Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 282 times from October 10 to November 10, through the continuation of attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings, the Government Media Office in Gaza reports.

The office said Israel shot at civilians 88 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 12 times, bombed Gaza 124 times, and demolished people’s properties on 52 occasions. It added that Israel also detained 23 Palestinians from Gaza over the past month.

Israel has also continued to block vital humanitarian aid and destroy homes and infrastructure across the Strip.

Al Jazeera tracks the ceasefire violations to date.

What are the terms of the ceasefire?
On September 29, the United States unveiled a 20-point proposal, without any Palestinian input, to end Israel’s war on Gaza, release the remaining captives held in the enclave, allow the full entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory and outline a three-phase withdrawal of Israeli forces.

ome of the main conditions of the first phase, which is ongoing, include:

An end to hostilities in Gaza by Israel and Hamas
Lifting the blockade of all aid into Gaza by Israel and stopping its interference in aid distribution
Release of all captives held in Gaza – alive or dead – by Hamas
Release of some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and disappeared people from Israeli jails
Withdrawal of Israeli forces to the “yellow line”

Following mediation by partners including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye, representatives from some 30 countries gathered on October 13 for a ceremony to sign the Gaza ceasefire agreement, led by US President Donald Trump.

However, Israel and Hamas were notably absent, raising doubts about the summit’s ability to achieve tangible progress towards ending the war and resolving the core issues of Israeli occupation and the 18-year-long siege of Gaza.

Israel has pledged not to allow a Palestinian state, and the US has continued its large-scale arms transfers and diplomatic backing to Israel throughout its genocidal war on Gaza, while offering only vague statements about Gaza’s future.

Israel attacks Gaza nearly every day
According to an analysis by Al Jazeera, Israel has attacked Gaza on 25 out of the past 31 days of the ceasefire, meaning there were only six days during which no violent attacks, deaths or injuries were reported.

Despite continuing attacks, the US insists that the “ceasefire” is still holding.

Israel still killing Palestinians
Since the ceasefire took effect at noon on October 10, Israel has killed at least 242 Palestinians and injured 622, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

On October 19 and 29 – two of the deadliest days since the latest ceasefire – Israel killed a total of 154 people.

On October 19, accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire after two Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah, Israeli forces killed 45 people in a massive wave of air raids across the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, pointed out that Israel controls the Rafah area and it had no contact with any Palestinian fighters there.

On October 29, Israel killed 109 people, including 52 children, after an exchange of gunfire in Rafah that killed one Israeli soldier.

Israel also said a body transferred from Gaza by Hamas via the Red Cross did not belong to one of the captives due to be released under the ceasefire.

“The Israelis hit back, and they should hit back,” Trump told reporters, calling Israel’s attacks “retribution” for the soldier’s death.

Here are the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, tracking the casualties from October 7, 2023, through November 10, 2025:

Confirmed killed: at least 69,179 people, including 20,179 children
Injured: at least 170,693 people

Israel still choking aid
The ceasefire stipulated that “full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip”. However, the reality on the ground remains very different.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), only half the required food aid is currently reaching Gaza, while a coalition of Palestinian relief agencies says total aid deliveries amount to just one-quarter of what was agreed under the ceasefire.

From October 10 to November 9, only 3,451 trucks have reached their intended destinations inside Gaza, according to the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, which monitors humanitarian aid in Gaza.

According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.

According to the Government Media Office, as of November 6, only 4,453 trucks had entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, out of an expected 15,600.

This averages about 171 trucks daily, far short of the 600 trucks per day that were supposed to enter.

Yet the White House says nearly 15,000 trucks carrying commercial goods and humanitarian aid have entered Gaza since October 10, a figure sharply disputed by Palestinians and aid groups.

In addition, Israel has blocked more than 350 essential and nutritious food items, including meat, dairy, and vegetables crucial for a balanced diet. Instead, non-nutritious foodstuffs are being allowed, such as snacks, chocolate, crisps, and soft drinks.

Did Hamas release the captives it’s supposed to release?
On October 13, as per the ceasefire deal, Hamas released all 20 remaining living Israeli captives in exchange for 250 Palestinians serving long prison sentences and 1,700 Palestinians disappeared by Israel since October 7, 2023.

As part of the deal, Hamas is also expected to return the bodies of 28 Israeli captives in exchange for 360 Palestinian bodies held by Israel.

As of November 10, Hamas had returned 24 Israeli captives’ bodies, with four remaining in Gaza. The group has said it requires heavy excavation equipment to recover the remaining bodies buried under the rubble from Israeli bombardment.

Israel has so far returned 300 Palestinian bodies, many of which were mutilated and showed signs of torture. Many remain unidentified.

What does international law say about ceasefires?
According to Lieber Institute, a ceasefire is designed to halt active combat, or “freeze a conflict in place”, but it can be ambiguous in international law.

The suspension of hostilities is best understood as a cessation of active hostile military operations.

Resuming hostilities would breach political agreements, but it might not be a violation of international law unless the ceasefire was part of a binding treaty or United Nations Security Council resolution.

It was the latest in a series of attacks by young settlers in the West Bank.

Israeli police said four Israelis were arrested in what it described as “extremist violence,” while the Israeli military said four Palestinians were wounded. Police and Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said they were investigating.

Videos on social media showed two charred trucks engulfed in flames, with a nearby building on fire. Settler violence has surged since the war in Gaza erupted two years ago. The attacks have intensified in recent weeks as Palestinians harvest their olive trees in an annual ritual.

