025, not coincidentally one day before Donald Trump is inaugurated as President of the United States. While some attribute the success of the agreement to the Trump administration’s unique ability to pressure Israel, it is important to emphasize that Trump is the master of the political stage and undoubtedly wanted Israel to agree to a ceasefire just before his inauguration so that he could exploit it. To enhance his political capital. In other words, Trump did not pressure Netanyahu to accept the agreement because he really wanted peace and order, or even because he was truly committed to the three phases of the agreement. Rather, it is likely that he acted out of personal political calculations to enhance his reputation and advance his administration’s agenda.

We do not know what was said and what was agreed upon behind closed doors between the Trump team and Israeli officials, but what we can be certain of is that the Trump administration is not interested in establishing a fully sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, and does not oppose Israel’s plans to annex large areas of the West Bank. Western. In fact, some reports indicate that the Trump administration may have promised Netanyahu US support for annexing certain areas of the West Bank in exchange for his acceptance of the ceasefire agreement, which Israel may not even follow during the first phase. The scenario, if it actually comes true, is that Trump gets what he wants, which is political victory, and Netanyahu gets what he wants, which is the continuation of settler colonialism in Palestine.

The main reason for pessimism about this agreement is that the agreement does not guarantee the second and third stages, in which Israeli forces will withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip, and the displaced Palestinians will be allowed to return to all areas of the Gaza Strip, and the complete reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The sector will be implemented.

It is important to emphasize that over the course of 15 months of genocide, Gaza was reduced to rubble. Large parts of the Strip are uninhabitable. People cannot simply return to neighborhoods that have been completely destroyed, or buildings that do not have running water, a functioning sewage system, or access to electricity and fuel; There are no schools, universities, clinics or hospitals to use, companies to operate, etc. The economic system has collapsed, and people have become completely dependent on foreign aid to survive. Diseases are widespread, and many silent killers such as toxins from Israeli bombs spread through the atmosphere, soil and water of Gaza. Entire families have been wiped out, others have been torn apart by the indiscriminate Israeli attack, and many children have been orphaned. A large number of people have become exhausted and unable to support their families. It is not clear how “normal” life will be possible for Palestinians after all this devastation.

Questions about the governance of the sector remain ambiguous at best, and there is certainly nothing in the deal that addresses the underlying problem or leads to a long-term solution. The question of a long-term solution is crucial. The deal may, in the best-case scenario, end this process of genocide, but it certainly says nothing about the core of the problem: the structural genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinians.

The structural genocide of Palestinians, or what Palestinians call the ongoing Nakba, does not refer to one or two specific genocidal events such as the 1948 Nakba or the genocidal attack on Gaza, but rather to a genocidal settler-colonial structure that seeks to eliminate Palestinian sovereignty. Ending the right of Palestinians to return to their lands, expelling Palestinians from more of their lands, and demanding exclusive Israeli-Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea. This genocidal structure operates through a variety of methods of removal and expulsion.

It is clear that a genocidal process like the one the world witnessed and is still witnessing in Gaza, which involves mass massacres, mass displacement, and comprehensive destruction that makes the land uninhabitable, is one of those tools, but it is not the only one. There is also increasing displacement and expulsion; Preventing economic development and creating economic dependency; Erasing Palestinian history and culture; the fragmentation of the Palestinian population; Deprive those living under occupation of rights, freedoms and dignity such that they feel pressured to leave; Political obstruction of Palestinian sovereignty, etc.

So the real question becomes: Can a ceasefire, even if it goes through all three stages, end this structural genocide? The answer is clearly no because none of these other tools of structural genocide committed by Israel are addressed in the ceasefire agreement.

This structural genocide must be continually named, exposed and opposed. As long as Israel’s settler-colonial project remains hidden or downplayed in diplomatic and public discourse, the fundamental problem will continue unabated, and we will return to this moment of absolute terror and unspeakable suffering, assuming we gain significant relief from it by doing so. Ceasefire agreement. Without serious and sustained pressure on the Israeli state, and without the economic and political isolation of the Israeli state by states and institutions around the world until Israeli settler colonialism is dismantled, we will find ourselves enmeshed in a permanent structure of genocide, a pressure cooker that will eventually find its release in A war greater than complete annihilation. For the international community, now is not the time for celebration or self-congratulation, but rather the time to take serious political and economic measures against Israel in order to stop the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in all its various forms.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.