Relief and Celebration along with Mourning and Tears
Observations on the Signed Ceasefire Agreement between Israel and Hamas
By Boaz D. Heilman
October 12, 2025
With the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas now signed—and hopefully fulfilled and maintained—I find myself filled with various reactions and emotions.
First and foremost, I pray that the hostages will indeed return to their families and begin their long journey towards renewed health and strength.
I am hoping that all the bodies of those hostages murdered by Hamas and other evil jihadist organizations in Gaza be found and brought home for a decent burial. Along with the joy of seeing the living hostages returning, there will be many tears for those who did not survive. All we can pray for is closure and consolation for their families and friends.
And there will be tears as we remember the more-than 1200 Israelis and other nationals who were murdered in the most brutal ways by Hamas terrorists on the sacred Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023.
There will be relief—relief as soldiers return home to their families and accustomed life and work; relief from the sirens and “Red Alert” warnings that have punctuated life in Israel for the past two years; relief from the constant fear of turning on the news and hearing even more tragic news.
Citizens will begin to rebuild their homes, destroyed by drones and missiles launched from Iran, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
And there will be hope as Israelis begin to look towards a brighter future again.
But there will also be skepticism. After all the disappointments and raised hopes that fell through, after all the years and wars that Israel has been fighting for its survival, what does the future hold? Aside from shaky peace agreements that Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan, there is no peace with Israel’s other neighbors, no guarantee, promise or even the slightest hint that the various jihadist organizations might at some point in the future agree to lay down their arms and learn to coexist. What was agreed upon just a couple of days ago was just another ceasefire, not the first and probably not the last in the ongoing war between Arabs and the Jews.
A ceasefire isn’t peace. There has never been long-lasting peace in the Middle East, except perhaps during the time that the Ottoman Empire controlled the region and the rest of Europe was focusing on colonizing the New World. Since the end of World War One and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire there have been only intermittent periods of truce and rebuilding. For Israel, the foreseeable future will mean the rebuilding of its infrastructure of life and security. For the Arabs, in most probability it will be renewed preparations for the next attack.
The conflict between Jews and Arabs goes back centuries—to the time of Mohammad and probably even longer, to the hazy eons before the rise of Islam. But to look only at “modern” times, i.e., going back to Mohammad and his followers, the historic facts are much clearer. When it refers to the Jewish People, the Koran, the basic scripture of Islam, is mostly inflammatory, at best referring to the Jews as “People of the Book” and allowing us the status of dhimmis, second-class citizens. While it does not exactly call for the killing but rather begrudging tolerance of the Jews, a well-known hadith (collections of sayings outside the Koran traditionally attributed to Mohammad) states that on the Day of Judgment nature itself will turn against the Jews (“When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims... there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him”).
The Moslems’ wars against Jews didn’t begin in 1967 (The Six Day War) or even with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Massacres in the holy cities of Safed, Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hebron preceded this historical date by decades, as did anti-Jewish pogroms and forced conversions in Iran, Yemen, Spain and elsewhere in Moslem-controlled lands.
So at this point Israelis will sigh with relief and accept—joyfully yet also tearfully—the most recent ceasefire and the return of the remaining hostages. But then the work will need to begin in earnest, starting with the rehabilitation of the fighters, particularly those who were injured in body, spirit or soul. Restructuring families that had been separated—wives from husbands, parents from children, children from parents—doesn't happen automatically. It will take years to repair. Israeli society today is more fractured than ever—wars tend to do that—along cultural, religious and economic lines. Traditionally differing opinions and views between right- and left-wing politics have turned into seemingly unbridgeable rifts. Contention between secular and Orthodox Jews, particularly the haredim (ultra-Orthodox observant Jews) has turned into rage and even violence during the past two years, with the majority of haredi youth refusing to enlist in the IDF (with the support of their rabbis), leaving the brunt of the war effort and sacrifice to others who see that studying Torah isn’t only a cultural right, but also a privilege that entails responsibilities. Taking advantage of what the modern State of Israel has to offer while refusing to fulfill the mitzvah—the essential commandment—to defend the People and its Homeland—is not merely unethical. It is sacrilege and transgression of conditions set by Moses 3200 years ago and affirmed by Maimonides more than a thousand years ago.