Earlier on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis attended the funeral of an Israeli soldier whose remains had been held in Gaza for 11 years, overflowing and blocking surrounding streets as somber crowds stood with Israeli flags.

Earlier on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Israelis attended the funeral of an Israeli soldier whose remains had been held in Gaza for 11 years, overflowing and blocking surrounding streets as somber crowds stood with Israeli flags.

The burial of Lt. Hadar Goldin was a moment of closure for his family, which had traveled the world in a public campaign seeking his return. The huge turnout also reflected the importance for the broader public in Israel, where Goldin became a household name.

Hamas returned his remains on Sunday as part of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that began last month. The bodies of four hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, are still in Gaza.

Settler violence in the West Bank

The U.N. humanitarian office last week reported more Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in October than in any other month since it began keeping track in 2006. There were over 260 attacks, the office said.

Palestinians and human rights workers accuse the Israeli army and police of failing to halt attacks by settlers. Israel’s government is dominated by West Bank settlers, and the police force is overseen by Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hardline settler leader.

In Tuesday’s incident, the army said soldiers initially responded to settler attacks in the villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf. It said the settlers fled to a nearby industrial zone and attacked soldiers sent to the scene and damaged a military vehicle.

Palestinian official Muayyad Shaaban, who heads the government’s Commission against the Wall and Settlements, said the settlers set fire to four dairy trucks, farmland, tin shacks and tents belonging to a Bedouin community.

He said the attacks were part of a campaign to drive Palestinians from their land and accused Israel of giving the settlers protection and immunity. He called for sanctions against groups that “sponsor and support the colonial settlement terrorism project.”

French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the attacks during his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris on Tuesday, saying that “settler violence and the acceleration of settlement projects are reaching new heights, threatening the stability of the West Bank.”

Palestinians in Gaza still struggling to access food
Displaced Palestinians in central Gaza said they continue to rely heavily on charity kitchens for their only daily meal, as soaring market prices and the lack of income leave them struggling.

Scores of people, most of them children, lined up with empty pots at a charity kitchen in Nuseirat refugee camp on Tuesday waiting to be served rice — the only food available that day.

“The rockets and planes stopped but increasing living costs has been the hardest weapon used against us,” said Mohamed al-Naqlah, a displaced Palestinian.

On Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has risen to 69,182. Its count, generally considered by independent experts as reliable, does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but the ministry says more than half of those killed were women and children.

The latest war began with the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel when around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and 251 people were kidnapped.

Close adviser to Netanyahu resigns
Cabinet Minister Ron Dermer, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidants, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing family reasons.

In a letter, Dermer said he had promised his family to serve two years but extended his term by an additional year to deal with Iran’s nuclear program and “to end the war in Gaza on Israel’s terms and bring our hostages home.”

The U.S.-born Dermer is a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. As strategic affairs minister, he served as Netanyahu’s envoy throughout the war in dealing with the United States and ceasefire negotiations.

Funeral for soldier whose remains were held 11 years
Goldin was 23 when he was killed two hours after a ceasefire took effect in the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas. For years before the 2023 attack, posters with the faces of Goldin and Oron Shaul, another soldier whose body was abducted in the 2014 war, stared down from intersections.

Israel’s military long ago determined that Goldin had been killed based on evidence found in the tunnel where his body was taken, including a blood-soaked shirt and prayer fringes. On Tuesday, it announced it had dismantled the tunnel shaft where his body was found. The military retrieved Shaul’s body in January.

Eulogies from Goldin’s siblings, parents, and former fiancee at his funeral never mentioned Netanyahu, who was prime minister when Goldin was kidnapped and for most of the period since. They thanked the Israeli military, including reserve soldiers, who tirelessly searched for Goldin’s body over the years.

Netanyahu did not attend the funeral, though Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, gave a eulogy on behalf of the military.

For years, Israel had four hostages in Gaza: Goldin, Shaul, and two Israelis with mental health issues who had crossed into Gaza on their own and were held since 2014 and 2015. All four were returned in the past year.

Approximately 200,000 people, mostly men clad in traditional black suits and hats carrying placards denouncing conscription, brought West Jerusalem to a standstill Thursday, clogging roads and setting fire to pieces of tarpaulin, local media reported.

At least 2,000 police officers were mobilised to respond to the demonstration.

One teenager died at the largely peaceful protest after falling from a building under construction next to the protest, police said.

Banners seen at the protest declared: “The people are with the Torah” and “Closing the yeshiva — a death sentence for Judaism.”

The mass demonstration follows a recent crackdown, with thousands of call-up notices sent to ultra-Orthodox people in recent months and several deserters imprisoned.

“Right now, people who refuse to go to the army are taken to military prison,” said Shmuel Orbach, a protester, “It’s not so bad. But we are a Jewish country. You cannot fight against Judaism in a Jewish country; it does not work.”

The debate over military service — and who is exempt — has long caused tensions in Israeli society and become a political headache for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his country’s two-year war on Gaza.

Under a ruling established at the time of Israel’s creation in 1948, when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, men who devote themselves full-time to the study of sacred Jewish texts are given a de facto pass.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, or about 1.3 million people, and roughly 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption.

Frustration at the exemption has grown amid Israel’s wars on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran since 2023, as the Israeli military death toll reached the highest number for decades.

Last year, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for service.

In its ruling, the court said that in the absence of a law that distinguishes between Jewish seminary students and other draftees, Israel’s compulsory military service system applies to ultra-Orthodox men like any other citizen.

That ruling has had a destabilising effect on Netanyahu’s coalition government. In July, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), announced it was quitting the country’s fractious right-wing coalition, leaving Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority in the Knesset.

