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Board of Peace ‘Betraying the Very Agreement They Just Made' by Accepting Israel’s Refusal to Withdraw Troops in Gaza
"This tweet is Netanyahu’s way of sabotaging the agreement," said one analyst.
Aug 04, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Gaza Board of Peace appears to be going back on the disarmament deal it reached last week with Hamas in order to meet Israel's demands, and it may throw the entire process into jeopardy.
A roadmap agreed to last week, which Trump touted as a massive diplomatic breakthrough, stated that Hamas would begin to decommission its arms in tandem with Israel halting its attacks and withdrawing its forces to the so-called "yellow line" agreed to during the first phase of the ceasefire in October 2025.
In the ten months since the deal, Israel has been gradually advancing its forces deeper into Gaza beyond the ceasefire line to the point where it now controls around 60-70% of Gaza, while its more than 2 million inhabitants are crammed into an area that has largely been reduced to rubble.
Last week's peace roadmap said explicitly that the gradual decommissioning of Hamas' heavy weapons, arms depots, production facilities, and tunnels "shall be linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases." Trump echoed this last week, stating that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would withdraw as disarmament proceeds.
Though Trump claimed Israel was "very happy" with the deal, its leaders have spent days crying foul, stating that withdrawal would only occur after Hamas completely disarms. Meanwhile, Hamas said it would only go along with the disarmament if Israel withdraws at the same time.
In defiance of the agreement's language calling to honor ceasefire commitments "without delay," Israel launched attacks across Gaza on Sunday that killed at least 18 Palestinians, the largest daily toll in weeks. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, told Israel's Army Radio that there was no deal for it to halt attacks on Gaza.
The strategy appears to have worked. Following meetings between Netanyahu and the Board of Peace Gaza envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, on Monday, the board released a statement posted to social media that essentially rewrote the original agreement to match Israel's demands and claimed it had been part of the agreement from the start.
"Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators," the board said. "This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike."
Hamas responded by reiterating that it and other armed factions in Gaza “remain committed to what was agreed regarding the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, including all parties’ obligations,” and called for “a clear and official response” from Mladenov regarding what was agreed upon.
The new statement from the Board of Peace directly contradicted Mladenov's flat statement on Thursday that "withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning."
Muhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that the Board of Peace was "betraying the very agreement they just made" and "taking Netanyahu’s side fully."
"The roadmap explicitly said withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning," he wrote on social media. "It never said withdrawal would happen only after decommissioning is fully completed."
"The roadmap made a distinction between 'heavy weapons' (e.g. tunnels, rockets, RPGs) and 'personal/light weapons,' and allowed Palestinian factions to retain light weapons for protection in case Israel reneges," he added. "Including light weapons now in this tweet is Netanyahu’s way of sabotaging the agreement."
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the associate director of editorial for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, said the Board of Peace's abrupt reversal "shouldn’t surprise anyone."
"The Board of Peace is just the administrative and fundraising arm of Israel’s occupation of Gaza," he said. "It exists to facilitate Gaza’s ethnic cleansing and concentration camps in a way that is palatable and profitable for the international community."
Since the so-called “ceasefire” went into effect last October following two years of genocidal war, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians, bringing the official death toll above 73,000. Experts warn the true number of Palestinians who have been killed since Israel began its attacks in October 2023 is likely far higher.
July was the deadliest month for Palestinians this year, with more than 150 Palestinians killed. Israeli leaders have discussed fully "conquering" the strip, controlling it indefinitely, and moving in illegal Israeli settlers.
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'All Lies': Gazans Say There's No Ceasefire as Phase 2 Begins Amid Israeli Strikes
"Where is the ceasefire?" asked the father of a teenage girl killed in an Israeli strike on their family home.
Jan 16, 2026
Authorities in Gaza said Friday that Israeli forces killed or wounded dozens of Palestinians within the past 24 hours amid widespread skepticism over the Trump administration's announcement that the second phase of what many in the coastal strip say is essentially a sham ceasefire has begun.
The newly formed Gaza Administration Committee met Friday for the first time in Cairo, where members discussed immediate humanitarian relief and reconstruction plans for the obliterated strip. The body is an integral part of Phase 2 of US President Donald Trump's 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which US special envoy Steve Witkoff said began on Wednesday.
Trump said Thursday that his so-called Board of Peace to oversee Gaza has also been formed. In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump touted the body as "the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place.”
The Gaza Administration Committee is chaired by former Deputy Palestinian Planning Minister Ali Shaath, who said during a Friday press conference that “our goal is to give the Palestinian people hope that there is a future" and bring “smiles to the faces of Gaza’s children, women, and men.”
