A ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed to Jan. 19, ending the 15-month-long conflict.
According to the Associated Press, the deal is organized into three phases. As part of the first and current phase, Israel has begun to withdraw troops into a buffer zone 700 meters from the border and Hamas released 33 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Phase 2 will begin Feb. 3 and will consist of a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, more hostage exchanges and a permanent ceasefire.
Phase 3 requires the return of all the bodies of dead hostages, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Ohio University Hillel is an organization that serves the local Jewish community in Athens. Executive Director Juli Goodman expressed the organization's optimism regarding the recent ceasefire.
“We are hopeful this ceasefire deal leads to a permanent peace between Israel and Hamas and provides a way forward for Palestinians to rebuild their community in Gaza and Israelis to live in peace and security,” Goodman wrote in an email.
This deal comes after the conflict that began Oct. 7, 2023 when individuals from Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took 250 hostages, according to AP News.
Since then, Israel and Hamas have been in near-consistent armed conflict. According to a United Nations report, over 45,000 Palestinians, and over 1,700 Israeli and foreign nationals were killed.
The Israel and Hamas conflict brought global backlash and reignited concerns about the treatment of Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Following Israel's response to the Oct. 7 attack, protests raged across the U.S., with rallies pushing for a ceasefire and calling universities and businesses to end their funding for Israel.
Between Oct. 7, 2023, and June 7, 2024, there were 12,400 pro-Palestine protests and over 2,000 pro-Israel protests, according to a Harvard article.
Ohio University Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, is a student organization focused on advocating for the freedom and liberation of Palestine. SJP held a peaceful protest May 1, 2024, on the OU campus. Protestors called for the university to halt its funding to Israel.
Lionel Karam, a member of SJP, is a graduate student studying biomedical sciences at OU. Karam argued Israel is limiting the human rights of the Palestinian people.
“The Palestinians should have access to clean water, health care, education, restoring all the infrastructure that has been destroyed and have a right of dignity equal to Israelis,” Karam said. “We're not asking for anything more than that.”
In 1948, the U.S. was the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state. According to a statement by The U.S. Embassy in Israel, the two countries have had a strong alliance since 1949, represented through trade, military support and shared ideals.
The results of this collaboration are felt across the state of Ohio. Ohio Revised Code Section 9.76 states that no state agency in Ohio, including public universities, can join a contract with any company that boycotts Israel, or plans to do so during the contract period.
SJP has continued to rally against policies like ORC Section 9.76 and to solidify equal rights for all Palestinian people. Karam is pleased with the ceasefire deal while recognizing there is more work to be done.
“What we are trying to do is to advocate and to push for our representatives and other leaders and the executive to remember that any short-term solution is just a recipe for another degradation,” Karam said.