Parliament has been struggling to draft a new conscription bill, which has so far failed to meet both the ultra-Orthodox demands and those of a stretched military.

Israel is scheduled to hold elections by late October 2026, with at least 11 new political parties already registered and Netanyahu’s opposition once again searching for a way to unseat him.

The lawmakers, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have called for 25 of these prisoners to be granted amnesty, according to the Israeli news outlet Ynet.

“Over the past few days, the Israeli government has been releasing thousands of terrorists,” the letter stated, referring to the recent prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.

“Our signatures in no way constitute agreement with their actions,” the signatories wrote in reference to the Jewish Israelis convicted of murder.

"While these Jews languish in prison, leaving suffering families and sometimes even those who were victims of terrorism, they see terrorists, including despicable murderers, making their way to freedom with their people and their families," the letter said.

"We call on you, Mr President, to act immediately for the release of these handful of Jewish prisoners and to correct this injustice."

The signatories included members of the ruling Likud party and several ministers, among them Transport Minister Miri Regev and Culture Minister Miki Zohar.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began on 11 October, there have been growing calls for Herzog to pardon Israelis convicted of murdering Palestinians, who are described by some as “political prisoners”. Under Israeli law, the president has the authority to grant pardons.

Earlier this month, extremist settler leader Yossi Dagan appealed to Herzog, arguing that these prisoners should be released.

Ynet reported earlier that Herzog is considering commuting the sentences of Jewish prisoner Ami Popper and others convicted of attacks against Palestinians, in an effort to “balance” the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the ceasefire deal.

"In recent months, the pardons departments, both in the President's Residence and in the Ministry of Justice, have conducted administrative work that examined the requests of Jewish security prisoners for commutation of their sentences," Ynet reported.

Dawabsheh and Abu Khdeir killers?
Popper, who has been serving a prison sentence since 1990 after the murder of seven Palestinian workers at a bus stop in Rishon LeZion, is scheduled to be released from prison in 2030.

According to the report, it is unclear who the other prisoners are whose requests are being reviewed by Herzog.

Yosef Haim Ben-David, one of the most high-profile prisoners, is serving a prison sentence for the 2014 murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir.

Ben-David and two others kidnapped Abu Khdeir, 16, in Jerusalem, beat him and then burned him alive.

Another is Amiram Ben-Uliel, convicted in 2020 of killing three members of the Dawabsheh family – including an 18-month-old baby – in a 2015 arson attack on their home in the occupied West Bank village of Duma.

He received three life sentences, which the Dawabsheh family said at the time was “not enough”.

“This will not bring back our family. It will not bring back Ahmad’s father,” the family told Middle East Eye after the verdict.

Recently, public calls have grown in Israel to release some of these prisoners.

“There is no moral justification for keeping Jews in prison who, even if they made a mistake, pose no danger to the public,” said MP Limor Son Har-Melech of Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party in an interview with Ynet.

“The time has come to correct this injustice.”

Son Har-Melech, a settler in the occupied West Bank, initiated the letter to the president and has become one of the leading advocates for the prisoners’ release.

She made 30 prison visits between 2018 and 2024 to meet with several inmates.

In the past, she has also voiced support for Ben-Uliel’s release, claiming he is innocent.

This year, they are particularly frenzied.

After two years of a genocidal war in Gaza, the brakes have truly come off their attempt to purge the countryside of its native population.

Almost as much as the Palestinian flag, the olive tree represents the symbol of ownership that one Palestinian generation hands down to another, and Israelis of all tribes are determined to erase it.

Afaf Abu Alia, a 53-year-old Palestinian mother who was beaten on the head in turns by Israeli settlers, said: "When they cut our olive trees, it felt like they were gouging out our eyes. The olive tree is so precious to us – like our own children."

The pogroms against the Palestinians are pure ethnic aggression, designed solely to force them off their land. No "friend of Israel" can pretend otherwise.

There is nothing remotely "defensive" about this operation. Lynch mobs of settlers are on a manhunt for Palestinian prey.

This is the myth Israel perpetrates when it claims to offer Jewish victims of antisemitism a safe haven. Nor can they claim that this naked aggression against unarmed Palestinians is the work of a fringe group of settlers and that the rest of Israel wants to live in peace with its Arabs.

The burning of cars, the beatings and the killings are a collective effort, and key to the concurrent legislative push for annexation.

No opposition to annexation
Apart from the settlers, and citizens who turn up with metal bars, there are soldiers who fire teargas and shoot at their victims; the border police who arrest the victims of the settlers and stop ambulances from recovering the bodies; the Shin Bet, as well as the Israeli prisons service, settlement security coordinators, the Israeli military liaison office, the courts, and of course, last week, the Knesset itself.

The parliament passed a preliminary reading of two bills. The first applied Israeli sovereignty to all the settlements in the occupied West Bank. This was opposed by the ruling Likud party, although one member, Yuli Edelstein, broke ranks to cast the decisive vote.

Edelstein said that he supported the measure because "Israeli sovereignty in all parts of our homeland is the order of the day" and called on "all Zionist factions to vote in favour".

The other was a more limited bill proposed by the secular nationalist Avigdor Lieberman to annex the large settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, arguing the surest form of devouring the occupied West Bank was in salami slices.

"Ma'ale Adumim constitutes the broadest consensus in Israeli society. In terms of applying sovereignty, it is better to go for the broadest national consensus [such as] Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, Gush Etzion and the Jordan Valley."

This bill, everyone in Europe and the US please note, got the support of the so-called opposition leaders Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz.

