Ceasefire in Gaza: Diplomatic triumph or mirage?

Editor's note: As the year 2025 comes to an end, CGTN has launched a special series "Flashback 2025." It offers a year-end review of the major developments in 2025 that reshaped geopolitics, geostrategy, and geoeconomics across key regions and the wider international system. The second article examines the October 10, 2025, Peace Deal brokered by President Donald Trump, a halt that eased immediate suffering yet unfolded amid allegations of genocide and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. It assesses Muslim states' diplomatic role, deep implementation problems, U.N. and U.S. political divisions, and looming regional risks, warning that 2026 may deliver a stalemate rather than reconstruction.

This year witnessed a major geopolitical breakthrough with the Peace Deal brokered by President Donald Trump on October 10, 2025, giving partial relief to the people of Gaza after a relentless period of suffering under Israel's genocidal campaign. A war that turned into a humanitarian disaster pushed the international legal system to treat "genocide" as a live charge against Israel.

By early October 2025, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported 66,148 Palestinians killed and 168,716 injured since the start of the war. In August, a human-made famine was confirmed, with more than 640,000 people at IPC Phase 5. Even after the ceasefire, around 1.6 million faced high levels of acute food insecurity, and nearly 101,000 children under five were expected to suffer acute malnutrition through mid-2026.

Gaza's health system was pushed past breaking point: only 10 of 36 hospitals remained partially operational after 800 documented attacks that killed more than 1,700 healthcare workers. A comprehensive blockade choked food, medicine, and fuel. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created as a controlled aid mechanism, became a grim symbol: at least 1,400 Palestinians were killed at GHF distribution sites, while only about 60 aid trucks a day entered Gaza against an estimated need of 500–600.

These realities set the stage for a legal watershed. On September 16, the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, finding four of the five acts listed in the 1948 Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group and "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction." It also cited "imposing measures intended to prevent births," noting an attack that destroyed thousands of embryos at Gaza's leading fertility clinic. The Commission argued intent could be inferred from conduct and public statements, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's October 2023 remark that Israel was "fighting human animals." On September 1, the International Association of Genocide Scholars reported that 86 percent of voting members agreed Israel is committing genocide, while Israel rejects these accusations and insists its campaign is lawful self-defence.

In this context, President Trump unveiled his "20-point Gaza Peace Plan" on September 29, 2025. The first phase locked in the October 10 ceasefire and arranged the exchange of all Israeli hostages for 250 Palestinian life-sentence prisoners and 1,700 Gazans detained after October 7, 2023. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it a "desperately needed breakthrough," and many governments treated it as a necessary first step.

At the same time, the deal can be read as serving objectives that favour Israel. Israel still seeks to subdue Hamas and the broader resistance; even after a year of war, it has not crushed the movement or its ideology. Early drafts reportedly contained a Point 21 mentioning a two-state solution and a Palestinian state, yet this was later removed or merged into a vague Point 19, while Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly says there is only one state, Israel—sideling Palestinian statehood and risking expulsion by other means. President Trump appears eager to present himself as the main peacemaker, even a Nobel Peace Prize contender, amid a deep trust deficit with Netanyahu.

As discussed in one of my video analyses, the deal also reflects Trump and Netanyahu’s strategic motives, the precarious position of Hamas, unprecedented global advocacy for a ceasefire, and the critical diplomatic role of Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, in stabilizing the region and advancing Palestinian rights.

Implementation has proved difficult. Israeli operations continued, though reduced, against civilians and infrastructure, reinforcing mistrust among Palestinian factions. The proposed International Stabilization Force was contentious after Israel refused Turkish participation, and analysts warn a major Iran–Israel confrontation in 2026 could collapse the truce.

Debates at the United Nations reflected both support and concern. The plan's proposal for a technocratic administration under a United States-chaired "Board of Peace" was endorsed by U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 on November 17, 2025, passing with abstentions from China and Russia. Their ambassadors criticised the text as "vague and unclear" and "reminiscent of colonial practices," arguing it appears to conflict with the ICJ's 2024 Advisory Opinion, which stated Palestinian self-determination "cannot be made conditional upon bilateral negotiations with the occupying Power." Critics fear the Board risks entrenching external control over Gaza's future rather than enabling genuine Palestinian self-rule.

Western domestic politics have been sharply divided. In the United States, Senator Bernie Sanders has tried to block $9 billion in arms transfers, arguing further military aid makes Washington complicit in war crimes. Professor Jeffrey Sachs called the Gaza campaign a "genocide" and said U.S. policy has become "absolutely destructive of peace in the region." Tens of thousands of people and scholars worldwide demanded an immediate ceasefire, creating unprecedented public pressure.

In the region, key Arab and Muslim states treated the Trump plan pragmatically. Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia and others backed it mainly to secure an immediate ceasefire and prevent what many fear could become a "new Nakba." Their stance: stopping the genocide and saving lives comes first; what happens after can be negotiated later, and if the ceasefire holds it could become a starting point.

As 2025 ends, analysts expect 2026 to feature "persistent regional conflicts without resolution," and Gaza could be another case where open violence is reduced but the core dispute remains. On the ground, the scale of damage is stark: an estimated 39,000 orphans, about 96 percent of children traumatised, and cities where most homes have been damaged or destroyed. The collapse of an earlier ceasefire in January 2025, which ended on March 18 with renewed airstrikes, hangs over the present truce as a warning.

American geopolitical analyst David Oualaalou, an expert on Middle East security, suggests 2026 will likely "perpetuate a state of stagnation and stalemate." He argues the international system is moving into an era of "managing chronic tensions rather than resolving them," and that Gaza's ceasefire fits that pattern. He further notes, "The Gaza and Palestine-Israeli issues still remain. Netanyahu is afraid and concerned about moving to phase two of the peace accord, which, by the way, Israel has violated on many occasions. 2026 will either mark the end of the Gaza war or the initiation of reconstruction and hope, or, in my opinion, perpetuate a state of stagnation and stalemate, which is what I'm leaning towards, risking a return to fighting."

To the international community, the question is whether it can be content with managing the crisis or pursuing a real settlement with plausible guarantees, a political process that incorporates the voices of the Palestinians and considers the issue of sovereignty, and a reconstruction that restores dignity rather than enslaving dependency.

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