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As President Trump celebrates his Gaza ceasefire deal, major questions remain over what happens next. Democracy Now! speaks with Khaled Elgindy, visiting scholar at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, who breaks down the U.S.-backed peace plan. Though the document includes "vague statements" on how the peace process will unfold, Elgindy says it's wise for "Palestinians to rebuild their national movement" at this time. At the same time, Israel has refused to release political leader Marwan Barghouti, who has spent decades in Israeli prison and is widely seen as a "unifying leader" who could bring all Palestinian factions together.
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The incident comes days after a cease-fire went into effect in Gaza.
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Renowned Israeli historian, author and professor Ilan Pappé discusses the postwar prospects of Palestinian statehood and of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under investigation for corruption in Israel and subject to an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Despite the newly implemented Gaza ceasefire, says Pappé, Israeli political leaders have not changed their policy aim to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their remaining territory. "Nothing has changed in the dehumanization and the attitude of this particular Israeli government and its belief that it has the power to wipe out Palestine as a nation, as a people and as a country," he explains. Pappé's latest book is titled Israel on the Brink: And the Eight Revolutions That Could Lead to Decolonization and Coexistence.
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We speak with Plestia Alaqad, an award-winning Palestinian journalist whose on-the-ground reporting from Gaza captured global attention during the early days of Israel's military assault two years ago. Then just 21 years old, her video dispatches went viral and offered the world a rare glimpse of life under bombardment. Alaqad, who fled Gaza with her family in late 2023, has now published The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resistance, drawn from the diary she kept in the weeks following October 7, 2023.
Reflecting on the last two years, Alaqad says that "Israel succeeded in isolating and dividing Gaza from the rest of the world" and making daily life intolerable for Palestinians. "They've been displaced, bombed, trapped and starved deliberately by Israel."
Alaqad also stresses that the story of Palestine goes beyond just the last two years. "History didn't start on October 7. It's been two years of the genocide, but it's been 77 years, if not more, of the ongoing Nakba that started in 1948," she says.
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