There is in fact no opposition to annexation. It enjoys bipartisan support.

Senior members of the cabinet, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz, have also endorsed annexation. Last summer, the Knesset overwhelmingly approved a non-binding motion in favour of applying Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

Even the statement from the Likud party, which dismissed the two bills as political trolling designed to embarrass the government on the day US Vice President JD Vance was in town, blurted out what was really going on.

"We strengthen settlement every day with actions, budgets, construction, industry, and not with words. True sovereignty will be achieved by… creating the political conditions appropriate for the recognition of our sovereignty, as was done in the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem."

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and de facto colonial governor of the West Bank, was unfazed by US President Donald Trump's rejection of annexation.

Trump had warned that Israel would lose the support of the US "completely" if it annexed the West Bank, and it "would not happen" as it would break the commitments he gave to Arab leaders.

Smotrich, who should no longer be considered a religious Zionist outlier or extremist, but the voice of the driving force of Israeli politics, said it was only a matter of time before Trump would come around, just as he did by recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

A bitter harvest
It's only the start of this year's olive harvest, which continues until December, but already the pogroms have had a dramatic effect.

The Palestinian
Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission documented 158 settler attacks since the start of the olive harvest, which runs from October to late December, carried out under the protection of the Israeli army.

Palestine usually produces between 17,000 and 22,000 tonnes of olives, but this season it is expected to fall to just 7,000 tonnes, the lowest in decades.

Since the start of the year, 10,000 trees have been burned or uprooted, on which roughly half of the Palestinian population depend. But it's the land the trees are on which is Smotrich's real target.

Key to his plan to annex 82 percent of the occupied West Bank is the principle of "the maximum land with the minimum Arabs".

The pogroms have already cleared Palestinians off one-fifth of the land they still cling to.

Olive trees cover some 550,000 dunams (around 136,000 acres) of farmland out of a total of 1.2 million dunams. In the past two years, Israeli army and settler violence have prevented farmers from accessing 110,000 dunams of their land.

So with or without Likud denials or Trump's threats, the Smotrich plan is firmly underway. Possibly not at the speed with which he wants it carried out, but the destination can no longer be in doubt.

Abbas succession
If you are sitting in Ramallah, Smotrich represents an existential threat to whoever takes over from the ageing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although this is no longer in any doubt after the decree he issued on Sunday.

Responding to speculation that Abbas's arch Fatah rival, Marwan Barghouti, might be let out of Israeli prison after over 20 years, and that Trump was seriously considering pleas from Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, Abbas issued a decree which shuts the door on any rival or indeed any election.

The decree stated that if he could no longer fulfil his duties as president, the position would be filled "temporarily" – always a suspicious word in the Middle East – by Hussein al-Sheikh, the deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee.

Sheikh, who is Israel's primary contact over civilian matters in the West Bank, has been vetted and approved by both Tel Aviv and Washington.

At the last available poll, only 18.9 percent of Palestinians supported his appointment as vice chairman. In a straight context, Sheikh would be blown away by Barghouti.

But polls are irrelevant to the president, who has not allowed an election to take place for 21 years and who has shut down the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which has been dormant, after the last vote in 2006 gave Hamas 74 of the 132 seats, while the ruling Fatah got just 45.

Abbas's closure of parliament is another reason for Sunday's decree. Basic Law decrees that an incapacitated president is supposed to be replaced by the speaker of the Legislative Council.

Now he is not.

All this is business as usual for Abbas. It is as if the genocide in Gaza never took place, and an existential attack on the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not happening either.

The PA responded to the genocide in Gaza with silence. It is pursuing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in the International Criminal Court.

But Israel's attempt to exterminate Gaza has not even produced a dent in Abbas's policy of excluding Hamas from a unity government of any form. On the contrary, it has only confirmed it.

Other Fatah grandees who appear at international gatherings are careful to accompany declarations that Hamas must be disarmed in Gaza with carefully worded acknowledgements that it must, at some level, be involved in the process of finding a new leader.

But not Abbas, who clearly thinks the resistance groups are a bigger threat to his authority than Israel currently is.

Like Netanyahu, whose proudest lifetime achievement has been to kill a Palestinian state at birth, Abbas's proudest boast has been to cling to power, 21 years after he effectively lost it.

The contradictions between marginalising Hamas, reforming the PA to be even more subservient to Israel and its occupation than it already is, and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state on the borders of 1967, are fully contained in the internal Saudi foreign ministry report, which was leaked to Middle East Eye.

Saudi Arabia said Hamas has an "impact on obstructing peace efforts and deepening divisions" and therefore should be sidelined.

Written in Arabic, this paper was presumably for distribution to fellow Arab delegates at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Smotrich laughed at Saudi Arabia's attempts to bargain normalisation for a Palestinian state. "Keep riding your camels in the Saudi desert. We'll continue to develop our economy, society and state with all the great things we know how to do."

What next?
Barghouti himself remains an unknown factor. Whether he still retains the power he once had to lead both the Palestinian national liberation struggle and make Israel take him seriously as a negotiator remains to be seen, if he is ever released.

In the past, Israel has simply assassinated leaders like Yasser Arafat – widely assumed today to have been poisoned – who tried and failed to do both.

There is every reason why Israel would assassinate Barghouti in or out of prison, if he ever became a serious challenger for power in Ramallah.

But if Barghouti, or someone like him, does not assume control of Fatah very soon, Abbas will drag his party and every Palestinian institution – the PA, the PLC and the PLO – down with him. Is this very real prospect really in the interests of those in Fatah who are currently keeping their heads down?

