OVER the last two years, the streets of Britain and the corridors of power have become a battleground as bombs rained down on Gaza supplied by British arms manufacturers.

In years to come, the extent of British responsibility will become clear. 

In Gaza, two million Palestinians are homeless. 67,000 are confirmed dead, of whom at least 20,000 are children. 169,000 have been injured. Three to 4,000 children have had limbs amputated. Almost 2,000 health workers have been killed, along with at least 248 journalists. 

Just 14 hospitals remain operational, but are without essential supplies. 55,000 pre-school children are acutely malnourished. Half a million Palestinians are trapped in famine, destitution and misery within Gaza, or what is left of it.

But on Wednesday evening, there were scenes of jubilation as Palestinians gathered to await news of a historic ceasefire. Children laughed and sang, and people danced, rounds of celebratory gunfire were heard, and finally, there were tears of joy and relief when the historic agreement was announced.

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya declared on Thursday evening that after receiving international guarantees that the two-year war was “over.”

On Monday, Hamas will release the Israeli hostages, and aid will reach the starving, the sick, the dying and the bereaved in Gaza. The Rafah crossing will be opened, and the first steps along a long road to peace will begin.

Nir Hasson of Haaretz newspaper described the Hamas massacre of October 7 as “a trauma whose reverberations will be felt for decades to come. But the ensuing Israeli campaign of atrocities in Gaza destroyed the foundations on which the state of Israel was built.”

The question is not who won this war, but what was lost and to whom.

Was this a proxy war where the people of Palestine, and the victims of Operation al-Aqsa Flood, were sacrificed as collateral damage to force UN member states to recognise the state of Palestine? 

In 2017, Hamas published a new doctrine. Although Hamas would not recognise Israel, it would now accept a two-state solution. The policy was announced in Doha by the head of the movement’s political bureau, Khaled Meshal, who said “Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights.”

This coincided with a strategic rebranding of Hamas in line with the Muslim Brotherhood’s non-violent political agenda, with whom Hamas has close affiliations. 

Despite their stated non-violent platform, the Muslim Brotherhood is regarded as a terrorist organisation in Egypt, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and United Arab Emirates, and Austria. 

Between 2000 and 2023, 11,299 Palestinians were killed, and 156,768 were injured by Israeli forces. Israeli war crimes, violations and brutality were documented by Amnesty International, the UN, and Human Rights Watch. Hamas was losing credibility and support among Gazans as a result of Israeli aggression and expansionism.

Each side has its own version of what happened on October 7.

6,000 armed personnel from eight Palestinian armed forces, including Nukhba Forces, the armed special forces unit of al-Quassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, al-Quds Brigades, al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, National Resistance Brigades, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Mujahideen Brigades, and al-Ansar Brigades, supported by Palestinian civilians who took part in the unprecedented co-ordinated armed incursion on October 7 2023, launching at least 3,400 rockets into Israeli-controlled areas and breaching the Israeli barrier in a massacre described as “the bloodiest day.” 

1,736 Israelis were killed, including 38 children and a further 379 members of the Israeli armed forces, and 364 civilians were killed at the Nova music festival.

On January 1 2024, Hamas published a 16-page document entitled “Our Narrative — Operation al-Aqsa Flood” to explain its reasons and motives for the October 7 slaughter and undermine the Israeli’s narrative of Hamas’s brutal barbarism and deployment of sexual violence as a weapon of terror. 

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv is Israel’s most valued think tank influencing Israel’s long-term policy responded to the Hamas publication saying that it was a “narrative replete with false or partially true images and figures, devoid of historical context and reference to religious sources or rulings and fails to mention Hamas allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood.” 

The INSS criticised the document, saying that it did not address how Hamas perceives itself as leading not only the armed struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel but is also committed to the goal of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate in the region, and the liberation of Jerusalem and particularly the al-Aqsa Mosque. 

The INSS warned: “Since we are dealing with cognitive warfare, it is important for Israel to counter the Hamas document to publicly expose Hamas falsehoods, its character and goals.” 

