Gaza’s Pause: Fragile, Painful & Precarious
Muralidharan
The announcement of the latest ceasefire in Gaza in early October 2025 was a rare moment of relief for the lakhs of Palestinians besieged for nearly two years, enduring daily bombardments, hunger and displacement. It offered some respite, some stoppage to the relentless killing, some hope of aid trucks entering into Gaza and the wounded receiving treatment. But that pause has proved fragile. Israeli forces have, true to their wont, carried out strikes and incursions post the deal. Humanitarian aid remains woefully restricted. For the people in Gaza, this is not peace – whatever Trump or his trumpeters may say — it is a quieter suffering.
The Palestinians and their supporters worldwide, even while welcoming the breather that this plan offered, are skeptical and rightly so. Pulitzer Prize winning US journalist and author Chris Hedges terms this ceasefire, a “commercial break……. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets”.
Violations Galore
Israel is notorious for violation of ‘peace plans’ even before the ink dries. Dozens of violations by apartheid Israel have already been reported. Al Jazeera reports that as of October 25, 2025, at least 93 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 10, when the ceasefire was supposed to begin. As we go to the press, reports have come in of 100 people including 35 children being killed in Israeli strikes on October 28. Even earlier, during the six-week phased truce beginning January 19, 2025, Palestinian sources say Israel committed at least 265 violations by February 12.
Under the Sharm El Sheikh agreement, Israel had committed to returning the bodies of those who died in its custody after being arrested. However, as per Palestinian authorities, only 120 bodies have been returned as of October 16, 2025. Underscoring the brutality of the occupation forces, forensic examination of the bodies reveal that many of the victims were killed during detention. They were hanged; restraints used, or had gunshot wounds. Many had hand fractures or burns and were subjected to severe physical torture. Some were crushed under military vehicles. The IDF and sizeable sections of Israel population fed on hate derive sadistic pleasure in torturing, maiming and killing Palestinians. Tiny Gaza has the highest concentration of child amputees anywhere in the world!
Plan Full of Loopholes
Many commentators have pointed out that this ceasefire is full of provisions that permit Israel to repeal or go back on the agreement. Within days of its announcement of this farce of a plan, Israel refused to open the border crossing at Rafah and cut down aid trucks to 300 a day against the agreed 600. Even the Israeli people do not believe that the truce will stand. Giving vent to this was the comment by the largest circulated Israeli paper Israel Hayom, which called the Trump plan just rhetoric.
Israel’s Tainted Record
Israel stands indicted as far as violations of earlier agreements are concerned. The first of the Camp David Accords saw Israel and Egypt entering into a peace treaty in 1979. This was of course boycotted by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). In the subsequent stages, Israel had promised to permit self-rule to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank within five years and also end the building of Israeli colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Was this implemented?
In 1993, at Oslo, Israel recognised PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the PLO in turn recognised Israel’s right to exist. But what did this lead to?
Again, in Oslo in 1995, an agreement was reached. But Israel went back on its promise to withdraw from the occupied West Bank. Even the Palestinian Authority that was established had very limited authority over two areas marked as A and B. The third area marked C, i.e. 60 per cent of West Bank, was entirely under Israeli control. This agreement dealt a big blow to the PLO and its tallest leader Yasser Arafat and saw the rise of Hamas. Israel’s objective had been achieved.
Even the 2025 January ceasefire did not last beyond two months. And who violated it? It began with Israel conducting a ferocious military attack on March 18 that killed 400 people overnight. In fact, this campaign led to scuttling the second phase of the agreement which included, among other things, release of the remaining male hostages.
ICJ Advisory
The agreement maintains a stoic silence on Israel’s illegal occupation and that it must end, a point also reiterated by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2024. Do not the Palestinians have the right to self-determination? Will Israel be held accountable for the genocide? Are these even acknowledged in the agreement?
Meanwhile, on October 22, 2025, the ICJ has given an advisory reminding Israel of its obligations as an occupying power. The Court underlined that Israel, as the Occupying Power, was obliged to act in accordance with the law of occupation, including the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and that any action to protect its security interests must be exercised in good faith and must be consistent with safeguarding the rights and promoting the best interests of the occupied population.
Settler Terrorism Intensifies in West Bank
Even while international attention was focussed on Gaza, settler terrorism on Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem intensified. The Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission estimates that between early October and October 21, 2025, Israeli forces and settlers carried out 158 attacks on Palestinian olive farmers. Of these 17 were by the army and 141 by armed settlers. These included beatings, setting fire to crops, uprooting of olive trees, mass arrests and intimidation.
Large swathes of land have been confiscated by Israel declaring them as “state land” or “military zones” under the ruse of “security”. In these occupied lands, it is constructing settler-only roads and military installations. Bit by bit, in the occupied West Bank, it is systematically displacing Palestinians, destroying their agricultural economy and altering the character of their land.
The Message
Israel’s thirst for blood and land remains unsatiated. Accords are just pieces of paper. It has no intent to honour its side of the deal. The truce does not whittle down Israeli lust in pursuit of its goal to ethnically cleanse Gaza and conquer all of “Eretz Israel” through the only means it knows and is capable of - brute force. And the Zionists have the backing of an estimated 62 per cent of the Israeli populace. The October Knesset Vote to give preliminary approval to a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the Occupied West Bank reflects the same.
What Benjamin Netanyahu tried and failed in 2014 through a 51-day war of aggression, he has achieved today. Even today its military along with civilian workers are demolishing the remaining Palestinian civilian infrastructure behind what Israel calls the “Yellow Line”, which is more than half of Gaza. Is not continued killings and demolition of the remaining infrastructure violation of the truce? How is one to believe that when it refuses entry to aid trucks, it would permit reconstruction material to go in? The Gaza genocide was designed not just to completely destroy the territory, defeat the Palestinian resistance and demoralise them through mass slaughter, but it was also meant to send a message across to the Arab world in general - challenge Israel and the same fate awaits you.
(October 29, 2025)