Hamas and the resistance groups have every chance of outliving Abbas and continuing in Gaza, in the West Bank and the diaspora.

All that is left for Abbas to do is to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Even he has to see that.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

If one listens carefully, a striking conclusion emerges from regional capitals: the war in Gaza is over – not only militarily, but as a political paradigm. In the eyes of those who manage statecraft, the agreement marks a point of no return. What is unfolding is not a truce; it is a reordering. Gaza’s catastrophe has triggered a recalibration that will ripple far beyond its borders, reaching deep into Israel, reshaping Palestinian politics, and redefining what regional stability will mean for years to come.

In this new calculus, Hamas – and indeed the entire project of political Islam, alongside most non-state actors – faces exclusion from formal politics. The ruling classes of the region, newly aligned around the pursuit of stability, commerce and controlled modernisation, now regard such movements as relics of the past and as agents of chaos. A growing consensus holds that all such actors must be contained or eradicated.

The same logic of control will extend to the West Bank – simply because the emerging regional order prizes governability above all else. The Arab plan is that Arab states, joined by select Islamic and international powers, will step in to place the West Bank under temporary supervision – administrative, financial, and security-based – paving the way for a managed transition.

The Palestinian Authority will be offered what may be its final opportunity to reform – a process that will be overseen by a team of independent technocrats tasked with restructuring institutions, governing Gaza, and preparing the ground for elections. Should the Palestinian Authority resist this restructuring, it risks isolation and insolvency.

Many will see this as an attempt not at reform but at co-option – certainly the logic of those driving this process is not democratic idealism. They seek to secure the Palestinian street through a leadership that can both contain discontent and negotiate in predictable terms. Palestinians do not have monarchs or dynasties, and in the absence of such structures, the ballot box remains the only viable tool to sustain internal legitimacy, even if born out of external calculation.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, long hollowed out, may soon stand as little more than a symbolic umbrella, a ceremonial home for the parties of “liberation”. In the emerging regional order, it risks being seen as a structure that has outlived its political moment, its struggle reduced to declarations, appeals, and the pursuit of donor funds. Those who wish to remain politically relevant will have to reconstitute themselves — bearing in mind the new order — as civilian parties stripped of their revolutionary ethos.

These are the contours of what many in policy circles now regard as inevitable. It is a vision few describe openly, yet it is quietly embraced with growing confidence from Amman to Cairo, from Riyadh to key Western capitals.

But here lies the divide. While insiders speak in the language of systems, supervision, and “order,” many around the world recoil at what they see as cynical calculation and co-option — a rearrangement of power stripped of justice, accountability, or honest vision. Activists and solidarity movements see these manoeuvres not as reordering but as betrayal. They cannot trust Israel or the United States, nor can they trust the intentions of regional governments that appear to have aligned themselves with money and power. And they are right to be suspicious.

Yet between naivete and cynicism, there must be a space for realism — not the realism of resignation, but of awareness. What is happening now is not the fulfillment of justice but the emergence of a new structure that will define what justice can, or cannot, achieve. To ignore it is to forfeit agency once again.

The earthquake of Gaza has changed the grammar of the conflict. Israeli power, though brutal, is no longer absolute. Regional politics are shifting. A new order is being written — and those who wish to remain actors in it must learn its vocabulary. Otherwise, they risk becoming footnotes, remembered only for their refusal to adapt to the world as it remade itself before their eyes.

In my view, both realities – the pragmatic and the moral – are now unfolding side by side, their currents intertwining, clashing and advancing through all their contradictions. Alongside this divide runs a second, intersecting axis: on one hand, Israel’s unrelenting expansionist project continues to challenge and erode every emerging framework of peace, justice or order. The other, defined by the transactional calculations of regional powers – each, in varying degrees, tethered to and influencing the United States.

In the near term, the collision of these currents is bound to produce turbulence. But in the longer view, as Washington’s attention will be invariably forced to shift towards China and Russia, and as Western public sentiment turns decisively against Israel’s impunity and the colonial logic underpinning it, it is hard to imagine how the second current, the regional pragmatists, will not ultimately prevail, perhaps sooner than expected.

Meanwhile, solidarity movements will continue to speak in the register of values – of rights, memory, and the moral law that still insists upon justice in an age of expediency. Their voice remains indispensable: it is the conscience that recalls what politics too often forgets. The arc of history will not bend towards justice on its own; it must be pulled there by those who refuse amnesia, who don’t trade values for comfort.

For diaspora Palestinians and the international public moved by solidarity, the work ahead is clear. They must resist the lulling comfort of placating gestures that will surely multiply: recognitions, resolutions, promises of reconstruction. Accept these with grace, but do not mistake them for transformation.

The push for tangible shifts on the ground as well as the pursuit of accountability must remain relentless. The architects and executors of the genocide in Gaza must one day stand before the law, not out of vengeance, but to restore meaning to justice itself. Only through such persistence can conscience remain a political force and that the struggle for Palestine – for dignity, equality, and truth – continues to define not only a people’s destiny, but the moral temper of our time.

The other, harder task is the one too often left unattended: the building of new political leadership on the ground. There is now a gap – narrow, uncertain, but real. It is not an easy one to step into, but it is one that must be seized.

The next generation must understand that bearing witness, protesting or commenting from the margins will no longer suffice. No one will extend an invitation to lead; they will have to claim that space themselves through initiative, clarity, and the hard work of organising.

As Palestinians return to political ground zero, those who wish to see a new kind of leadership must engage directly to craft policy, and to help form and fund the movements that can carry a nation forward.

