The war on Gaza was supposed to end a year ago, and the ceasefire agreement, which entered into force in October 2025, under American and international sponsorship, would turn into the beginning of stopping the killing, opening the crossings, and launching the path of relief and reconstruction. But what happened on the ground went in the opposite direction: the declaration of war stopped, and the occupation did not stop using its tools.
For a full year of the ceasefire agreement, the Palestinians in Gaza remained under bombing, shooting, displacement, and siege, while Israeli forces continued to expand their areas of deployment and impose restrictions on the movement of residents and aid. Health data show that about 1,440 Palestinians have been martyred and more than 5,000 others have been injured since the start of the agreement, a tally that confirms that the truce has not turned into effective protection for civilians. The United Nations also documented hundreds of killings in areas close to the Israeli deployment, and warned that expanding areas of control within the Strip exacerbates the danger to civilians and restricts humanitarian work.
It is no longer a matter of isolated incidents that can be classified as “violations.” Data issued by the Government Information Office in Gaza spoke of thousands of Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement, including artillery and air strikes, direct fire, demolition of property, incursions, and arrests. According to figures reported by media sources from the office, the number of violations exceeded 4,000 during the first months of the agreement.
At a time when the manifestations of war were supposed to gradually withdraw from the Gaza Strip, its manifestations remained present in the lives of Gazans: missiles and drones, shooting, forbidden areas, demolition, displacement, hospitals unable to regain their capacity, and crossings that do not operate regularly. The United Nations documented the continued deaths of civilians in areas close to Israeli forces, stressing that the expansion of areas of control after the ceasefire increased the risks to the population and hindered the arrival of aid.
What is more dangerous is that the killing has not decreased over time, but rather the recent weeks have witnessed an increase in its frequency. Director of the Health Information Department at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Dr. Zaher Al-Wahidi, says that the average number of martyrs, which in previous periods ranged between three and four per day, rose during the recent waves of escalation to 8 and 10 martyrs per day, with 1,440 martyrs and more than 5,000 wounded recorded since the agreement took effect, according to data he provided to Al-Resala Net. Figures published in early October show that the toll reached 1,439 martyrs and 5,052 wounded since the start of the ceasefire.
Families were not spared from this path. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, attacks during the ceasefire period led to the complete erasure of three Palestinian families from the civil registry, in a scene that reproduces one of the most cruel images of war, despite the fact that the international community announced a year ago the end of large-scale military operations.
In parallel with the killing, the crossings turned into one of the tools of pressure on the Gaza Strip. The United Nations has documented cases of closure of crossings on which aid entry depends, and warned that their closure disrupts the arrival of life-saving materials to a population that relies heavily on external supplies. In June 2026, the closure of Kerem Shalom and Rafah disrupted the flow of aid, while raids, shelling and shooting continued to put civilians and infrastructure at risk.
Thus, for Gaza, the ceasefire was not so much an end to the war as a transition to another form of it. The occupation no longer needs to announce a comprehensive military operation in order to keep the Gaza Strip under fire. It is enough for daily strikes to continue, for large areas to remain under military control, for crossings to remain subject to prevention and restrictions, and for millions of Palestinians to live among rubble and tents and at gunpoint.
The outcome that accumulated over the course of a year reveals that the problem was not in formulating a political declaration to stop the war, but rather in the absence of implementation and accountability. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, confirmed in April 2026 that Palestinians in various parts of Gaza are still unsafe six months after the announcement of a ceasefire, and that the continuation of killings reflects a continuing pattern of ignoring the lives of Palestinians, amid what he described as impunity.
Three years after the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the paradox seems stark: an international agreement was said to have come to end the war, but it did not prevent the occupation from continuing the killing. International guarantees that did not turn into protection; Crossings that were supposed to be a lifeline have turned into a siege tool. The withdrawal, which was supposed to open the way to recovery, was offset by continued presence and control within the Gaza Strip.
Thus, Gaza enters its fourth year of the war, and it is still paying the price daily, not only under bombardment, but also in light of the continuing siege, restricting aid, disrupting treatment, and keeping large parts of the Strip under military control. As for the “ceasefire,” which was supposed to be the end of the tragedy, the months that followed proved that declaring the end of the war is one thing, and forcing the occupation to actually end it is another thing entirely.
