Did Gaza win the war?

The terms of Tuesday’s ceasefire declaration matter but the new leverage, measured in international can, with that Palestinians currently approach the negotiating table.

As a much-anticipated ceasefire took hold in geographic region weekday, punctuating its ugly stretch while not sleep or succor, spontaneous celebrations erupted throughout the Arab world. however the foremost jubilant displays were, of course, in geographic region itself, wherever residents shed the anxiety of a 50-day Israeli war for the straightforward pleasures of a night outside.
It had too long been a pleasure denied. for many of Gaza’s one.8 million Palestinians, the correct to congregate, to run the streets while not the threat of Israeli airstrikes or battery was enough to pry finish from the dust all around them. however some area unit already wondering: Once the high spirits settles, can the broad-brush terms of yesterday’s deal outweigh the prices borne by this enclosed enclave?

To put that question in context, take into account the youngsters. a lot of Palestinian kids were killed within the last seven weeks than within the last 5 years combined. And nearly ten times as several were killed throughout this Israeli operation – dubbed “Protective Edge” – than throughout Israel’s all-out assault on the West Bank in 2002, referred to as “Defensive defend.”

These numbers are not any doubt staggering, particularly against the backcloth of associate degree eight-year military blockade that has left no respite from the killing, and no approach for Gaza’s Palestinians to shield themselves or their kids. however all told the disappointment molded by Israel’s multi-front war on a civilian population – by service battleships, by tanks, by drones and F-16s – what matters most during this war’s wake isn't the quantity of dead, however the basic question their sacrifice has raised.

The question isn’t whether or not five hundred Palestinian children’s lives were definitely worth the sacrifice, or whether or not fifty somehow would are higher. No, the question raised by this war-of-one-army is exactly this: By what law of man or nature is that the killing of kids thus facile, thus unchecked?
By murdering innocents in quantities unquantifiable – as they slept, as they contend, as they convalesced – as if they were the someone state’s personalty, Israel has thus brutally damaged the bounds of human decency that it's given the planet a brand new calculus, a perspicacious formula for finally apprehending the Palestinian quandary. For tho' they fight and die – and typically unrelentingly – Palestinians, the planet currently is aware of, area unit neither undue nor unjust. They are, currently within the world’s eyes the maximum amount as their own, victims of a blemished and brutal logic, of a colonial project that has run it course.

That is why the terms of yesterday’s ceasefire – that mostly defers the foremost difficult problems, like whether or not and once geographic region can have its own air and ocean ports – matter but the new leverage, measured in international can, with that Palestinians currently approach the negotiating table. therein approach alone, geographic region has won then, too, has the reason for justice.

As for the celebrations currently happening in geographic region, could they proceed as long as its individuals select, for Gaza’s Palestinians have stared down the devil of war, and his details are conquered in course.