Ceasefires

The story has been told many times over about one special night— Christmas Eve—in 1914, during World War I, when a truce was declared between British and German troops. In one front, as the guns fell silent, a German soldier began to sing “Stille Nacht,” ”Silent Night” in its original German.

It seems that in several battlefronts, there were many similar incidents of soldiers singing Christmas carols, each in their own language: English, French, German. There were stories, too, of soldiers shouting out Christmas greetings. On Christmas Day itself, soldiers from opposing sides crept out of the trenches and moved toward no-man’s land—neutral spaces—to fraternize with more carols, play football, even exchange gifts.

Truces are temporary suspensions of hostilities, sometimes unofficially declared and lasting a brief period, like the Christmas holidays. My focus for my column today will be ceasefires—official agreements involving governments and military commands—extending for longer periods.

The world is focused now on a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian military force Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, starting at a music festival and going on to nearby towns killing 1,200 Israelis (and people of other nationalities, including Filipino caregivers who chose to remain at the side of the Israeli elderly they were caring for). Hamas also took some 150 Israeli hostages.

The attacks triggered a devastating war; the Israeli military retaliated by killing mainly in Gaza, Palestine, with more than 46,000 Palestinians killed through almost nonstop military attacks as well as blockades preventing the entry of food and medicine.

Times have changed since the Christmas truces of the First World War, 110 years ago. This latest truce, to be marked by an exchange of Israeli hostages held by Palestinians and Palestinian militants and the lifting of the aid blockade, was supposed to start on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, but was delayed by three hours when Hamas did not produce the names of Israeli hostages they were to release. The Israelis continued their attacks, killing 19 more Palestinians before the hostages’ names came through.

I don’t usually start my day reading about Gaza because the news is always so depressing, but Monday morning, I grabbed my phone first thing in the morning to check for what happened the night before, elated by the news that the guns had been silenced and exchanges had started. Palestinians were returning to Rafah in Gaza, walking across the ruins that were once their homes.

I was struck to read that the first three hostages, all young women, were delivered by the International Red Cross to their mothers. I texted the news to a Dutch friend with a hunch: “I’d be surprised if that arrangement came from the generals or Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

The photographs and videos showed there could have been no better way: it just had to be the mothers providing the first comforting contact for their daughters. One of the hostages, Emily Damari, had a bandaged hand. She had been taken hostage at the Music Festival, with Hamas militants shooting her dog dead and then shooting her hand, blasting off two middle fingers.

I thought of how, in the last 471 days since the war erupted, we’ve seen hundreds of photographs and videos showing the agony of mothers losing their loved ones. Fewer, but just as powerful are the images of grieving men. Who can forget Mohamed Abu Al-Qumsun, a Palestinian, who in April last year, had gone off to the government office to register his newborn twins? While he was away, an Israeli air attack hit the building where his family lived. Reading about the Israeli women hostages being delivered to their mothers, I remembered the inconsolable look on the Palestinian father’s face and wondered who he could turn to, the Israeli attack having killed his wife, his twins, and his wife’s mother.

We might forget that there is another important ceasefire declared in November 2024, involving Lebanon, Israel, and five mediating countries including the United States, to get both Israel and the Hezbollah (Party of God), an Islamist political party and paramilitary group, to withdraw from occupied territories and help to ease tension in the area brought about by the Hezbollah’s military support for Hamas.

Jan. 26, 2025 is the deadline for the withdrawals, and already there have been violations of the ceasefire on both sides.

On day 1 of this Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, we can only hope there’s still enough of the sense of humanity to allow the two ceasefires to germinate and to grow into a more lasting peace.

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mtan@inquirer.com.ph