For only through the rise of new political forces, and a language capable of speaking both to the street and to the halls of power, can Palestinians reclaim their voice in this new unfolding chapter.

Israel has long insisted that Hamas surrender all of its weapons if its two-year war on Gaza is to end, as well as demanding that the group relinquish governance of the Palestinian enclave and dissolve itself as an organisation.

For its part, Hamas has publicly rejected calls to give up its weapons, but experts say that the group has expressed openness in private to hand over some of its arsenal.

“When it comes to disarmament, this is where you have seen the biggest shift in Hamas’s position,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

“[Hamas officials] have said in private to interlocutors that the group may be open to a decommissioning process of Hamas’s offensive weapons,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shaky ceasefire
Negotiations over Hamas’s arsenal could torpedo the ceasefire and prompt Israel to resume its genocidal war on the destitute and beleaguered Palestinian population in Gaza, analysts said.

An armed group has the right to bear arms and resist an occupying power in line with international humanitarian law – the main framework referenced to protect civilians in times of war.

Yet, Israel and its Western allies have historically demanded that Palestinian factions give up armed resistance as a precondition to launching a peace process ostensibly aimed at ending Israel’s occupation over Palestinian territories.

Israel is likely to try and make similar demands this time around, but Hamas is unlikely to completely disarm, according to Azmi Keshawi, a Palestinian from Gaza and a researcher with the International Crisis Group (ICG).

He said that he could only envision Hamas surrendering some “offensive weapons” such as short-range and long-range missles.

However, he believes Hamas will never give up its small arms and light weapons, nor hand over a map of its sophisticated tunnel network, which it spent decades building to resist Israel.

“[Hamas] will only give up [light] weapons when there is no need for these weapons. This means they will only hand them over to a Palestinian leadership that assumes control of a state after Israel ends its occupation,” Keshawi told Al Jazeera.

Power vacuum?
Hamas was the largest of several armed groups in Gaza before Israel began its war on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

Some of these groups include Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

These groups have long been committed to waging armed resistance against Israel, and it is unclear to what degree they have been degraded by Israel’s relentless carpet bombing over the last two years.

During Israel’s genocide – recognised as such by scholars, the United Nations and human rights groups – Israel has also propped up notorious gangs to steal and profiteer off the little aid it has allowed into the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians in Gaza believe Hamas should preserve some military capabilities to stop these gangs from exploiting a possible power vacuum, Taghreed Khodary, an analyst on Israel-Palestine who is from Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

“Israel created gangs and gave them weapons and guns to kill their own people [in Gaza]. Now Israel wants to expel Hamas, but Hamas is needed to maintain internal security,” she said.

“Hamas is very good at providing security,” she stressed.

Lovatt, from ECFR, added that Hamas may be willing to cooperate with an interim task force deployed to provide security and oversee a partial decommissioning of its weapons.

However, he said that Hamas would only agree to coordinating with such a force if its mandate clearly stipulates that it will not counter “terrorism” in any way.

“I’m sure there is very little appetite in Western capitals to play that ‘counterterrorism’ role, and it certainly wouldn’t be acceptable to Hamas. It would expose the international task force as explicitly serving Israel’s goals,” Lovatt told Al Jazeera.

‘Hamas as an idea’
Throughout Israel’s genocide, Israel has claimed that its war aim is to ostensibly dismantle Hamas. But Keshawi, the ICG researcher, said Hamas will never be fully defeated.

He predicts the group will absorb thousands of destitute and vengeful young men into its ranks in the coming years. To many people, he said, Hamas is not merely an organisation, but an “idea” that symbolises resistance.

“The [group] has set an example for the whole Arab world. They fought a war that nobody thought they could fight, even though the cost was very high,” Keshawi told Al Jazeera.

Still, Lovatt said the group remains pragmatic and is willing to make concessions to extend the ceasefire for as long as possible.

He noted that the sustainability of the ceasefire ultimately hinges on US President Donald Trump and other Western leaders reining in Israel and its maximalist demands.

“There is a very high risk that Israel is able to win the argument in Western capitals … that Hamas must be fully demilitarised [before the occupation ends],” he said.

“If that happens, then it will be a new pretext for Western states to let Israel off the hook as happened under the Oslo Accords,” Lovatt told Al Jazeera.

As word of the agreement spread through the besieged enclave, residents of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis took to the streets to celebrate what many hoped would mark the first real reprieve from Israeli attacks since a fragile truce was shattered by Israel more than six months ago.

“Thank God for this ceasefire, the end of bloodshed and killing … all of Gaza is happy,” Gaza resident Abdul Majeed Abd Rabbo said.

“These are the moments that are considered historic, long-awaited by Palestinian citizens,” added resident Khaled Shaat.” The joy we saw a short time ago in the street is relief from the massacres, killing and genocide.”

Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, said there has been a collective sigh of relief among the enclave’s embattled population. “This is a historic moment – and on a personal note, such a relief,” he said.

After suffering an Israeli-induced famine for months, all eyes are now on when critical aid, food and medical supplies can begin distribution at similar levels to the brief ceasefire earlier this year.

The World Health Organisation’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency “stands ready to scale up its work to meet the dire health needs of patients across Gaza… the best medicine is peace.”

The ceasefire deal, announced on Wednesday night by United States President Donald Trump, concerns the first phase of a broader plan to end the two-year war. It calls for the release of the remaining Israeli captives held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while Israeli forces pull back to “an agreed-upon line,” according to Trump. Mediator Qatar said further details would be announced later.

