Dubai, Oct 10: It’s been a year since a ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump and Arab allies promised to end the war in Gaza, and Israel is still launching deadly strikes on the devastated territory.
The agreement halted major military operations, freed all remaining hostages and increased humanitarian access. But it has failed to deliver on promises of a new Palestinian administration aided by international forces, the disarmament of Hamas and an end to Israel’s control over more than half the territory. Almost nothing has been rebuilt.
Israel has tied any progress on the other issues to Hamas’ complete disarmament, while the militant group — and the Trump administration — say they should happen simultaneously. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hardened his stance over the summer, openly defying Trump, his most important ally, ahead of Israeli elections later this month.
The wrangling has left Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians in limbo. Most are sheltering in rodent-infested tent camps, the rubble of their former neighbourhoods or war-damaged buildings at risk of collapse.
In the Jabaliya area of the northern Gaza Strip, Abdullah Abu Zubaida’s family lives in a makeshift shelter built from the debris of their house.
“When the ceasefire began last October, we expected the war to halt, assassinations to cease, and aid to flow in,” he said. None of that has happened.
For Ne’man Abu Jarad and his family, displaced from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza to Khan Younis in the south, the truce also has brought no clear path home. The family, including five daughters, continues to live in tents.
“The ceasefire is merely nominal, ink on paper,” Abu Jarad said.
Early success raised hopes of ending the war
The 20-point ceasefire agreement, reached after months of negotiations under the Biden and Trump administrations, ended major military operations and led to the return of all the remaining hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people that day and abducted 251. Israel responded with massive bombardment and a ground invasion that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records and is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its toll but says women and children make up around half the dead.
After the deal was announced, Trump called for a new era of harmony in the Middle East. “We have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us,” he said at a summit marking the deal.
The agreement called for much more
The agreement called for Hamas to hand over power to a committee of Palestinian administrators vetted by the Board of Peace, a new body chaired by Trump and charged with implementing the ceasefire.
The militants officially dissolved their government in July but left the civil service intact and remain the dominant power in the roughly 40 per cent of Gaza not controlled by the Israeli military. Israel has meanwhile barred the new Palestinian administration from entering Gaza via Egypt.
The formation of an International Stabilisation Force was announced in February but has yet to materialise. Indonesia, which pledged the largest troop contingent — 8,000 soldiers — put those plans on hold last spring as the world’s focus shifted to the Iran war.
Israel was supposed to withdraw from Gaza but has instead seized more territory, pushing the so-called yellow Line of Control westward toward the Mediterranean Sea. It has also carried out regular strikes on individuals it accused of violating the ceasefire, approaching the yellow line or having taken part in the Oct. 7 attack — strikes that have often killed civilians.
Israeli strikes have killed over 1,400 Palestinians since the ceasefire took effect, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Sporadic attacks have killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza in the same period.
More deadlock after Netanyahu defied Trump
In July, Trump announced a deal to disarm Hamas, portraying it as a breakthrough in the long-stalled process.
That deal, an extension of the original ceasefire, called for Hamas to disarm “in a gradual, sequential and time-bound manner” that is “linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases.” Hamas confirmed for the first time that it had agreed to disarm, also linking it to Israel halting its strikes and withdrawing from Gaza.
Days later, Netanyahu announced that Israel would not withdraw from any part of Gaza until after Hamas has been completely disarmed, explicitly rejecting the agreement announced by Trump.
The rare instance of friction between the two allies came as Netanyahu seeks to shore up his nationalist base ahead of Oct. 27 elections that could end his nearly unbroken 17-year rule, the longest in Israel’s history.
Netanyahu has come under fire over security and intelligence failures leading up to the Oct. 7 attack, with opponents accusing him of having been soft on Hamas. That gives him little space to make even minor compromises on Gaza, at least until a new government is formed, which could take months.
