The Cease Fire in Gaza
Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2025 Blog #40
October 13, 2025
The Cease Fire in Gaza
The cease fire in Gaza has now taken effect and we await the release of the hostages taken by Hamas from Israel. The numbers that I read about in the news media indicate that 48 hostages (only 20 still alive) will be exchanged for 2,000 Palestinians held by Israeli authorities. I am thrilled that these hostages, both alive and deceased, will be returned to their grieving families. I can’t, and hopefully never will, understand the pain of worrying about a family member being held hostage by a terrorist group. I have a few questions about this Gazan cease fire.
Why was this cease fire deal not agreed to months or a year ago? I remember when the first cease fire went into effect and some of the Israeli hostages were released. I was a bit optimistic at that point that this might bring an end to the slaughter in Gaza. The cease fire did not hold, and not all of the hostages were released. I wonder how seriously the Israeli government tried to get hostages released. There was a similar deal one year ago. Could it not have been carried out with real effort from the government of Israel. Was the prime minister really trying to get the hostages home? If not, I hope that he is held accountable.
Will this cease fire lead to peace in the Holy Land? I read on several websites that this cease fire would lead to peace in this region. I’m sorry if I sound jaded and cynical, but I don’t believe a word of that. I don’t believe that peace will ever come until the Palestinians are granted an autonomous homeland.
Palestinians, who have lived in this land for thousands of years, now mostly live in areas that are occupied by the Israeli army. In the West Bank, utilities and the internet are controlled by the Israeli government. Palestinians are forced to have permits to go to work outside of the West Bank and must have different license plates. Israeli citizens have established settlements in the West Bank in violation of multiple United Nations resolutions. Residents of the West Bank, who are accused of violating the law, are not tried in civilian courts. Because it is a zone occupied by the Israeli military, such people are tried by military courts.
Two years ago, I witnessed a trial in one such military court. My American sense of justice was appalled. A fourteen-year-old Palestinian boy was accused of throwing a rock at Israeli soldiers. He first met his lawyer on the morning of his trial. His lawyer, and the judges, spoke Hebrew. The boy did not. In a rather quick trial, he was sentenced to three months in a military prison. This system of justice is nothing that we in the United States would tolerate. Should we tolerate such activities from our allies that we provide funding for? Even with the release of Palestinian detainees, Israel continues to hold more than ten thousand Palestinians in detention. Will such treatment of the Palestinians really bring peace?
The estimates that I have read about the number of civilian deaths in Gaza vary greatly but a number that I have read regularly is sixty-seven thousand civilians killed. I worry that survivors who have watched their families killed, and their homes destroyed, might be angry enough to become militants who wish to do violence against the state of Israeli. Abuse tends to lead to anger and violence.
I applaud the end of the Gaza-Israeli War, I celebrate the return of the Israeli hostages, but I am pessimistic about peace in the Holy Land. That will never happen until Palestinians are given a homeland and are given justice. As we placed economic sanctions against Russia for occupying parts of Ukraine, maybe it is time for nations of the world to impose economic sanctions against Israeli until that nation stops expanding its territory and starts giving equal rights to Palestinians.
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