Relief, concern in Mid-Missouri after Gaza peace deal
Erika McGuire
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
President Donald Trump and other world leaders gathered Monday to sign a Middle East peace deal, bringing relief and hopeful reactions to local groups in Mid-Missouri.
George Smith, with Mid-Missouri for Justice in Palestine, is relieved but also concerned following the recent peace deal.
“It’s a relief to have the actual genocide — as I and many others think it should be referred to as — it’s good to have that genocide stopped,” Smith said. Let us hope that we will not start again because I think that what the agreement has come about now is very is a very short-term agreement,”
According to CNN, at least 67,683 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the two-year war. CNN reports since a ceasefire took place, 323 deaths have been recorded as bodies have been found underneath rubble.
Rabbi Avraham Lapine, with the Chabad Jewish Center of MU and Mid-Missouri, said the peace deal is a moment of relief and joy for the Jewish community.
“It’s very exciting news for the Jewish community, it’s two years. These hostages were held in captivity in hell, literally, by Hamas. Finally, after two years of being tortured in tunnels, finally free. So it’s really really really very exciting news for the entire Jewish community,” Lapine said.
Humanitarian aid has been a concern, with many aid shipments being halted during the conflict. Smith said there likely could be 600 trucks entering Gaza everyday to bring in aid, but he claims it’s minimal to what the people of Gaza need.
“They will need it but they’re needed at a much higher rate than they have in the past because now something like 90% of the housing stock has been damaged or totally destroyed enough that there’s not nearly enough real housing for the people of Gaza,” Smith said. “They’ll have to have immediate aid, immediate aid to help them live for the time being and also massive scale aid for reconstruction, which is clearly the rubble, I don’t think they even have the machinery for doing that,”
While the deal offers a sense of hope, both Smith and Lapine expressed skepticism about how long the deal will last.
“Israel, especially this government, (is a) pretty right-wing government led by Netanyahu, has been very unwilling to make long-term commitments to peace like this. It’s very unlike them to have, haven’t agreed to as much as they have,” Smith said. “I would be pleased if it carries on in a really significant way. But I would be unsurprised if it doesn’t,”
“I’m concerned that Hamas is not going to really give up their arms and give up control. That the biggest concern that many people have because they’re ready. Just from looking at some articles and things, it looks like they’re not running so fast to give-up control and give up their arms,” Lapine said.
Smith also criticized U.S. involvement in the war.
“I think that it may well be that if Netanyahu’s government openly defies the U.S. government it may even be that the U.S. government will stop shipping arms to them,” Smith said. “Our country is very complicit in this, in this genocide because the genocide is depended on the weapons supplied by the United States,”
As part of the peace deal, Hamas released the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages on Monday and Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, according to national reporting.
“They released people who have blood on their hands, the terrorists that literally are responsible for the death, the murder of Israelis, but they were willing to release those prisoners to get back the Israeli hostages that were taken, who are just regular citizens who are not in any way a prisoner of war or anything.” Lapine added.
At least one person who had ties to Mid-Missouri was killed during the war.
Deborah Matias, an American citizen living in Israel who was born in Boone County, died while shielding her son from bullets fired by Hamas gunmen.
Her son, Rotern Matias, was shot in the stomach but survived.