However, Israeli bombs and bullets continued to claim Palestinian lives across the strip, including women and children, in the latest of what Gaza officials say are more than 1,200 violations of the three-month ceasefire. At least 463 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,250 others wounded since the tenuous truce took effect on October 10, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
"Where is the ceasefire?" asked the father of a teenage girl killed in an Israeli strike on their family's home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. "We are civilians in our homes, and we are dying.”
Another Gaza resident, Jaber Mohammed, called the ceasefire process "all lies."
“We’ve been suffering for two years and now starting the third,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera Friday. “We’re suffering from the lack of food and drink, and from high prices.”
Yet another Gazan, Fayeq al-Helou, said: “They haven’t even started the first phase yet. How can they start the second?”
“We don’t want it to be like every other time, just words on paper," he added.
In addition to ongoing air and ground strikes, Israel has continued to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, where widespread hunger and illness are rampant among the nearly 2 million forcibly displaced Palestinians, many of whom are living in tents and other makeshift shelters unfit for human habitation. Gaza's Interior Ministry says that at least 31 people—some of them children and infants—have died in the strip due to exposure to cold, flooding, and shelter collapse amid winter storms.
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing.
Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007, said Thursday that it welcomes the new administration committee. Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas' political bureau, said that "the ball is now in the court" of the United States.
Trump said Thursday that Hamas must "immediately" return the body of the final Israeli hostage abducted in October 2023 "and proceed without delay to full demilitarization."
"They can do this the easy way, or the hard way," the president added.
Hamas has committed to dissolving Gaza's existing government and yield to the administration committee, although the group has been vague about how and when it would disarm, and maintains its "right to resist" Israel's occupation.
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With Global Attention on Venezuela, Israel Intensifies Assault on Gaza, Lebanon
Israeli forces reported blew up a 5-year-old girl and wounded two other children a day after fatally shooting a 15-year-old boy in Gaza.
Jan 05, 2026
With the world captivated by and concerned over the Trump administration's weekend abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, continuing its devastating US-backed response to the Hamas-led October 2023 attack.
In Gaza, where Israel faces widespread accusations of genocide, an Israeli strike on Monday "hit a tent housing displaced people, killing a 5-year-old girl and her uncle and wounding two other children," the Associated Press reported, citing officials at Nasser Hospital. "Family members wept over the bodies as they were brought to the hospital."
The Israel Defense Forces used one of its common claims for when it kills civilians. According to the AP, the IDF said that it struck a Hamas militant who planned an imminent attack on Israeli troops in Gaza, the strike complied with the ceasefire agreement, and it was conducted in a targeted way to limit civilian harm.
The tent strike in the Muwasi area northwest of Khan Younis came a day after Israeli forces shot and killed at least three Palestinians in that city on Sunday. According to Reuters, "Medics reported that the dead included a 15‑year‑old boy, a fisherman killed outside areas still occupied by Israel in the enclave, and a third man who was shot and killed east of the city in areas under Israeli control."
Israel has killed at least 422 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 1,189 since reaching the ceasefire deal with Hamas three months ago. The overall death toll in the strip has climbed to at least 71,388, with another 171,269 people injured, according to local health officials. Global experts warn the true counts are likely far higher.
Meanwhile, according to Al Jazeera, journalists on the ground in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory observed that the IDF "has spent the past 24 hours expanding the so-called 'yellow line' in eastern Gaza," or the boundary behind which Israeli forces officially withdrew as part of the October deal.
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza City:
The ongoing Israeli attacks on the ground, the expansion of the "yellow line," are meant to eat up more of the territory across the eastern part, really shrinking the total area where people are sheltering.
Everyone is cramped here. The population here not just doubled but tripled in many of the neighborhoods, given the fact that none of these people is able to go back to their neighborhoods. We're talking about Zeitoun, Shujayea, as well as Tuffah.
It was not until the past few minutes that the sounds of hums, the drones buzzing, faded away, but it had been going on for the past night and all of yesterday. Ongoing explosions that could be heard clearly from here.
Mahmoud also reported that "there's nothing on the ground other than the headlines we've been reading over the past couple of days, the expectation now that within days the Rafah crossing is going to open and allow for movement in and out of Gaza. So far, we know the Israeli military is pushing for Rafah to be just a one-way exit."
Throughout the Israeli assault, far-right officials in Israel have ramped up calls to ethnically cleanse Gaza of its Palestinian population and recolonize the territory. There has also been a surge in violence from Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank over the past two years, as well as renewed settlement-building efforts there.
Laila Al-Arian, an American journalist and executive producer for Al Jazeera's documentary series "Fault Lines," said on social media Sunday, "With eyes on Venezuela, Israel is bombing Gaza and escalating its assault on the West Bank."
In November 2024, nearly a year before the ceasefire agreement in Hamas, Israel struck a deal with the Lebanese political and paramilitary group Hezbollah—and, since then, as with Gaza, has repeatedly violated it.
