Tentative Relief and Fear: 4 Bay Area Palestinian Americans React to the Gaza Ceasefire

When Rolla Alaydi saw the news on Saturday that the temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza was actually going into effect, the Pacific Grove resident said she felt a surge of tentative relief that the 15-month onslaught of violence against her homeland was, at least for the moment, coming to an end.

But amid the intense trauma and the lack of certainty about a permanent ceasefire, Alaydi knows it is not time to relax just yet.

“Historically, it’s known that [Israel] can stop it or violate it,” said Alaydi, a U.S. citizen who was born in Gaza and has been trying to evacuate 21 members of her family from the enclave since the war began. “So I have that fear: like any minute, [the ceasefire is] going to stop.”

The six-week ceasefire — which former President Joe Biden claims mirrored his proposed plans from May (and President Trump has since taken credit for) — entails an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees over the next six weeks.

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities, Israeli forces have waged a relentless assault on Gaza, displacing almost its entire population and destroying roughly two-thirds of its infrastructure, including homes, hospitals, and schools. More than 46,600 people have been killed in the bombardment, according to Gaza officials, a number that many experts say is a gross underestimate.

In November, a United Nations special committee found Israel’s actions “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

Amid such devastation, Gaza’s future is still very much in limbo, even if the ceasefire is extended beyond the initial six-week period.
And it comes as violence continues to flare throughout the region, including on Wednesday, when Israeli settlers in the West Bank rampaged through Palestinian villages, killing 10 people.

“Even if [the ceasefire] sticks, that doesn’t mean those universities are coming back right away. All the hospitals have been destroyed. There are tons and tons of people who have extraordinary wounds. People have been malnourished. People have been starved,” said Ussama Makdisi, a UC Berkeley history professor. “What is going to happen to them?”

A UN report from September backs these fears, finding it could take over 350 years for Gaza’s economy to return to pre-war levels.

These “huge questions” about the future “tempers any euphoria” that the ceasefire deal might bring, Makdisi said.

“Let’s be happy in the sense that the immediate, intense, overwhelming killing, at least for now, has stopped in Gaza. But there’s still what’s going to happen next,” he said. “Are the Palestinians of Gaza going to be allowed to have a normal life? Are they going to live a life free of siege?”

Following the announcement of the ceasefire, KQED followed up with four Palestinian Americans in the Bay Area who are grappling with these heavy questions, as they process the news and what comes next.

The drag artist suing their representatives

San Francisco-based drag performer Mama Ganuush, who lost multiple family members in Gaza over the past year, said they don’t trust the ceasefire.

But the recent news did at least allow Ganuush and their family time to mourn.

“We didn’t have time to grieve,” they said. “The past year and a half, we were trying to stop the trauma, and now we [can] actually start processing it.”

Since the start of the war, Ganuush has been working tirelessly to showcase queer Palestinian art and activism — whether it be through performance or by assisting efforts to send HIV medication to Gaza residents.

Ganuush is also part of a class-action lawsuit filed last week alleging that several Northern California congressional representatives, including Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Mike Thompson of Napa, have “illegally [used] tax dollars to fund the genocide in Gaza.”

Ganuush said the lawsuit is an opportunity to have their family’s story told.

“It’s going to be really hard. I’m not forgetting them because I’m bringing them in court,” they said. “It’s part of my grieving, but also part of my responsibility towards my people — is to say their name and to remember them.”

Ganuush plans to travel to Egypt at the end of January in the hope that the border to Gaza will open and they can see their family and help them recover.

The doctor who is going back

Mohammad Subeh, an emergency room doctor in the South Bay, with Palestinian roots, said he plans to return to Gaza in early February to provide much-needed medical support to residents, where the health care system has been utterly decimated by Israeli airstrikes and aid workers attacked or killed. And while he hopes the ceasefire holds, he said the situation feels “fragile.”

Subeh has already made multiple medical trips to Gaza and Lebanon in the past year — and has witnessed the immense degree of destruction and pain.

“As someone who lived through at least two-and-a-half months on the ground in Gaza [during] the constant bombardment by the Israelis, you really don’t know whether or not [the ceasefire] will hold up,” he said.

On hearing of the ceasefire, Subeh said he initially felt a degree of frustration, knowing the conflict could have ended at least a year ago.

“I think it’s important for us to remember that this deal has been on the table for at least 13 months,” he said. “And just thinking of all the tens of thousands of lives that were taken during that time frame, all the destruction of Gaza, the starvation of the people there.”

But he said there is also a sense of relief among the doctors and nurses currently on the ground in Gaza that he has spoken to in recent days. They can now work without “fighter jets above our heads and drones dropping bombs,” said Subeh, who is also currently running for a seat in the California State Assembly on a platform focused on human rights and social justice.

He added, “This pause is necessary, but it’s insufficient to solve the problem of the colonization and occupation of Palestine.”

The mother who fears for her children

As someone who lost more than 50 family members in Gaza since the war began, Fatima said she wishes she could “feel some joy” from the news of the ceasefire.

“This has been an issue that we’ve had to live with our whole life,” said Fatima, a Santa Clara County resident, who asked that her name not be used out of concern for the safety of surviving family members in Gaza.

She said it has been heartbreaking to see her pre-teen children process the tragedy in Gaza and see “dehumanizing” depictions of Palestinians in Western media.

“I’ve been forced to have conversations with my children, especially at such a formative age, and see their spirit be broken,” she said. “It’s been one of the worst years of my life as a parent. The worst, I would say, hands down.”

Fatima said her children’s friends, many of whom are Jewish and supported protests against Israel, helped them cope with the unfolding tragedy. It also enabled her to connect with other parents from diverse backgrounds who have also struggled with institutional racism and are committed to fighting “hate and bigotry.”

“The support that I’ve received came from the most amazing places,” she said. “And those places were not people who look like me or my children, but they were people who understand oppression … I actually felt heard as a Palestinian, and I didn’t feel like I was being dismissed.”

The eldest sister still fighting for her family

Rolla Alaydi, the Pacific Grove resident, said the minute the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza opens, she intends to help evacuate her family so they can have stable shelter and seek medical attention. Her family in Gaza includes her younger brothers and their families. One of her nieces, who is 12, has epilepsy. Another niece, a young student who has dreams of becoming a doctor, was recently shot, she said.

Months ago, Alaydi applied for humanitarian parole for her family, to allow them to come to the U.S., but now fears the Trump administration will block those options.

“Even the little hope that I have is gone,” she said.

She said her son was excited to welcome his younger cousins to the U.S. — to buy them food, to show them the beauty of where they live and “give them a relatively normal human life.”

But now, Alaydi said she is just looking to help them get anywhere outside Gaza.

“I just want them to get to another place that’s relatively safe,” she said. “But that hope of coming to the US, it’s just vanished.”

KQED’s Billy Cruz and Lakshmi Sarah contributed reporting to this story.