Cognitive warfare has dominated the world of defence since 2017, and the Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of acting as “Trojan Horses” engaging in stealth subversion to weaken societies from within by building influence through demographer participation. 

Cognitive warfare has been described as the use of public opinion, psychological operations, and legal influence to achieve victory. Outside of the battlefield, influence can affect law, rule of order, and civil constructs.

Cognitive warfare is now regarded as the sixth domain of war in addition to land, maritime, air and space conjoined and interfaced by the digital domain of cyberspace operating on the global stage to weaponise information technology, artificial intelligence, and social media to alter or mislead the thoughts of leaders, members of the public, and armed forces, entire populations in each region, country or group of countries. 

With almost minimal resources, available to anyone with a smartphone, cognitive aggression is limitless and invisible. All that is seen of it is its effect, in opposition to government, a breakdown in law and order, protest, dissent, and extremism.

By then, the truth has been distorted, and our trust in the message of governments, of news organisations, in any presentation of fact eroded. Activism is transformed from a legitimate force for change into a suspicious activity endangering the state or an enemy of the people.

In 2023, Israeli officials confirmed absolute rejection of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu presented a map of the “new Middle East” with Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, including the Palestinian territories. 

In their account, Hamas asked the world what they expected Palestinians to do in the face of increased aggression and what they regarded as the abandonment of the Palestinian people by the international community. 

The more pertinent question should have been what was Hamas and the Palestinian people prepared to sacrifice to achieve recognition of the Palestinian state. 

Thousands have died, martyred among the many casualties of a 75-year-old conflict. Thousands of innocent lives have been squandered in a struggle over land and sovereignty, occupation and colonialism that has resonated with the world, and in countries whose history is not so dissimilar. 

Gaza has become a global symbol for struggle against oppression.

Over the last two weeks, Israeli authorities have intercepted and detained over 50 vessels and almost 600 activists, including 23 British citizens, attempting to sail through the blue Mediterranean Sea into a well-defended exclusion zone separating international waters and the beaches of Gaza to break the siege.

A trillion shots were fired across the bow of social media before the activists were finally deported. 

Today, in the West Bank, it is harvest. The area produces some of the best olive oil in the world. As expansionism grew, the Israeli settlements with their imposing concrete wall of separation are in stark contrast to the soft hues of gentle stone-built villages amid silvery green olive groves and dappled sunlight.

In the ruins of Palestinian homes, there are olive trees stretching back generations, planted by the ancestors. In these biblical villages, the descendants cling to what was, in the hope of what could be. 

Here, the olive harvest is a love letter to the past and a promise to the future. 

Traditionally, the olive harvest is a time of excitement and celebration, but now it’s marked by sorrow.

Mona Taha is a Palestinian olive farmer from al-Yamen, Jenin. She posted on social media that “this is the third harvest since the beginning of the genocide. Harvest hurts in ways I can’t explain. It’s hard to celebrate abundance when so much of our people’s joy, life and hope are being stolen.

“It’s impossible to enter the groves without carrying Gaza in our hearts. While we pick olives here, families in Gaza are being torn apart. Entire generations lost. Farmers who once tended their trees are gone, their land scorched, their groves uprooted. Olive trees, some hundreds of years old reduced to ash.

“Children who should be playing under the branches are instead buried under the rubble. The harvest is supposed to be a time of gathering, of joy, of abundance and in many ways, it still is. But for our people in Gaza, these moments don’t exist. To hold fresh oil in our hands is to feel love and loss, the sweetness of our land, and bitterness of knowing so many will not experience it.”

Farmers like Taha face significant difficulties. Those that survive plant new seeds each year to secure the future of the olive groves and the land.

In Gaza, under the blood, bone and tissue, below the dust and rubble, beneath the collapsed skeletons of buildings, there is still Palestinian soil soaked in tears. 

But one day, a seed will grow, planted by the souls of the departed, and the olive trees will bloom again. One day, Palestine will finally be free. 

Until that day, this brittle, fragile ceasefire offers respite and hope if not resolution.