A second phase, still to be negotiated, is expected to involve a full Israeli withdrawal, Hamas’s disarmament and the establishment of new security and governance arrangements in Gaza.

Nabeel Awad-Allah, a Gaza resident, expressed hope that the ceasefire plan would “preserve what remains of the Palestinians”.

“In order to preserve the lives of Palestinians, we must all be happy with this ceasefire agreement. It is excellent,” Awad-Allah said.

Another resident, Abu Hesham, said while the initial agreement puts our minds at ease”, people do not trust the Israeli government and “fear the period that will follow the first phase”. He said there should be security guarantees for the enclave that go beyond the word of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Overnight on Wednesday, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud said Palestinians settled into an unusual night of relative calm, as aerial bombardment that has become routine largely subsided.

However, Gaza’s civil defence announced several strikes continued after the deal’s announcement, including “a series of intense air strikes” in Gaza City.

‘Total joy’
Over in Israel, where opposition to the war’s continuation has been growing, crowds also turned out onto the streets to celebrate the ceasefire news. Many, including the relatives of captives and supporters, gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.

“We are excited, the tears haven’t stopped flowing, it’s total joy,” Einav Zangauker, the mother of Israeli captive Matan Zangauker, told Israel’s Arutz Sheva.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing the relatives of Israeli captives, welcomed news of the ceasefire but stressed “our struggle is not over” until every captive returns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene his government on Thursday to approve the first-phase agreement, saying it represents “a great day for Israel”.The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing the relatives of Israeli captives, welcomed news of the ceasefire but stressed “our struggle is not over” until every captive returns.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene his government on Thursday to approve the first-phase agreement, saying it represents “a great day for Israel”.

The announcement follows from Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war on Gaza, which he announced last week, and which Israel, Hamas and most of the world broadly welcomed.

More than 67,000 people have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, described by many international rights organisations and a United Nations commission as a genocide.

Here is what we know about the ceasefire agreement:

What happened on Wednesday?
Trump said Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first step of his Gaza ceasefire plan.

In a post on Truth Social at 23:17 GMT, he wrote that all captives would be released “very soon” and that Israel would pull its troops back to an agreed line as part of the deal.

Just hours earlier, Trump had told reporters he was ready to travel to the Middle East as soon as this weekend to help push the plan forward.

He had first unveiled his 20-point proposal on September 29, following a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, framing it as a roadmap to end the war in Gaza.

That possibility grew more concrete during a White House event on Wednesday, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio entered the room and handed him a note.

After reading it, Trump told reporters: “I was just given a note by the secretary of state saying that we’re very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they’re going to need me pretty quickly.”

Concluding the event, Trump said, “I have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East.”

According to a photograph, the note urged the president to sign off on a Truth Social post so he could be the first to announce the deal.

What exactly did Trump say they agreed to?
Trump, in his Truth Social post, said:

Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of the peace plan.
All of the captives will be released very soon.
Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed-upon line.
That will be the first step towards a strong and durable peace.
All parties will be treated fairly.
Trump also thanked mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye.

The announcement represents the most significant breakthrough Trump has achieved regarding the war, after eight months of attempts at brokering an end to the conflict. During his re-election campaign, he had described ending the war in Gaza as one of his foreign policy priorities.
What remains uncertain?
The deal has raised hopes of ending the war, but crucial details are still unclear.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said “some serious disagreements” remain between Israel and Hamas, and crucial details are yet to be hammered out. They include the timing and the extent of an Israeli withdrawal, the makeup of the post-war administration for the Gaza Strip and the fate of Hamas.

“You could say that the initial phase of the initial phase is working out,” Bishara said. According to him, both sides appeared to agree on “some sort of parameters” for a captive-prisoner exchange.

“According to the [Trump] plan … after Hamas hands over the captives, then the war should be over,” Bishara said. But, he added, “Israel says no, the war will be over only after Hamas disarms.”

How soon could the captives be released?
Trump told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Wednesday that the captives, including the bodies of those who have died, could be released on Monday.

A Hamas source said the surviving captives would be released within 72 hours of the Israeli government’s approval of the deal. Israeli officials indicated the process could be expected to start on Saturday.

Trump said he believed Iran would be part of “the whole peace situation”.

About 20 Israeli captives are believed to be alive in Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian factions had taken about 250 captives on October 7, 2023, when they attacked Israel. More than 1,100 people died during that attack.

How did Israel react?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “a great day for Israel”.

“I offer my heartfelt thanks to President Trump and his team for their dedication to this sacred mission of freeing our hostages,” Netanyahu said in a statement late on Wednesday night.

“With God’s help, together we will continue to achieve all our goals and enhance peace with our neighbours.”

How did Hamas react?
Hamas released a statement, saying the agreement stipulated “an end to the war on Gaza, the occupation’s withdrawal from it, the entry of aid and a prisoner exchange”.

It thanked Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye and Trump for their mediation efforts, and it also called on the US and other parties to “compel the occupation government to fully implement the agreement’s requirements and not allow it to evade or delay the implementation of what has been agreed upon”.

“We salute our great people in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank, who have demonstrated unparalleled pride, heroism, and honour,” Hamas said.

“These great sacrifices and stances have thwarted the Israeli occupation’s plan for subjugation and displacement.”

The statement said Hamas “will not abandon our people’s national rights: to achieve freedom, independence, and self-determination”.

How did people in Gaza react?
Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, have expressed a mix of jubilation and caution, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum.

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Abu Azzoum said families cheered when they heard the news of the ceasefire after two years of devastation, destruction, displacement and broken promises.

