We are a few days into something called a cease-fire. Can we even say that— “a few days into a cease-fire”? For Palestinians in Gaza, the words feel strange on the tongue. Perhaps they are supposed to connote peace, relief, and the chance to take a breath after months of suffocation. Yet I feel none of those things. I don’t even feel that the war has stopped.

By now we should be experts on cease-fires. We’ve lived through many cycles of war and cessation. And yet I don’t know what to feel. “New chapter,” I say to myself. I imagine a director with a clapboard calling, “Scene three!”—but at this point I’ve lost count of the takes.

I’m not alone in this unease. Among my friends and relatives, no one seems to trust this peace. We fear that it will shatter, as the agreements before it have.

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