Let’s look forward to the ceasefire, but also ensure that Gaza is allowed to recover | Gauze

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally agreed to a ceasefire agreement.

The deal marks the end of Israel’s assault on Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, and left the Palestinian enclave, home to more than two million people, in ruins. With the official death toll approaching 47,000 and more than 110,000 wounded, Palestinians in Gaza and those who care about their lives around the world are understandably rejoicing at the news.

But, unfortunately, this is hardly the end of Palestinian suffering. “The day after” this genocide in Gaza will be no less devastating.

Over the past 15 months, Israel has turned the besieged Palestinian enclave into a post-apocalyptic wasteland; methodically bombing, bulldozing, or burning every structure her army happened to see.

In mid-December, UNOSAT’s assessment of satellite imagery revealed that 170,812 structures had been destroyed damaged or destroyed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli attack in October 2023.

This number represents 69 percent of all buildings in the enclave and approximately 245,123 housing units. It includes more than 90 percent of all school buildingsand each of Gaza universities. This includes (PDF) Rafah Museum, Jawaharlal Nehru Library at Al-Azhar University and Gaza City Library. It includes the Great Mosque of Gaza and the Church of Saint Porphyry. It includes most hospitals in Gaza and almost 70 percent of health centers.

Satellite images also show that 70 percent of the agricultural infrastructure in Gaza was systematic destroyed in war, either by shelling, or under the load of heavy military vehicles. As a result, food production in Gaza was at its lowest level during 2024. The entire population of the enclave is now food insecure and a significant majority is facing “extremely critical levels of hunger“.

In April 2024, the joint World Bank and UN assessment showed that 92 percent of Gaza’s main roads were either damaged or destroyed. At least 75 percent telecommunication infrastructure or is damaged or destroyed. The electricity distribution company in Gaza has allegedly lost 90 percent of its machinery and equipment and suffered losses amounting to $450 million.

In the last months of the Israeli military campaignonly one of three desalination plants was operational, providing only 7 percent of Gaza’s water supply needs. And, according to Oxfam, all sewage treatment plants and most sewage pumping stations in Gaza “have been forced to close” due to Israel’s “fuel and electricity blockade”.

But the real tragedy here is not the destroyed infrastructure, roads and buildings. What we witnessed in Gaza was the destruction of an entire society. Israel didn’t just destroy the landscape. It tore the very fabric of Gaza’s social, cultural, intellectual and economic life to shreds.

The official death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has approached 50,000 – a figure that is devastating in itself. However, it is very likely that this is a greatly reduced number. Officials in Gaza have long since lost the ability to keep an accurate count of the dead. We know that many thousands are likely to remain under the rubble. In June 2024, a study published the Lancet estimated that the actual death toll in the Israeli attack on Gaza could be higher than 186,000. More than six months later, the death toll now undoubtedly far exceeds even this estimate.

Among those who perished in the massacre are artists and writers, such as Wala al-Faranji, who killed in an airstrike in December 2024. There are poets like Refaat Alareer – the voice of a generation and a revered symbol of resistance and resilience, who was killed in what seemed targeted air strike in December 2023.

Among the dead are thousands of teachers, university professors and students – children and young people who would build the future of Gaza.

This staggering death toll also includes more than 130 journalistssuch as Mustafa Thuraya and Hamza al-Dahdouh, who were killed in targeted attacks or indiscriminate bombing while trying to do their jobs in unimaginably difficult conditions.

Israel has also killed more than 1,000 doctors and health workers in this “war” – some by bombs, others by tank fire, for the crime of trying to help the sick and wounded. Many were also killed, like dr. Ziad Eldalou, in Israeli detention centers and prisons.

Rebuilding Gaza after the genocide will be a daunting task – by some estimates it will cost more than $50 billion. But even such colossal investments will not be enough to replace the thousands of brilliant minds—doctors, teachers, journalists—that have been lost. No amount of money will be enough to heal and rebuild this society destroyed by unimaginable violence and brutality.

The difficulty of rebuilding is also rooted in the fact that the survivors, those lucky enough to be able to celebrate the ceasefire today, are also traumatized, broken.

All of them have been displaced multiple times. They lost family, friends and colleagues. They lost their homes, their community. They are not the same people they were 15 months ago, and healing will not be easy.

It will take years – if not decades – of unwavering global political investment in human development for Gaza to have a chance to recover from this.

But even then we cannot expect the Israeli authorities to voluntarily allow this recovery to take place. There is little reason to believe that Israel will honor this cease-fire, halt the arbitrary bombings and incursions forever, and allow Gaza to rebuild and heal in “the day after.”

Well yes, for now it seems that the war is ending. But Gaza’s future looks bleak. This does not mean that concerted international pressure on Israel to allow the reconstruction of Gaza would not succeed. But for now, that seems unlikely because their most powerful ally, the United States, doesn’t seem particularly eager to change the status quo. Tragically, every indication shows that the “day after” in Gaza will be just as painful, devastating and unjust as every “day before”.

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