The ceasefire agreement reached between Hamas and Israel has been greeted with cautious relief across the world. After two years of relentless fighting, both sides have accepted what President Donald Trump described in his Knesset address as “a moment of joy and soaring hope.”
The human cost that preceded this moment is staggering: roughly 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and 250 others were taken hostage. Since then, Israeli operations have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians—possibly 18,000 of them children—and reduced much of Gaza to rubble. It is believed that over 1,000 members of the Israeli Defense Forces and additional Israeli civilians have also been killed.
There is little doubt that Trump deserves political credit for forcing the parties to agree to a ceasefire. But as many foreign-policy veterans have noted, the framework of this ceasefire is not radically different from what President Joe Biden proposed in May 2024. The difference is one of willpower and leverage. Trump, unlike Biden, applied enormous pressure on the Israeli leadership with tangible consequences. Netanyahu’s government, isolated internationally and facing unprecedented domestic fatigue, relented. Hamas, weakened militarily, pressured by Arab leaders, and diplomatically isolated as well, faced collapse.
Still, this is not a peace agreement. It is a ceasefire, which is a pause in a brutal conflict and not a resolution of it. And while hostages as well as Palestinian prisoners are being released and aid is flowing, the deeper political questions—sovereignty, governance, disarmament—remain unresolved.
The Ceasefire Agreement
This is the third ceasefire since the war began. The first, in November 2023, lasted only seven days. The second, from January to March 2025, extended to forty-two days before mutual accusations of violations caused it to collapse. Both were premised on the idea that temporary calm might open space for negotiation. Neither produced a durable environment for that.
The current agreement, announced at the Sharm el-Sheikh Peace Summit on October 10, is open-ended and ambitious. It contains several immediate measures but few binding guarantees. While the ceasefire creates space for diplomacy, it is only a first step. Negotiations toward a permanent peace will continue in Cairo and Doha, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.
For now, the truce holds because both sides are depleted. Israel faces mounting political and moral costs; Hamas faces potential annihilation if fighting resumes. But there is no guarantee that this balance of exhaustion will last.
The Terms of the Deal
There are 20 points to Trump’s Gaza peace plan, which he unveiled on September 29, and the president has said that Israel and Hamas have “signed off on the first phase.” Below are the three largest immediate items:
1. Israeli withdrawal: Israeli forces will pull back to predesignated defensive lines, but they will still occupy more than half of Gaza. The stated rationale for the line is to provide “security corridors” for humanitarian delivery and protect border communities. Critics argue it risks institutionalizing a semi-permanent occupation.
2. Prisoner and hostage exchange: Hamas will release twenty surviving hostages—all of those it still holds—and the remains of twenty-eight others. Israel, in turn, will release 1,500 Gazans detained during the war and 250 Palestinians serving life sentences for prewar attacks, along with the remains of deceased detainees. Aspects of this have been fulfilled, but Israel has already accused Hamas of not returning all the remains and reduced the flow of aid. It is unclear whether Hamas has all 28 sets of remains. Many could be buried in the rubble that is Gaza.
3. Humanitarian access: The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt will reopen for expanded relief convoys . This crossing is also supposed to open to people eventually, but it is unclear when that could occur. Food, medical supplies, and reconstruction materials are flowing in under international supervision, which is largely being directed by the United Nations and Israel. Some civilians—particularly the wounded and elderly—are reported being allowed to leave for medical treatment.
Now Comes the Hard Part
Trump’s “Twenty-Point Peace Deal” outlines what happens next. If implemented, it would transform Gaza’s political order and the broader Israeli-Palestinian equation. But each element of the plan presents immense challenges.
The biggest hurdle is the demand that Hamas totally disarm. Hamas fighters are also to receive amnesty or be allowed safe exile to third countries such as Qatar or Turkey. This is a cornerstone of Israeli security demands—and a likely dealbreaker for Hamas’s military wing.
History tempers optimism. Even if Hamas’s political leadership, largely based in Doha, agrees to demobilize, the fighters on the ground may not. Many of them may see martyrdom as preferable to surrender. It’s worth noting that Japan’s last holdout soldier surrendered nearly three decades after World War II. Gaza’s militants may follow a similar psychology. There have already been stories of fighting between Hamas and other rival groups in Gaza. It has further been reported that Hamas has publicly executed those it says collaborated with the Israelis.
Moreover, Israel’s repeated assertion that it seeks Hamas’s total destruction gives Hamas little reason to disarm voluntarily particularly after it has lost its primary leverage—the hostages. As a result, disarmament may prove symbolic or partial at best. It could become more an international talking point than an operational reality.
