Two Years On: A Pause, a Promise, and the Heavy Air Above Gaza
The resort lights of Sharm El-Sheikh were never meant to be a backdrop for hostage negotiations and the thin, brittle hope of families who’ve been waiting for answers for nearly two years.
And yet there, on the Sinai coastline, diplomats and negotiators gathered this week — a motley of envoys, aides, and officials — carrying the slender thread that could knit a fragile ceasefire into being: a plan to swap prisoners for hostages, to halt the bombing at last, and to begin the long, bruised business of recovery.
“This is a real opportunity to stop the killing and to begin returning people to their families,” an Egyptian foreign ministry official told reporters, their voice measured but urgent. “We will do everything we can to keep the talks focused on that narrow, necessary goal.”
What is on the table
At the heart of the discussions lies a stark arithmetic of suffering: militants seized 251 hostages during the October 7, 2023 attack; Israeli authorities say 47 remain in Gaza and that 25 of the captives are believed dead. Gaza’s health authorities put the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s campaign at a staggering 67,139 — a figure the territory’s Hamas-run ministry reports and which the United Nations treats as a key measure of the human cost.
Under the roadmap pushed by the United States, the proposed exchange is dramatic in scale: Israel would free 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and more than 1,700 detainees arrested in Gaza since the war began, in return for the remaining hostages. President Donald Trump, who helped craft the proposal, has promised to oversee a post-war transition — a technocratic authority that would manage Gaza’s administration while disarming Hamas.
“There can’t be a war going on in the middle of it,” a U.S. politician said on television, urging Israel to pause strikes to make the swap possible. “You can’t release hostages in the middle of strikes, so the strikes will have to stop.” Whether the pause comes and holds is the million-dollar question.
On the ground in Gaza: the lives between the lines
Walking the southern streets of Gaza City — or what remains of them — you see how a protracted war etches itself into the everyday. Markets are shrunken to a few stalls that sell what remains of fresh produce. The scent of za’atar and coffee mixes strangely with the acrid trace of smoke. Tents cluster where apartment towers once rose; whole families huddle in hallways meant for passing, not living.
“The decision to occupy Gaza, the collapse of multistorey buildings, and the intensity of IDF operations have forced nearly 900,000 people to the south,” Israel’s defence minister said, painting one picture of displacement and pressure. United Nations assessments put the pre-assault population of the territory at around one million — a statistic that underscores how many have been uprooted from their homes.
“There has been a noticeable decrease in the number of air strikes since last night. Tanks and military vehicles have pulled back slightly,” said Muin Abu Rajab, 40, who lives in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood. “But I believe this is a tactical move, not a withdrawal. We are tired of hopes that evaporate.”
This is the rhythm of life now: hopeful pauses and sudden ruptures. A child learning to count by the number of days since the last airstrike. A mother stitching newborn clothes in the shadow of a crumbled pharmacy. The human stories add up, unimaginable in their totality.
The human tally
Numbers matter because they are shorthand for loss: 1,219 people were killed in the October 7 attack, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Israel says dozens of hostages remain. Gaza’s health ministry reports tens of thousands of Palestinian fatalities. These figures are contested, verified imperfectly, and painful in any form.
“We want the prisoner exchange to happen quickly so Israel has no excuse to continue the war,” said Ahmad Barbakh from Al-Mawasi. His words are less a demand than a plea — the language of people desperate to put an end to a conflict that has hollowed out everyday life.
Negotiations, brinkmanship, and the politics of a ceasefire
Sharm El-Sheikh has seen peace talks before. It is a place of palm-lined avenues and hotels that cater to European tourists; now it hosts tense delegations and hurried bilateral meetings. Israel’s delegation arrived with cautious optimism, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying he hoped to see hostages freed “within days.” Hamas representatives, escorted into Cairo, insisted on an immediate start to the exchange and on having a voice in Gaza’s future — an insistence at odds with the U.S. roadmap, which stipulates that Hamas should play no role in post-war governance.
“Hamas is very keen to reach an agreement to end the war and immediately begin the prisoner exchange process in accordance with the field conditions,” a senior Hamas official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. That language hints at a willingness to compromise on sequence while guarding core political positions.
Conversely, U.S. and Israeli leaders have drawn hard lines. President Trump warned of “complete obliteration” if Hamas stays in power and urged the group not to delay. “When Hamas confirms, the ceasefire will be immediately effective, the hostages and prisoner exchange will begin,” he wrote online, all caps and urgency.
Who is mediating?
- Egypt is the host and primary mediator, playing a role it has filled in previous rounds.
- The White House said President Trump dispatched envoys — including Jared Kushner — to help shepherd the talks.
- Other foreign ministers around the region and beyond have framed this window as a “real opportunity” for a sustainable pause in fighting.
The wider questions: justice, security, and rebuilding trust
Ask yourself: what does a sustainable ceasefire look like? Is it simply a pause in violence, a diplomatic freeze-frame to be broken again, or can it be the first stitch in a political fabric that holds?
Disarmament, the transfer of authority, accountability for atrocities, reconstruction funding, and the safe return of displaced people — these are not technical details. They are moral decisions. They require the kind of international patience and resources that have been in short supply for years.
“You can’t rebuild homes without rebuilding trust,” said Dr. Lina Haddad, a Gaza-born humanitarian specialist now working with an international NGO. “Reconstruction is more than concrete and steel. It is education, health care, jobs, and, crucially, a credible political horizon. Without that, walls will rise where bridges should be.”
For the neighbors, the stakes are regional. A stalled deal could inflame tensions beyond Gaza. A swift, well-managed exchange could create breathing room for diplomacy elsewhere in the Middle East. For ordinary people in Gaza and Israel, though, the stakes are heartbreakingly local: a son returned home, a grandmother spared one more unbearable funeral, a child allowed to sleep at night.
What now?
Negotiators are racing against anniversaries and fatigue. Talks slated to start on the eve of the second anniversary of the October 7 attack are a reminder that time itself has become a pressure cooker. For people in Gaza and for Israelis whose relatives remain in captivity, each passing day is both countdown and torment.
Will the guns fall silent long enough for human beings to step back from the brink? Will promises be kept, and will exchanges be conducted with the dignity and safeguards families demand? These are the questions now traveling across the Red Sea to a seaside resort repurposed overnight as a forum of urgent mediation.
Perhaps the right question to end with is this: if you had to choose between a ceasefire today and an uncertain political future, which would you take? Families on both sides have already answered that question with their absence. The rest of us must decide how loudly to insist that their futures matter.
