Hello, and happy Friday.
“I still can’t believe it,” a contact in Gaza texted me on Wednesday afternoon, when news of the long-awaited ceasefire seemed to be all but confirmed. “I wanna cry so bad if it’s true.”
His hesitancy was understandable. Previous deals—some involving near-identical terms—had faltered at the last moment. But what makes this one different was its timing: The agreement, which in addition to a halt in fighting involves an exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian detainees held by Israel, comes just days before the the U.S. government is due to change hands between the Biden administration and the incoming Trump team, both of which have sought to claim credit for the breakthrough. Officials speaking to the American and Israeli press touted Trump’s apparent ability to impose greater pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu than his predecessor. Others suggested that perhaps it was Netanyahu’s wish to effectively gift the deal to Trump (who made clear his desire for the war to end) on the eve of his inauguration.
Whatever the reason, a ceasefire is welcome news—not only for the remaining Israeli hostages languishing in the Strip, but for the scores of Palestinians who have lived amid death, destruction, and hunger for more than a year.
But as we wait for the deal to go into effect on Sunday, I can’t help but think of those for whom this truce has come too late—among them young Palestinians like Mohammad “Medo” Halimy, young Israelis like Hersh Goldberg-Polin, and scores of others whose names we may never know.
What I’ve read
How the Biden administration will ultimately be remembered is now a matter for historians. But this piece argues that its chief diplomat Antony Blinken’s legacy will be found in the ruins of Gaza:
Beyond the shocking loss of life, Israel’s decimation of Palestine will have a much larger and longer impact for America: It will undermine the implementation of international humanitarian law worldwide. It will embolden militaries to undertake indiscriminate operations against marginalized peoples. And with no credible claim to human rights, despite whatever gains Biden has made, America will be morally weaker than ever on the world stage.
This essay on tattoos, Syria, and the shattering of fear:
These are words I never thought I would type. All over the country, Syrians are saying things they have not dared to speak in years: dollars (formerly talked about in code as “the green” or “parsley”); prison (“your aunt’s house”); Assad (“them”). I have asked Syrian after Syrian if it took them time to adapt to this newfound freedom. They all arch their eyebrows in surprise, say no, and then look doubly surprised by their own answer.
This exit interview with First Lady Jill Biden:
In family lore, Jill is the savior, the beautiful young teacher who appeared to the widowed senator a few years after his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident a week before Christmas in 1972. “Mommy sent Jill to us,” Joe would tell his two young sons back then. Nearly 50 years later, he told People magazine that “she’s the glue that’s held it together.” In the Bidens, Jill found a family who had survived the unthinkable through fierce loyalty. “There was almost nothing they wouldn’t do to support, protect, and fight for each other,” Jill wrote in her memoir, about meeting them at the beginning of her courtship with Joe. Jill became the family’s most ferocious defender — never more so than in this final year of Joe’s presidency.
What I’m thinking about
When will foreign journalists finally be allowed into Gaza? As regular readers of this correspondence will know, international journalists have been barred from accessing the Strip over the past 15 months, leaving the burden of on-the-ground coverage to their Palestinian colleagues, more than 150 of whom have been killed since the war began.
“I have spoken to many war correspondents in that time, and none of them—having covered some of the most atrocious wars and genocides—can recall having been excluded entirely from a territory so completely and for such a long time,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, told me in October. It’s high time that exclusion come to an end.
Until next time,
Yasmeen