The plan also envisions an international stabilization force: a multinational presence to police the ceasefire, oversee disarmament, and secure reconstruction. Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE, have voiced conditional support. But this force will not be deployed until Hamas is disarmed, as Arab states are not going to assume that responsibility.
The plan’s centerpiece is the creation of a technocratic Palestinian governing committee. Hamas has accepted this principle but not its composition. The Palestinian Authority will play a role, but its authority remains contested by both Israel and Hamas.
Oversight will fall to a “Board of Peace,” co-chaired by Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—an echo of Blair’s work with the post-Oslo Quartet two decades ago and the Good Friday Agreement that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland. The board will manage reconstruction funds, coordinate donor aid, and supervise Gaza’s transition. It will demand persistence and a focused effort. It is difficult to see how an American president can spend his term consumed by the governance of 150 square miles of territory.
The plan also stipulates that there will be no forced displacement of Gazans and guarantees the right of return for those who fled. It reaffirms the “legal and historical status quo” of Jerusalem’s holy sites and explicitly prohibits Israeli settlement expansion in Gaza or annexation of the West Bank.
These provisions strike at the heart of Netanyahu’s coalition politics. His far-right allies view any limit on settlement growth or concession on annexation as betrayal. Trump’s insistence on these clauses has thus deepened Israel’s internal divide. It seems Trump has succeeded in what no Israeli opposition could—forcing Netanyahu to govern against his own base.
At the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, Egypt declared the goal “to end the war in Gaza, enhance efforts to bring peace, and usher in a new phase of regional stability.” Eight Arab nations signed a joint communiqué endorsing cooperation “based on full Israeli withdrawal and a two-state solution.”
That statement underscores the challenge: Netanyahu’s government still rejects a Palestinian state. Without Israeli acceptance of that premise, the stabilization force risks being trapped between irreconcilable mandates—expected to maintain order in a territory whose future remains undefined.
Finally, under the plan, Israel will fully withdraw its forces once the stabilization mission is in place. In theory, this could end Israeli occupation of Gaza (though Arabs view the “occupation” as including the West Bank). In practice, much depends on international security guarantees and on whether Hamas truly demobilizes. Israeli defense officials have warned that a premature withdrawal could create a vacuum vulnerable to chaos or Iranian influence.
Israel’s Reckoning
For Israel, the war has been existential in both trauma and politics. It has evoked the darkest memories of the Holocaust and shattered the belief that Israel could guarantee safety for the Jewish people by force alone.
Nearly 1,000 Israeli soldiers have been killed; thousands more wounded. More than 295,000 reservists have been called up, some multiple times. The national mood is one of exhaustion.
Internationally, sympathy for Israel has collapsed. Over140 countries now recognize an independent Palestinian state. The International Court of Justice has indicted Netanyahu and a former Israeli defense minister for war crimes. A UN commission has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. American public opinion, once reflexively pro-Israel, has eroded sharply.
Domestically, the social fabric is fraying. Emigration doubled in 2024; reports of PTSD and suicide among soldiers are at record highs. Many Israelis believe Netanyahu prolonged the war for political survival, leaning on ultranationalist partners who see the conflict as religious “redemption.”
Secular Jews founded Israel, but in many ways conservative religious Jews now rule it. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have called openly for the expulsion of all Palestinian from Gaza. These fissures will define the coming elections, which could determine whether Israel continues down a nationalist path or reorients toward moderation.
The outcome of that political reckoning will shape whether the ceasefire evolves into a genuine peace process—or collapses under its own contradictions.
A Moment of Hope—and Its Limits
Egypt’s stewardship of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit gives it newfound diplomatic weight, but the challenge extends far beyond Gaza. The war metastasized into a regional conflict. Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon, Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq, and Houthi drone/missile attacks from Yemen were all part of this war.
Even after the twelve-day Israel–Iran war in August, the underlying confrontation between Washington and Tehran endures. Trump’s airstrikes severely damaged Iranian nuclear sites but left the political question unresolved: will the United States pursue containment or confrontation in the aftermath?
The collapse of the Assad regime has further destabilized the region. Israeli troops remain in parts of southern Syria and Lebanon; the disarmament of Hezbollah has yet to be completed. Without parallel progress on these fronts, a Gaza ceasefire alone cannot deliver regional peace.
Trump’s closing words in Jerusalem captured the duality of this moment: “joy and soaring hope.” The joy is tangible—the release of hostages, the flow of aid, the silence of guns. The hope, however, remains precarious.
What has been achieved is less a resolution than a reprieve. A war that began in terror and devolved into regional conflagration has reached an uneasy pause. Whether it becomes something more—a step toward sustainable coexistence—depends not only on Trump’s political stamina or Netanyahu’s survival, but on whether both societies can imagine a peace neither could win by war.