Israel’s society will have to find a way to rebuild itself, and so will the Israel Defense Force. The courage and heroism of the IDF fighters is legendary, yet also very real, often carrying with it a heavy price. The asymmetrical nature of modern warfare, in which one side resorts to indiscriminate killing, including the use, misuse and abuse of the civilian population while the other tries to minimize collateral casualties—often at a high price for itself—will have to be re-evaluated. The reliance on missile and drone technology will require new and improved means of self-defense. Yet in the end any future conflict will still and inevitably come down to combat personnel and boots on the ground. We are all Monday morning quarterbacks; few of us however know the real facts and factors that shaped this round of fighting, and experienced leaders will need to study and draw conclusions from this conflict for a long time.
The nation of Israel will have to reunify along some basic principles. The shock and unexpected reality of seeing so many countries around the world come down against Israel as it fought one of its most vicious and dangerous enemy—an enemy that sees the war against Israel as merely part of a wider goal: the destruction of the entire West—might help reunite a deeply riven nation.
The restructuring of the political configuration of Israel’s government will prove a necessary step. A government that has relied on divisiveness to remain in power; that has blinded itself and all society to the dangers around it; that ignored significant warnings against an imminent attack; that thought it could buy peace through monetary donations from both friendly and enemy nations while simultaneously pocketing substantial payoffs and kickbacks, is a corrupt government. A government that does all that and in the process fails to protect its people has lost its right to remain in power.
An independent commission of investigation along the lines of the Agranat Commission that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War will have to be set up, and its recommendations considered and acted upon without delay. Short of that, the blame game will continue and exacerbate, leading to even further erosion in public opinion and national stability.
For Jews worldwide, October 7 was a watershed moment. For a few decades following the Holocaust, we lived in a bubble. Coexistence was more than a possibility, more than a dream. Or so we thought. Some Jews, taking the State of Israel for granted without realizing that their own sense of security was founded upon this rock, have adopted slogans that not only decry Israel’s government and military, but call for the actual destruction of the State of Israel. Others, ignorant of their own history and tradition, uninformed about the background of the conflict and naive about the historical connection between the Land of Israel and the People of Israel, have joined or at the very least shown support for fascists and neo-Nazis who would like nothing better than to see all Jews dead.
The unity of the entire Jewish People is being tested and must prove itself. The October 7 pogrom was not an isolated event. It was not “resistance” against any sort of occupation or colonialization—terms adopted by cynical terrorists and their supporters. Rather, this horrific event was part of an ongoing deadly war against the Jews. How we defend ourselves against future attacks is something we will all have to consider and rethink. What we teach our children and all future generations (and to whom we entrust this important endeavor) can no longer be relegated to theories or theological discussions. October 7 was horrific and all-too-real. How we survive as Jews is a something we have always asked ourselves after such events and which we will now have to ask ourselves yet again.
The world will always remember this day as October 7. But for the Jewish People the date has another meaning. October 7 2023 fell—by coincidence or not—on the Jewish holy day of Simchat Torah, the day of Rejoicing with the Torah, the Covenant between the People of Israel, our God, and our homeland. At synagogues and temples around the world, the last few paragraphs of the Torah are read, followed immediately by the first few verses in its first book Genesis. It’s a return to a new beginning, filled with prayer and hope. Let us pray that this anniversary will indeed be a celebration—filled not only with relief and joy but also with hope for a new beginning, for which we always pray, upon which our existence has always rested: A safe, thriving and secure Israel, along with peace and acceptance of Jews in every home and land.
(c) 2025 by Boaz D. Heilman
