The Quiet Between Storms: Gaza’s Fragile Month of Ceasefire
The streets of Gaza are quieter than they were a month ago, but the silence is brittle—a thin film over a landscape that still smolders. In the markets, vendors tentatively reopen stalls; in refugee camps, children play beneath skeletal trees. Yet the air is laced with unease. Every distant thud, every drone shadow, revives the memory of the violence that shattered lives last October.
Washington has quietly upped its diplomacy in recent days, dispatching Jared Kushner to Jerusalem to coax the fragile truce into a more durable peace. Kushner — described by some Israeli officials in frank terms as a key broker of the ceasefire — met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to press forward on what they call “phase two.” The meeting was not merely diplomatic choreography; it was an attempt to translate tentative goodwill into enforceable terms.
What “Phase Two” Means — And Why It’s So Dangerous to Assume
Phase two, as sketched by Israeli spokespeople, reads like a checklist that could reorder Gaza’s future: disarm Hamas, demilitarize the Strip, and install an international stabilization force. “Phase two also includes the establishment of the international stabilisation force,” Israeli government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists, noting that the fine print was still under negotiation.
But the details are where ceasefires go to die. Who disarms? Who polices? Who occupies — even temporarily — and under what rules of engagement? Bedrosian was blunt: “There will be no Turkish boots on the ground,” she said, rejecting one proposed participant. At the same time, other regional powers have parsed the offer in their own terms.
- Egypt, Qatar and Turkey have been placed on potential rosters for an international stabilisation force.
- The UAE warned it would likely abstain unless the mission came with a clear operational framework, according to Emirati presidential adviser Anwar Gargash.
- Turkey, eager to play a role, finds itself frozen out by Israeli resistance and a diplomatic chill that has only deepened since Ankara issued arrest warrants charging Israeli leaders with grave crimes.
Those fault lines are not bureaucratic trivia; they are the marrow of power politics. A stabilization force without regional legitimacy is a force without an operating permit. And a plan that insists on the disarmament of Hamas — an insistence the group calls a “red line” — risks collapsing before it begins.
Exchanges, Returns, and a Thousand Small Griefs
Small acts of closure have punctuated the month: the return of 20 living hostages by Hamas and the delivery of the remains of 24 captives, including 21 Israelis. In turn, Israel freed nearly 2,000 prisoners and handed back 315 bodies of Palestinian captives. These exchanges are human transactions at the rawest level — proof that diplomacy can, in fits and starts, bring people home.
“Time has stood still,” said Ayelet Goldin when the remains of her brother, Lieutenant Hadar Goldin — missing since 2014 — were repatriated. “How do you process fighting for a brother who’s gone?” Her voice, strained and small, echoed something larger: memory can be returned, but life cannot.
Yet the numbers on the ground reveal why reconciliation feels so distant. Gaza’s health ministry reported that at least 242 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces since the truce began — a figure the Israeli military disputes and that independent verification organizations say is difficult because of media restrictions and access limits. Meanwhile, Israel says it has targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing 15 members of the group since the start of November, and continues strikes despite last November’s cessation of broader hostilities.
Lives in Limbo: Voices from Al-Bureij and Beyond
“We still do not feel safe,” Salma Abu Shawish, 40, who lives in Al-Bureij refugee camp, told me over the phone. The camp, a cluster of concrete and corrugated roofs, is alive with the restless industry of survival: women mending clothes, men haggling for bread, children tracing patterns in the dust.
“Shooting continues,” she said. “We try to protect our children from psychological trauma and to help them forget the war and its effects. Life in Gaza is hard. We still lack food, and many families remain homeless. We only wish this nightmare would stop and never return.” Her words are ordinary and devastating: a wishlist for peace that reads more like a prayer.
Humanitarian workers on the ground describe clinics barely functioning, a patchwork of food distributions, and a generation of children walking through rubble carrying backpacks too large for their shoulders. “The psycho-social toll is enormous,” said Dr. Leila Haddad, a psychologist working with displaced families. “Even when the shooting stops, trauma persists. We are treating nightmares and bedwetting in children whose world has been reduced to walls and the sky.”
The Regional Chessboard and the Question of Enforcement
Netanyahu, speaking to parliament, promised to wield the agreements with “an iron fist.” “Whoever seeks to harm us, we harm them,” he said. Such rhetoric reassures some constituencies at home but inflames others abroad. The Israeli calculus is straightforward: prevent future attacks by rendering adversaries militarily impotent. The moral, legal and practical hurdles of that approach are anything but simple.
For Washington, the immediate task is stabilisation: to make sure the tenuous silence does not unravel into a new round of violence. Jared Kushner’s role — a figure already familiar to the region for his earlier initiatives — is to stitch together the competing interests. But the U.S. envoy faces the same problem every mediator confronts: can an international guarantor be both credible and accepted?
“Trust cannot be negotiated on a table alone,” said Michael Levin, a Middle East analyst. “It is built in lanes — access to aid, reopening crossings, accountability mechanisms. Without those, any ceasefire is simply a pause before the next conflict.”
What Comes Next — And How You Can Watch It Unfold
The coming weeks will reveal whether phase two will be a blueprint for stability or a battleground of competing ambitions. Will an international force be fielded with a mandate strong enough to deter violence? Will Hamas agree to measures that it says amount to surrender? Will regional actors be satisfied that their interests are safeguarded?
These are not merely strategic questions. They are human ones. They ask what justice looks like for those who lost loved ones, what security means for children whose schools were rubble, and what dignity means to people living in tents when winter approaches.
If you care to follow this story, do not watch only the headlines. Tune into the small details: aid convoys, the reopening of hospitals, the distribution of food, and the slow, stubborn work of rebuilding trust. Ask yourself what a durable peace would demand from every player — locally, regionally, and internationally.
For the people of Gaza and for Israelis who have felt the knife-edge of fear, peace is not an abstraction. It is a row of returned bodies, a child’s belly filled, a teacher going back to a classroom. For now, the ceasefire breathes, tentative and wary. The rest — the hard architecture of peace — remains to be built.
