More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes since the Gaza ceasefire took effect, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which puts the toll at about 1,450. On the first anniversary of the October 10, 2025 truce, strikes continue almost daily. Gaza’s people are still waiting for the peace they were promised.
The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. It keeps detailed records, and UN agencies and independent experts generally consider its figures reliable. It doesn’t distinguish civilians from militants, but says women and children make up around half of those killed. Over the same period, sporadic attacks have killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
The Humanitarian Picture
Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians remain stuck in limbo. Most shelter in rodent-infested tent camps, amid the rubble of former neighborhoods, or in war-damaged buildings at risk of collapse. Virtually nothing has been rebuilt.
In Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, Abdullah Abu Zubaida’s family lives in a makeshift shelter built from the debris of their house. “When the ceasefire began last October, we expected the war to halt, assassinations to cease, and aid to flow in,” he said. “None of that has happened.”
Ne’man Abu Jarad and his family fled Beit Lahia in the north for Khan Younis in the south. They have no clear path home and still live in tents with their five daughters. “The ceasefire is merely nominal, ink on paper,” Abu Jarad said.
The agreement did achieve real things. It halted major military operations, increased humanitarian access and brought the hostages home. Three days after the truce was announced, Hamas freed the 20 remaining living hostages seized in the October 7, 2023 attack, and the deal led to the return of all remaining hostages. That attack, whose third anniversary fell this week, was the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted 251. Israel’s response—a massive bombardment and ground invasion—has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ceasefire anniversary also marked a year without Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, though near-constant Israeli bombardment depleted the group’s missile inventory.
Territory and Stalled Promises
Under the ceasefire, Israeli forces could remain in 53 percent of Gaza. A year later, they control about 70 percent, according to official accounts, and Israel has pushed the so-called yellow Line of Control westward toward the Mediterranean. Israel was supposed to withdraw. Instead, it has seized more territory. Israel has also barred the new Palestinian administration from entering Gaza via Egypt.
Israel says its strikes target people it accuses of violating the ceasefire, approaching the yellow line or taking part in the October 7 attack. Those strikes have often killed civilians.
The 20-point agreement, brokered by US President Donald Trump and Arab allies after months of negotiations under the Biden and Trump administrations, envisioned a new Palestinian administration aided by international forces, Hamas’ disarmament and an end to Israel’s control over more than half of Gaza. None of those steps has been completed.
Hamas announced in July that it was disbanding its governing body and handing Gaza’s administration to the US-blessed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). But it left the civil service intact and remains the dominant power in roughly 40 percent of Gaza, outside Israeli military control. Hamas effectively still runs security, while NCAG head and technocrat Ali Shaath has kept a low profile. The International Stabilization Force, announced in February, has yet to materialize. Indonesia, which pledged the largest contingent at 8,000 soldiers, put its plans on hold last spring as the world’s focus shifted to the Iran war.
Disarmament and Political Gridlock
In July, Trump announced a deal to disarm Hamas “in a gradual, sequential and time-bound manner,” tied to phased Israeli withdrawal. Hamas confirmed for the first time that it had agreed to disarm, while linking the step to Israel halting its strikes and withdrawing. Days later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel wouldn’t withdraw from any part of Gaza until Hamas was completely disarmed, explicitly rejecting the agreement Trump had announced. He has demanded verifiable decommissioning of all weapons down to individual guns. Hamas hasn’t disarmed, and Israel hasn’t begun withdrawing.
The politics are tight. Netanyahu faces an October 27 election that could end his nearly unbroken 17-year rule, the longest in Israel’s history. He has faced criticism over the security and intelligence failures before October 7, with opponents accusing him of being soft on Hamas. That leaves little room for compromise, at least until a new government forms—a process that could take months. On the attack’s anniversary, he said 4,000 of 6,000 “Hamas monsters” had been killed.
Money hasn’t arrived either. Trump promised $10 billion in US funding to the Board of Peace, which he chairs, in January. Gulf allies pledged more. No money is known to have reached Gaza reconstruction. In September, the board, which includes former British prime minister Tony Blair and Nickolay Mladenov, the “Gaza high representative,” proposed a $2.45 billion recovery plan spanning six months.
Why This Matters: A ceasefire that stops the biggest bombs but not the daily killing leaves two million people without homes, reconstruction or a political horizon. Each stalled step, from disarmament to withdrawal to the stabilization force, deepens the gap between what was promised at the summit and what Gaza’s families live with in their tents. The ministry’s toll of more than 1,400 dead since the truce shows the cost of that gap. With Israeli elections weeks away and a new government potentially months off, the diplomatic window is narrowing. A return to fighting, the base reporting makes clear, can’t be ruled out. For civilians on both sides, the question is whether a deal that has delivered the hostages home can still deliver anything more.