Six months after Gaza’s ceasefire deal took effect on Oct. 10, 2025, the territory’s 2 million people remain trapped in limbo, with limited aid entering through a single, Israeli-controlled border post and most of the ceasefire’s promised work still undone. The most intense fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas-led militants has stopped, but the machinery of domination has not: disarming Hamas, ending its two-decade rule, deploying an international stabilization force and beginning vast reconstruction are all still unresolved while ordinary people wait in tents and damaged buildings. **Who Pays for the Stalemate** The people at the bottom are the ones living with the consequences. Vast tent camps now house most of Gaza’s population. Other residents are sheltering in damaged apartment buildings. Health workers and other humanitarian workers say there has been little progress in the expected surge of medical supplies and other aid. The U.S. 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza is largely failing on the humanitarian front, five international aid groups said in a scorecard released Thursday. They said conditions have deteriorated further in Gaza since the Iran war began. The aid groups said that during the first two weeks of March 2026, trucks entering Gaza declined by 80%, and the price of basic goods increased dramatically. Medical evacuations have stalled. That is the practical meaning of a ceasefire managed from above: explosions may be quieter, but access to medicine, food and movement remains tightly controlled. Maysa Abu Jedian, a displaced woman from Beit Lahiya, described the result plainly: “There is pollution and disease. It’s as if there’s no ceasefire at all.” Eyad Abu Dagga, also sheltering in a camp in Khan Younis, said, “The war is still ongoing and life is still terrible as it is.” **What the Powerful Call Peace** The article says such challenges could represent what is to come in the latest war, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to peacemaking appears to be stopping bombardment and leaving the bigger picture for others to work out. Whether Trump can force through that kind of deal on Iran, with more actors in play and global markets quivering at every statement, is yet to be seen. That is the familiar arrangement: the powerful pause the bombing, then hand the wreckage to someone else. The Iran war’s two-week ceasefire has already created deadly confusion over Lebanon, with Israel insisting the deal does not apply there and continuing to attack the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, while Iran insists it does and threatens to upend the agreement. Israel made a surprise announcement Thursday authorizing direct negotiations with Lebanon, despite the lack of diplomatic ties. The article also says the U.S.-created and Trump-led Board of Peace kicked off with $7 billion in pledges and sweeping intentions of resolving not only Gaza but other conflicts that emerge around the world, but that nine days after the board’s initial meeting, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. The Board of Peace has not met again and is still waiting for Hamas to respond to its proposal on disarming, which the article calls a major concession and perhaps the hardest step. Hamas’ charter calls for destroying Israel. A U.S. official said Hamas has not been given a definite deadline to respond to the proposal but added that “patience is not unlimited.” The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Board of Peace director Nickolay Mladenov told the U.N. Security Council last month that the world should not lose sight of Gaza as a new war flared. He said the choice in Gaza is between “a renewed war, or a new beginning; the status quo, or a better future,” and added: “There is no third option.” **Aid, Control and the Missing Pressure** The humanitarian groups’ scorecard says any forward movement on aid issues in the Palestinian territory has “generally required sustained diplomatic pressure at the highest levels, particularly from the United States. That pressure, however, has not been applied consistently or at the scale needed to secure full implementation.” The same apparatus that claims to manage peace is also the one deciding how much pressure gets applied, and when. The article says unwavering focus on Gaza, once at the heart of a passionate international outcry, has been lost with the rise of a new regional war, and that this has decreased pressure for progress on the ceasefire. The Trump administration is not the only player to be distracted, because the entire Middle East, including key Gaza mediators Egypt and Qatar, now focuses on Iran and that war’s effects on their economies. With added uncertainty over Israel’s renewed war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the article says there could be even less interest from countries to contribute troops to a Gaza stabilization force. One of the few confirmed troop contributors, Indonesia, already has seen three of its peacekeepers in southern Lebanon killed in recent days. Meanwhile, while the heaviest fighting has subsided, Israeli forces have carried out airstrikes and fired on Palestinians near military-held zones. Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel has said its strikes are in response to that and other ceasefire violations. As of Thursday, Israeli attacks have killed 738 people in the six months since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants. Overall, the ministry says 72,317 Palestinians had been killed since the war in Gaza began with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. The article says tents rippled in the breeze, and children played on the sand against a backdrop of shattered buildings. That is the scene left behind by negotiations, boards, pledges and “stabilization” plans: a population still waiting for aid, movement and reconstruction while the institutions above them keep rearranging the terms of their suffering.
