As the Bullets Ring Out: Unpacking the Gaza Peace Deal and the Fragility of the Truce

Aliyah
Nov 2, 2025
6 min read

On October 9th, 2025, mere days after the 2nd anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war, the two conflicting parties signed a long-awaited peace deal. News of a ceasefire has been a source of great relief, not just for the people of Palestine but also for the global population at large. Videos have circulated throughout multiple social media platforms of people taking to the streets and weeping in sheer elation.

While this peace deal is certainly brilliant news and a major step forward from the previous state of genocide Palestinians were subject to, it is up for debate whether it is the cause for celebration that certain parties, such as the West, make it out to be. Does this deal truly signify liberation for the Palestinians, or are they merely being used as characters in a political theatre intended to increase public approval?

What does the Deal entail?

The Gaza Peace Deal, also known as Trump’s 20-Point Plan, is a multi-phased plan containing 20 points, as the name suggests. It was brokered by the United States and can be read in full here. Currently, the plan is in its first phase, which involves five steps, being:

An immediate cessation of all hostilities on both sides.
Withdrawal of Israeli forces to an agreed-upon line.
The return of all Israeli hostages, 20 alive and 28 deceased, within 72 hours of signing.
Once Hamas returns Israeli hostages, Israel must release Palestinian prisoners, 250 with life sentences and 1700 detained since the war started. For every deceased Israeli returned, Israel will return 15 deceased Palestinians.
Full aid will be sent into the Gaza Strip upon signing the Deal.

Only once these four conditions have been fulfilled will both parties allow progression to the next phase of the plan. So far, though both Israel and Hamas have signed the deal, the reality of the situation is not as optimistic as initially expected.

Current State in Palestine

So far, the release of hostages has been the most cathartic part of the ceasefire. Outside of that, the US appears to have been operating on a “deal first, details later” basis, according to fellow deal broker and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, which does not factor in the volatility of the situation and parties involved. Both parties have been eager to accuse each other of violating the truce, and both have been observed to do so.

For instance, the deal mandates the disarmament of Hamas, but a Hamas representative has stated that it is “out of the question”. Over the course of the ceasefire, Hamas has worked to reassert its dominance over the Palestinians by constantly monitoring the area, instigating conflict with Palestinian gangs, and even to the extent of rounding up Gazans and carrying out killings of 33 people “in a gang affiliated with a family in Gaza City”.

This most certainly is not meant to imply that Hamas has been the only side not holding up its end of the bargain. In fact, it seems as though Israel is looking for Hamas to violate the ceasefire as a pretext to continue its bombardment of Palestine. Hamas was only given 3 days to recover the bodies of 28 dead Israelis, a timeframe that would feel unreasonable considering the magnitude of destruction that has been inflicted upon Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians have been unable to recover their own deceased from the sheer amount of rubble and debris they have to get through, let alone the bodies of the Israelis. Despite Hamas also conveying that uncovering the bodies will take time due to this, Israel has accused Hamas of dragging their feet and purposefully delaying the process, further building tensions between the two sides.

Since the brokering of the fragile truce between the two parties, Israel has killed nearly 100 Palestinians in addition to injuring around 230. — Ali

This was in response to IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers claiming that two fighters from Hamas killed two Israeli soldiers. Hamas has responded to this by saying they are unaware of any such clashes taking place, seeing as it supposedly took place on Israeli-controlled Rafah, where the Qassam brigade (Hamas’ armed wing) was not in contact with any Palestinian fighters.

Israeli soldiers had also killed 11 Gazans, reportedly all from the same family, trying to check on their home, in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitoun. This took place about a week into the ceasefire. The reasoning was that the family had crossed the Yellow Line into Israeli territory; but due to spotty Internet access, Gazans are potentially unable to identify the demarcated areas as it has not been physically marked. As of right now, IDF has receded from the major cities in the Gaza Strip, but it still occupies about 53% of the territory. Proposed stages of withdrawal indicate that incremental IDF backdown will lead to the creation of a buffer zone, but it does not seem like the IDF will be leaving anytime soon, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that they are “encircling Hamas from all directions”.

For those who have truly been affected by these harrowing two years, the people of the Gaza Strip, the grass does not seem to be greener. Now that the dust has settled, people are forced to grapple with the reality of their lives and futures. Houses, reduced to rubble. Entire cities decimated, leaving behind a shadow of what they once called home. And countless lives of men, women, infants, friends, family, cruelly snatched for a war that they were never meant to fight. Taghreed Al-Jabali, who was displaced from Khan Younis, says, “Our sons and daughters didn’t receive education. A whole generation was lost. Two generations were lost, not just one. May God make it up for us.”

For those who are alive and grieving their unimaginable losses, they are still struggling to survive and recover as the flow of aid into the Strip has also been a delayed process. With Israel guarding the borders of Rafah, the number of aid trucks being let in is less than half of the target 600 daily, making aid inadequate to help the millions of Gazans in need. There is a clear disconnect between how Western media is portraying the ceasefire and what the reality is. — Ali

All this is to say, is this ceasefire really all that it's cracked out to be? Or are some people exaggerating the extent to which people are benefiting from it?

Photo Credits: Israeli Government Press Offive via BBC

Western Gain

As mentioned earlier, the United States was the leading force behind this peace deal; the Trump Administration devising and negotiating this peace deal with consultation from Arab countries. Unsurprisingly, the leading force in hailing the ceasefire as a “historic breakthrough in Middle Eastern geopolitics” has been Trump and his fellow sycophants. Members of his cabinet and his fervent supporters had been calling for him to be this year’s Nobel Laureate before the ceasefire was technically even announced.

Although that didn’t materialize, his approval ratings did go from 30 to 47 percent in the span of a month based on his handling of the war, which, let us not forget, was only allowed to continue for so long due to Western powers, in particular the United States, enabling Israel to do so. The majority of those within this 17 percent increase are Democrats who are pleased to see that someone has finally managed to end a devastating war that has destroyed the lives of so many people.

The reality may be that they are not aware of the current conditions, and how the Gaza Peace Deal has served to benefit all those involved except for Gazans themselves, who have been captured, tortured, and murdered for the past 2 years. — Ali

Concluding Thoughts

So yes, there is a ceasefire in Gaza. But only in the sense that the relentless shellings and bombings rained on innocent people have somewhat tapered off, not even completely halted. There hasn’t been a cessation of the plight and suffering of the Palestinians. There is still much to be done, from recovering and rebuilding the destroyed areas to coming up with a plan to allow for true Palestinian liberation. Continue to listen to and empathize with the Palestinian struggle, and lest we forget, this is a mere step forward, and not an end goal.