BOSTON — For Sammy Nabulsi, the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas falls into that category of “better late than never... but too late all the same.”
“The news today is welcome,” he said. “But it’s bittersweet.”
Nabulsi, a Boston real estate attorney of Palestinian descent, wound up helping a number of Palestinian Americans and their families get out of Gaza as war broke out. He laments that so many had to die — most of them innocent civilians — before an agreement was reached.
“I spoke to so many people in Gaza every single day for months,” Nabulsi said. “And these people, many of them just trying to live their lives, were just hiding in the shadows of death every single day — whether it be from airstrikes or starvation or thirst or sickness.”
The airstrikes may be over for the moment — but the risks of starvation and sickness grew worse the longer the fighting went on.
“The amount of aid that was going into Palestine has always been inadequate,” Nabulsi said. “These people need food, they need shelter, they need medicine and water. We need to start rebuilding and, most importantly, we need to give diplomacy a chance.”
Diplomacy has been given a chance before. Since 2008, Hamas and Israel have engaged in four large-scale conflicts. Each ended in a ceasefire. Each relapsed into violence.
Nabulsi knows there’s a risk the latest agreement will be just as impermanent.
“There’s a cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine,” he said. “All I can do is hope the world has seen enough. Frankly, everyone has seen enough. This agreement cannot be the end. We can’t say, okay, the violence has stopped. We’re going to exchange hostages, exchange prisoners — and now we can just go on. This (ceasefire) is the bare minimum. My hope is beginning now, beginning tomorrow, this week, whatever, that there will be an incredible ramp up of humanitarian aid into Palestine.”
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