Today, we welcome the long-overdue release of the 20 remaining Israelis held by Hamas and the freeing of almost 2,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. 

Hopefully, the ceasefire will hold, and the people of the region will find a lasting peace.

The immediate priority now, amidst widespread malnutrition and starvation, must be to ensure that desperately needed humanitarian aid quickly reaches the people of Gaza. The United Nations must be granted unfettered access.

Further, at a time when virtually the entire infrastructure of Gaza has been destroyed — housing, schools, medical facilities, water systems, roads, electricity generation — the international community must support the Palestinian people as they begin to rebuild their communities.

But it must be the Palestinians themselves who guide this process and determine their future. To achieve a lasting peace, Israel must abandon its current extremist course and move toward a genuine two-state solution.

Finally, as Americans, we must grapple with our role in this extremely dark chapter. The vast majority of Americans understand that Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.

But most Americans also understand that Israel did not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, killing or wounding almost 237,000 Palestinians — more than 10 percent of Gaza’s population — most of them women, children, and the elderly.

Tragically, the United States provided most of the weapons used for this horrendous destruction. Under Biden and Trump the United States spent more than $23 billion in taxpayer dollars to support Netanyahu’s barbaric campaign. This blanket military support continued despite clear violations of U.S. and international law.

This must never happen again.