Will this Gaza ceasefire hold?

FE Team | Published: October 11, 2025 21:37:52

The guns have fallen silent in Gaza, at least for the time being. After two ruinous years of Israel's bombing, starvation and deprivation in Gaza, the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has come into force. As the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) withdraw to predetermined lines, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans are returning to the rubble of their homes while the process of releasing all remaining Israeli captives and surging aid into the famine-stricken enclave is set to begin. This is a cessation born of exhaustion and immense suffering, not of victory. Still, this halt in violence is a small mercy for a people who have endured what has been described as the modern era's first live-streamed genocide. In real time on social media, the world has watched as Israel's military, bankrolled by Western nations that claim to stand for human rights, has slaughtered more than 67,000 Gazans since October 7, 2023. Through it all, the Palestinian people in Gaza have endured and the cause of Palestine, therefore, still lives.
However, this fragile truce between Israel and Hamas is filled with ominous uncertainties. The initial phase involving the exchange of captives for prisoners and aid delivery mirrors the pattern of past ceasefires that quickly fell apart. What follows this stage remains uncertain and will likely prove even harder to implement, as it depends heavily on unstable Israeli politics and the untested role of the Trump administration as guarantor. This provides ample reason for doubt. Moreover, the current Israeli cabinet includes figures who have openly spoken of erasing the Palestinian people, and the state itself has a record of breaking commitments. The previous ceasefire, which Israel broke in March after only limited effort to recover the remaining captives, revealed that its real objectives go beyond the hostages and aim at territorial expansion and demographic displacement. It is this pattern of exploiting truces for strategic gain that makes the fear of this deal being merely a pause to arrange a swap not an irrational fear but a logical conclusion.
This suspicion is reinforced by the official Israeli narrative which has already begun framing the deal as a simple hostage-release arrangement with no bearing on the war's future. The assurances of regional actors such as Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, who pushed for this orchestrated deal, have historically been insufficient to prevent Israeli violations. Their responses have consistently been limited to condemnation but no real action. As a result, the burden rests heavily on President Trump whose personal guarantee was reportedly a key factor in persuading Hamas to agree. For him to maintain any semblance of credibility as the peacemaker he claims to be, he must stick to his bargain and firmly restrain Israel from abandoning its promises. Global public opinion, once mildly sympathetic to Israel, has now turned sharply against it in light of the scenes of genocide and starvation emanating from Gaza. Letting Israel off the leash once more to frame the mass killing of civilians as self-defence will no longer be accepted by the world and will only accelerate Israel's global isolation instead of advancing its cause.
Above all, for this ceasefire to forge a genuine path to peace in the Middle East, it must be grounded in justice and accountability. The world cannot simply move on from the monstrous crimes of deliberate starvation and genocide of civilians in Gaza. International institutions, regional powers and the very governments that armed and defended Israel must ensure that those responsible for war crimes are held to account. Without this reckoning, the moment global attention fades, the cycle is guaranteed to repeat again.