We welcome the news of a ceasefire agreement with cautious hope. The safety and preservation of Palestinian life is our foremost concern. Any agreement that will bring an immediate end to this genocide, the bombing and starvation, is cause for hope and relief.
For two years, Palestinians have endured a genocide conducted in full view of the entire world with no accountability or consequences for the engineers of this atrocity. We have seen Israel break ceasefire agreements before. We have seen Israel run rampant against all barriers of international law and morality. Canada has stood by, refusing to act on its obligations to prevent genocide. This agreement gives renewed urgency for Canada to finally take meaningful action to hold Israel accountable. If international law and the protection of human rights for all peoples are able to be violated over and over again by Israel without consequence or our country taking action, they lose all meaning. Canada must end its complicity and do everything in its power to ensure the ceasefire is held to.
Trump’s ceasefire deal does not address the systems which have upheld and allowed this genocide to be conducted for two years. It does not hold the architects of genocide like Netanyahu accountability for their war crimes. It does not end settler colonialism in the West Bank. It does not dismantle apartheid. To start building towards justice, Israel must be brought to account for its ongoing, brutal violations of international law.
We remain in full solidarity with Palestinians, who have endured two years of Israel’s brutal assault on their lives, and remained steadfast in perseverance and resistance to genocide. We continue to demand nothing short of Palestinian liberation. Justice means there must be an immediate end to this genocide, the protection of Palestinian life and land as they rebuild homes and community, and the right of return. It means accounting for the Nakba and ending the ongoing theft of Palestinian lands.
A ceasefire is a first step down the long road towards justice, though it is one we have stumbled on before. Canada must increase pressure against Israel to hold true to the ceasefire, to end its settlement enterprise, and to dismantle its apartheid systems. Palestinians deserve justice, and our movement will stop at nothing less.