“People are desperately waiting to be reunited with loved ones and even to have a moment to mourn what they have lost. But this ceasefire has not taken effect so far, and caution is highly required among civilians regarding the return to homes in areas that are still classified as an active red zone,” he said.
How did world leaders react?
Leaders and groups around the world celebrated the negotiators signing off on the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.

“I commend the diplomatic efforts of the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in brokering this desperately needed breakthrough,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the news and urged that the agreement on the first stage of Trump’s plan for Gaza must be implemented in full without delay.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said, while this is “an essential first step” to achieve peace, “Hamas needs to release all of the hostages and Israel must withdraw their troops to the agreed-upon line”.

What happens next?
Netanyahu said he will bring the agreement to his cabinet on Thursday for approval.

Once the vote is passed, the Israeli military will pull back. Seventy-two hours after that, Hamas is expected to begin releasing captives.

HA Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera that the “crucial point now is how much pressure” will continue, especially on Israel, to ensure the ceasefire holds.

Trump is expected to travel to Egypt in the coming days. Netanyahu has also invited him to address Israel’s parliament, and Trump told Axios he is “likely” to make the trip to deliver that address.

The next stage of Trump’s plan calls for the creation of an international body, the Board of Peace, to oversee Gaza’s post-war administration. Trump will chair the board, which will include other world leaders, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But experts warn that what comes next could prove far more difficult.

“Hamas has been offering all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war almost since the beginning,” said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of Israel-Palestine at the US-based rights group Dawn.

“Israel has deliberately, openly and brazenly broken every ceasefire that was achieved up until this point,” Omer-Man added.

“Ensuring that they comply by the terms, that they don’t go back to the fighting and reimpose the siege – that they actually allow not only aid but commercial goods and people to flow across the border – is going to be something that I think we are not quite there yet,” he added.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday.

“ALL the hostages will be released very soon, and Israel withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line,” he added.

Mediator Qatar said that more details of the agreement would be announced at a later date.

“The mediators announce that tonight an agreement was reached on all the provisions and implementation mechanisms of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, which will lead to ending the war, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of aid. The details will be announced later,” Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Majed al-Ansari wrote on X.

The announcement came hours after Trump said negotiations were going “very well” and that he may travel to the Middle East later this week.

“I may go there sometime toward the end of the week, maybe on Sunday,” he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

Senior officials from Qatar, Turkiye, Egypt and the US joined the delegations in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday, the third day of the talks, as the mediators pressed the two sides to resolve their differences over Trump’s 20-point proposal.

The first phase of the plan calls for a ceasefire and the release of 48 Israeli captives held in Gaza, including 20 who are believed to be alive, and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Hamas has submitted its list of detainees to be freed as part of the proposed swap.

Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer – a close aide of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – were participating in the negotiations on Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

Also joining the discussions was the prime minister of longstanding key mediator Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

The Hamas delegation includes leaders Khalil al-Hayya and Zaher Jabarin, two negotiators who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Qatar’s capital Doha that killed five people last month.

In a statement released late Wednesday, senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq said the group welcomes the participation of Qatar’s prime minister and Turkiye’s intelligence chief, alongside Egypt’s intelligence chief, in the current round of talks.

He said their involvement gives the negotiations “a strong boost” towards achieving positive results on ending the war and facilitating a prisoner exchange.

A delegation from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) armed group is also set to arrive in Egypt to participate in the indirect talks, according to a statement from the group.

The PIJ is the smaller of the two main Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip and is currently holding some Israeli captives.

For his part, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the mediated negotiations had made “a lot of headway” and that a ceasefire would be declared if they reached a positive outcome.

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says the talks remain tense with “some serious disagreements”, as crucial details are yet to be hammered out – including the timing and the extent of an Israeli withdrawal, the makeup of the post-war administration for the Gaza Strip and the fate of Hamas.

“You could say that the initial phase of the initial phase is working out,” Bishara said. According to him, both sides appeared to agree on “some sort of parameters” for a captive-prisoner exchange.

“According to the plan, … after Hamas hands over the captives, then the war should be over,” Bishara said. “Israel says no, the war will be over only after Hamas disarms.”

Israeli attacks continue
Even as the talks progressed on Wednesday, Israel continued its attacks on Gaza. At least eight Palestinians were killed across Gaza over the previous 24 hours, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Wednesday. At least 61 others were injured in attacks, it said.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said in a statement on Wednesday that Israel carried out 271 air and artillery strikes over the past five days despite calls from the US to stop the bombardment. The attacks targeted densely populated areas and shelters for displaced people across the enclave, killing 126 civilians, including women and children – with 75 of them in Gaza City alone.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from central Gaza’s az-Zawayda, said the situation on the ground “looks extremely bleak” as Israeli drones are still targeting residential buildings, particularly in Gaza City.

“Civilians have said the scale of bombardment sounds less intense in comparison with the days preceding the onset of the current round of negotiations,” Abu Azzoum said.

“They say that might be a sign that mediators are exerting further pressure on Israel to at least mitigate the scale of its bombardment on Gaza for one reason: It’s to allow for Hamas fighters to retrieve bodies of Israeli captives as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal,” he said.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that just 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functioning, and only a third of 176 primary care facilities work.

Hanan Balkhy, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said Gaza has been struggling with “dire shortages” of electricity, clean water and medicine, as well as broken equipment and damaged infrastructure in those health facilities still working.

“Some facilities have been hit and rehabilitated and hit once more,” she said.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed more than 67,000 people, according to health authorities, and has destroyed large swaths of land in the enclave where almost all two million residents have been forcibly displaced.