Pro-Palestine protesters came out once again, around Australia, on January 19 to express their guarded relief at news of a ceasefire deal coming into force on Israel’s 471st day of genocide. A fragile ceasefire came into effect in Gaza that day.
Over the preceding days, corporate media figures tried to browbeat Palestine supporters into not going ahead with the rallies. “Why won’t a ceasefire be enough to keep you guys home on a Sunday?” asked 3AW's Heidi Murphy of Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.
Israel had intensified its attacks in the days leading up to the ceasefire, while also delaying it on the day. Mariam Barghouti, Palestinian journalist and policy analyst, posted that “Palestinian detainees are being released now, at 1.19am when the Israeli hostages were released at 4pm.”
“Israeli forces are now firing at press personnel with teargas and obstructed their coverage,” she said, adding that Israeli police were stationed at the home of every detainee. “There are clear orders of no celebration allowed tonight.”
Protesters across Australia expressed guarded relief and resolved to ensure Israel abides by the ceasefire. They said they would continue campaigning until Palestine is free.
Despite Israel’s devastation of Gaza, the Palestinian resistance has not been defeated after 16 months of genocide.
Gaza-based Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed told the Electronic Intifada livestream on January 19 that “people today are just happy, so jubilant ... the children, this is the first time they’re playing outside”.
He described people going back to their “homes”, to find them flattened, and mourning their family members who had been killed.
Ahead of the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the outgoing and incoming United States presidents supported Israel’s “right” to “resume” the war after the first phase of the ceasefire (involving exchange of captives) was over.
This, along with Israel’s long history of violating ceasefires, creates a justifiable fear that the ceasefire could be short lived.
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The fact that Israel had consistently rejected a ceasefire deal, with virtually identical terms, since May reveals that it didn’t want to agree to these terms.
Nevertheless, Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah went “out on a limb” to argue that the ceasefire is likely to hold, while also acknowledging that “we don’t know what is going to happen”.
He said the Israeli Defense Forces are “broken and demoralised”, and reservists are not showing up for duty. Tens of thousands of soldiers have been injured and their munitions and military vehicles are also depleted. They don't have a plan to defeat the Palestinian resistance, so any resumption of war would just be “more of the same”.
While Israeli polls had once shown majority support for ongoing genocide, this is no longer the case. Israeli +972 Magazine said recent polls show that “a clear majority — between 60 and 70 percent, or even higher — supports ending the war” .
Thus the war in Gaza has become a “burden on the government, the military, and society as a whole”.
Abunimah also cited an NBC article which reported that “Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, plans to be a near-constant presence in the region in an attempt to prevent the deal from unraveling”.
While Trump has zero sympathy for Palestinians, these factors suggest that his administration judges that Israel's ongoing genocide is not in the interests of US imperialism.
Abunimah said Al Jazeera showed “scenes of winners, of people feeling like they’ve won”. “It's not us saying to people in Gaza ‘you won’ and people in Gaza saying ‘oh, look at our misery, how can you say this is a victory’. No, it is people in Gaza saying ‘we won’.”
Abunimah said this is not a victory “in the sense that we overthrew Israel and returned to our homes”, but that “we survived and prevailed over the empire, over the arsenal of the United States airlifted 24/7, and that is not a small thing”.
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Peter Boyle reports that thousands joined the march in Gadigal Country/Sydney on January 19. Rally co-chair Jana Fayyad said Palestinians were taking “a breath of relief” and thinking “of every Palestinian that has sacrificed their life, their homes, their families, their right to a dignified life to reach this moment”.
Jews Against the Occupation activist Michelle Berkon told Green Left that the ceasefire should be welcomed as a “reprieve for the people of Gaza”, but warned that “we don’t trust Israel as far as we can throw it, it’s violated every ceasefire deal it’s ever been signatory too”.
Academic and anti-Zionist Jewish activist, Peter Slezak, told GL the ceasefire was an “enormous relief”. “The big worry is whether it lasts, past ceasefires have been violated by Israel.”
“The ultra-right national leadership of Israel did not want to end the genocide, so we have to keep up the pressure.”
Slezak said the vast reconstruction job and urgent need to get aid into Gaza meant the international solidarity movement would have to continue.
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“It’s very important for the worldwide protests to continue ... the oppression, dispossession and brutality is continuing, particularly in the West Bank.
“It’s not over; the fact that there is a ceasefire does not mean we should stop our political activism.”
Socialist Alliance and City of Sydney for Palestine activist Rachel Evans said the “incredibly powerful mass movement has forced Israel to concede on the ceasefire” but that “we have to be ever vigilant and keep mobilising”.
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The protesters stopped in front of New South Wales Parliament to condemn NSW Labor for its multiple attempts to ban protests against the genocide. They vowed to keep marching until Palestine was liberated, Israeli officials were held accountable and Australia cuts ties with the Zionist state.
The rally ended with music and dancing, celebrating the end of the bombing.
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Activists at the Magan-djin/Brisbane rally, underway when the ceasefire was due to come into effect, experienced the collective feeling of solidarity but also the disappointments as the reports of delays and killings were received in real time.
Justice for Palestine leader and Greens candidate Remah Naji said people who joined the “extraordinary” solidarity movement against Israel’s devastating genocide have had their “eyes opened”. She said she worried that a “slow genocide will continue”, despite the ceasefire and that it is “up to us” to hold Israel to account.
First Nations activist, Ethan Enoch, thanked the Palestinian community for its solidarity with the First Nations’ struggle and pledged ongoing solidarity for Palestine at Invasion Day.
Binil Mohideen paid tribute to the “audacity and courage of the Indigenous people in a tiny strip of land called Gaza”. This resistance “challenged the most brutal, immoral army” and “brought an entire, evil colonial structure down to its knees”.
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He said that while “the fire may have ceased ... the genocide hasn’t stopped”.
At the end of the march, when the ceasefire had come into effect, Phil Monsour from Justice for Palestine told the crowd that just in the last 20 minutes, “the apartheid state has killed three people in Gaza city and using drones, they've also wounded three Palestinians in eastern Gaza City.”
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“I don't tell you this to send you home in despair,” Monsour said, “I tell you this so that we understand the true character of what we're facing ... we need to dig deep in our hearts and resolve that we will not stop because otherwise [Israel] will just keep doing this.”
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Thousands marched also in Naarm/Melbourne on January 19, on the 67th consecutive week.
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Hundreds rallied in Boorloo/Perth on January 20, despite a 42°C day, to show solidarity with Palestinians and to show they will continue to hold the Australian government to account for its complicity in the genocide.
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Activists marched in Tharawal/Wollongong on January 18 and in Muloobinba/Newcastle on January 19, from where Niko Leka reports the protest honoured Palestinians killed in Gaza over the past 16 months.
They unfurled four, 10-metre banners with the names of just some of the martyrs. They honoured those names and the thousands more lost to disease and starvation, under the rubble, vaporised or otherwise unable to be found. The vigil was followed by a rally and march, declaring: “We will not stop; We will not rest; Until Palestine is free.”
The ceasefire was discussed on the Green Left News Podcast on January 21.
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