THE Gaza ceasefire is a cunning camouflage for continuing the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. The day after the second phase of the Trump initiated Ceasefire was announced on Thursday, 5th February 2026, Israel carried out multiple air-strikes in East Gaza City which killed 16 Palestinians. A number of them were from one family, the Haboush family.

Even in the first phase of the Ceasefire which began on the 10th of October 2025, 556 Palestinians were killed and 1,500 others wounded over a four month period. Many of them were women and children. A significant number of doctors and pharmacists were targeted. It is important to note that ambulances were also attacked.  This is an established practice with the Israeli army which some Israeli and Western commentators describe as “the most moral army in the world.”

It will be recalled that for two years preceding the 10th October Ceasefire, there were clashes between Israel and Hamas and other groups which are part of the Palestinian resistance. The resistance which has neither a regular army nor an air force suffered huge losses. It is estimated that 71,851 resisters were killed. Some Israelis also died.

Israeli intelligence claims that Israeli's soldiers were forced to respond to an unexpected assault by Hamas upon Israeli families living along the Israel-Palestinian border. It is still unclear after almost three years whether this is the whole story of what happened on the 7th of October 2023. There are a few incidents in that event that seem to suggest that at the very least Israeli authorities allowed  Hamas and other Palestinian groups to embark upon their mission so that their retaliation could be used as an excuse to justify the massive reprisals that the Israeli army undertook subsequently. Was October 7th part of a much larger ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ agenda?  In other words, were there elements of a False Flag Operation (FF0) in the October 7th episode?  This is why right from the outset JUST had called for an independent international investigation into October 7th.    

Apart from the fact that organised, systematic killing of Palestinians is still occurring --- as we have observed at the start of this article --- certain other aspects of Ethnic Cleansing are still continuing unabated.   The supply of food, water, medicines and other essentials is still far below the quantum agreed upon in the Ceasefire Plan. Palestinians allowed to seek urgent medical treatment outside the Strip is abysmally low. The number of displaced families remains high. A huge percentage of Palestinians are still without proper shelter though winter is fast approaching.

However, these and other woes are seldom highlighted in the Western and non-Western media these days. It is as if the mere proclamation of a Ceasefire is enough for the media to downplay or sideline any news about the actual suffering of the Palestinian people on the ground. It is in this sense that the Ceasefire serves the interests of those in Tel Aviv and Washington who are determined to conceal and camouflage the truth about the anguish of the Palestinians.  

Besides, the power elites in both Israel and the United States of America have always been averse to exposing the injustices meted upon the Palestinians by Israelis. ‘Accountability’ is not in their dictionary when it comes to Palestinians. It has endowed Israelis and the State of Israel with a sense of impunity which is almost unique in the annals of human history.  I have discussed how this impunity had developed over time in some of my essays and videos. In a nutshell, US power in all its manifestations, global commercial interests, the Western media, and its citadels of education have contributed to this impunity, reinforced by the terrible tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, on the one hand, and the propagation of religious myths that accolade Jews as ‘the chosen people’ , on the other.

But the good news is that that impunity is now being challenged in so many different ways. Israel’s brutal often barbaric mass massacre of Palestinians in Gaza especially the murder of children has played a major role in ripping off the mask of impunity. How ironic that impunity that served as a shield for Israeli misdeeds for so long should now emerge as the sword that pierces open its camouflaged heart. 

* Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the President for the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) Malaysia.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.