Ceasefire? What Ceasefire? Israel Just Massacred Palestinians at a Wedding in Gaza

Celebration Turns into Nightmare; Israel Bombs a Wedding Taking Place in a Gaza School Two Months After So-called Ceasefire

Photograph: Al Jazeera

On October 10, 2025, while I was studying for my final university exams, my father shouted:

“The ceasefire agreement has been signed. Finally, the genocide is over.”

For a moment, I thought the worst chapter of my life had ended. The airstrikes, the bombs—everything would stop. I could finally return to the rubble of my home after being displaced to the south of Gaza. I thought all of us in Gaza would breathe life again.

Two months after the US-brokered ceasefire—which is far from a real ceasefire—came into effect, Gaza appears comparatively calm, but it is not at peace. For example, my home in Jabalia is still inaccessible; it remains classified as a “yellow zone.”

The Israeli occupation classified areas of Gaza into 3 zones based on three colours: red, yellow and green. These colours are zones that risk becoming set in stone. They do not constitute traffic rules; they determine our survival. The danger of this classification lies not only in its immediate moment, but in the possibility of it becoming a permanent reality, as has previously happened in parts of the West Bank and inside Palestinian communities within Israel, where arrangements presented as temporary measures turned into long-term realities. This is what concerns us most. In this way, war does not simply end; rather, the future of civilians is entirely redrawn.

The Red Zone: The Forbidden Zone. These are areas of complete danger and a total ban on existence.

The Yellow Zone: The Gamble Zone. This is where my city, Jabalia, lies. Here, returning is fraught with danger. You might return, or you might not return at all. Our fate here hangs on the “mood of the occupation forces” and daily risk calculations.

The Green Zone: The Permitted Zones. The Israeli occupation claims that this is a ‘safe’ area.

But as a direct witness from Gaza, I can say without any doubt that the Israeli occupation has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement in the Green Zone.

For instance, on December 19, 2025, an Israeli missile turned a wedding in a shelter at ‘Shuhada Gaza’ school near ‘Al-Dura Hospital’ in a neighbourhood called Al-Tuffah into a tragedy, killing at least 25 Palestinians.

This school was supposed to be a safe shelter in the Green Zone. Moreover, this is supposed to be a ceasefire, so it should have been respected, and people should not have been killed.

Photograph: Al Jazeera

When we learned the news, fear returned mercilessly. My mother had relatives sheltering there. She called them, hands shaking, tears streaming, until my mother’s cousin Mai answered with a trembling voice: “We survived by a miracle.” She recounted how, without warning, smoke, stones, and glass entered the classroom. They could not see or breathe, and debris was everywhere. They ran through the streets without knowing where to go, leaving everything behind—mattresses, blankets, food, and winter essentials—carrying only the clothes they were wearing.

Mai told us that they went out running, pulling the children from among the rubble in the darkness of night. They found themselves running through the streets, not knowing where to go. Mai added, “Even if we survived, we would never forget the memories of seeing others fall in front of us, the building collapsing before our eyes, and all those details”.

While they were running in the streets, a family they had never met or known before came forward and offered to host them in their tent to spend the night there. They shared dinner together. This is the way of us, the people of Gaza; we always stand by one another and support each other, even if it is in a tent.

Now, Mai and her family will set up a tent in a camp that won’t protect them from the bitter cold or the heavy winter rains.

Later news reports confirmed that the school building near our relatives’ building was the target. A simple wedding without decorations, or fancy halls, or embellishments, turned into a miserable tragedy. Five people were killed and others injured in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a school sheltering displaced people, according to Al-Akhbar newspaper, citing the Palestinian Civil Defence.

The tragedy did not end with the explosion. According to Al Jazeera, Israeli forces prevented ambulance and civil defence crews from accessing the site for more than two hours, delaying the evacuation of the wounded and the retrieval of the dead following the strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza. It also reported that the Israeli occupation claimed they “regret any harm to uninvolved civilians in Gaza.”

It is hard to see how “regret” can make up for the lives lost and the suffering caused.

Words of regret do not make sense when the same tragedies keep happening. And yet, the world stays strangely silent in front of these massacres, without taking any real action. It feels as if the suffering of the innocent is ignored, leaving the victims alone in their pain.

This incident is just one of many massacres and violations carried out by Israeli forces after the ceasefire agreement, which they have violated 738 times since its signing on 10 October 2025, according to Al-Jazeera.

Moreover, since 10 October, when the agreement went into effect, Israel has killed at least 394 people, according to Al-Jazeera.

The school was named ‘Shuhada Gaza’ (The Martyrs of Gaza). We used to think it was just a name to honour those who fell in previous wars, but on that night, the name became a haunting reality of the present.

This is a one-sided ceasefire. Israel decided when it began; it then violates it, and the world remains silent as if nothing had really happened. Twenty-five people, who thought they were safe once the ceasefire agreement was signed, were killed. Their hopes perished with the ceasefire.

The story of Shuhada Gaza school is not just one tragedy—it is the reality of life under Israeli occupation, where a ceasefire exists only on paper, but the suffering of Palestinians continues.

By Amna A. Dmeida

Amna is a writer and English Literature student from Gaza, who bears witness to the daily suffering of Gazans and documents their lived realities through storytelling.