The Gaza ceasefire is falling apart
Look closely, Israel is getting everything it wants while resuming deadly air strikes at will. Moreover, it is likely building up for a permanent occupation of the Strip.
Paul R. Pillar
Oct 31, 2025
Even a limited pause in the unspeakable suffering that residents of the Gaza Strip have endured for two years is welcome, and thus it is unsurprising that the deal on Gaza that was reached in early October was widely and mistakenly termed a “peace agreement.”
The deal was instead a prisoner exchange and limited ceasefire. It came about because the slaughter and starvation of Gazans had gone so far that Hamas was willing to give up its scant leverage in the form of the remaining Israeli hostages. With their release, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed the main immediate domestic source of opposition to his policies, while the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) got a needed break before resuming operations.
No agreement appears close to being reached on most of President Trump’s 20-point “ peace plan.” Even less attention is being given to the fundamental causes of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian violence, which involve Israel’s territorial aggrandizement and denial of Palestinian self-determination.
Now even the ceasefire is falling apart, less than a month after it began. This also is unsurprising, given that Israel has shown no sign of abandoning objectives that involve the subjugation or elimination of Palestinians and that it has pursued largely through armed force. Right-wing extremists in Netanyahu’s government favor a continued war. Netanyahu probably assured the extremists, as he has done in the past, that the ceasefire would not last.
In March, Israel ended an earlier ceasefire, thereby violating an agreement reached in January and precluding its full implementation. Despite this record, Trump has directed all his threats against Hamas, saying that Israel “should hit back” if its troops are attacked and that Hamas will be “terminated” if it does not “behave.”
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