Israel launched strikes on eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday after an IDF spokesperson said the military would target alleged Hezbollah sites in Kfar Hatta and Ain el-Tineh, and Hamas sites in Annan and al-Manara.
Al Jazeera reported that "Lebanon's Health Ministry said a drone strike on a car in the southern village of Braikeh earlier Monday wounded two people. The Israeli military said the strike targeted two Hezbollah members."
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Who Is Ready to Die for Trump’s Gaza Plan? So Far, Nobody
We shall see in the coming days whether the corrupt governments that hope to profit from the genocide in Gaza will send their own troops to fight the Palestinian Resistance and perpetuate the Israeli occupation.
Nov 21, 2025
On November 17, 2025, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to endorse President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, including a transitional government headed by Trump himself and an International Stabilization Force, or ISF, that is expected, among other tasks, to disarm Hamas, a task that Israel has failed to do through two years of genocide and mass destruction.
The ISF will be tasked with securing the borders in a way that confines Palestinians, stabilizing Gaza’s security environment by suppressing resistance, demilitarizing Gaza while leaving the Israeli regime untouched, and training the Palestinian police to control the population. Yes, the force is also mandated to “protect civilians” and assist humanitarian aid. But under US supervision, can anyone honestly expect it to restrain Israel when Israel simply refuses to comply—as we see with the current so-called “ceasefire”?
Hamas and other factions in Gaza have issued a joint statement that unequivocally rejects Trump’s plan and the Security Council resolution, saying it “will turn into a type of imposed guardianship or administration—reproducing a reality that restricts the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to managing their own affairs.”
As for the foreign military force, the Hamas statement says, “Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”
This is not the time to give up on the real solutions to this crisis: justice and freedom for Palestine, and accountability for Israel.
The joint statement reserves its strongest condemnation for the Arab rulers who support Trump’s plan, calling their support “a form of deep international partnership in the war of extermination waged by the occupation against our people.”
Trump has claimed that all sides agreed to his peace plan, but Hamas only agreed to the first stage of it, which involved returning the remaining Israeli prisoners in Gaza to Israel under a permanent ceasefire and resumption of humanitarian aid that Israel has still not complied with.
Hamas always said clearly that it has no authority to negotiate over other parts of Trump’s plan, since they involve the future government of all of Palestine and require the input of many different groups in Gaza and the other occupied territories. Hamas said it would only disarm once a Palestinian state is fully established, at which time it will hand over its weapons to the new armed forces of the state of Palestine.
In October, a number of countries told US officials that they would consider sending their troops to participate in the proposed International Stabilization Force in Gaza. They included Egypt, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Malaysia, and Pakistan, as well as Australia, Canada, and Cyprus.
On the other hand, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have all rejected sending troops to join the ISF. Azerbaijan has said it could only send troops once all fighting has ended, and Egypt has flip-flopped on taking part. As it became clear that Trump and his “peace board” might order the ISF to use force to disarm Hamas fighters, the UAE said its forces would not take part either.
In fact, not a single country has so far committed to join the force, while Israel has said it would not allow Turkish forces to enter Gaza, and claims the right to approve or refuse any country’s participation. Israel has also been escalating its ceasefire violations since the Security Council resolution was passed, a sure way to deter countries from joining the ISF.
Hamas and the resistance groups are not alone in rejecting Trump’s plan. Al Jazeera asked people in Gaza City for comments, and they were just as critical. “I completely reject this decision,” said Moamen Abdul-Malek. “Our people… are able to rule ourselves. We don’t need forces from Arab or foreign countries to rule us. We are the people of this country, and we will bear responsibility for it.”
Another man in Gaza City told Al Jazeera that the plan violates the Palestinians’ right to armed resistance. “It would strip the resistance of its weapons,” said Mohammed Hamdan, “despite the fact that resistance is a legitimate right of peoples under occupation.”
And Sanaa Mahmoud Kaheel said she doesn’t trust Trump, who previously threatened to ethnically cleanse Gaza and steal its land to build a US-Israeli beach resort. “Things will be unclear with the international forces, and we do not know what might happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow with them being in Gaza,” she said. “This could help Trump tighten his grip on Gaza and work towards establishing a ‘riviera’ there, as he himself said before. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Are they really ready to sacrifice their own young people’s blood to mix with the blood of innocent Palestinians in the rubble of Gaza?
The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD), based in Al-Bireh in the West Bank, rejects the false choice that the United States has presented to the world: “Either accept their plan with all its flaws and non-guarantees, or accept going back to a live-streamed genocide.”
Instead, PIPD and the global Palestinian solidarity movement are working to end the Israeli occupation and the impunity that sustains it, and to hold Israel accountable for its illegal occupation and crimes against humanity. On its Global Accountability Map, PIPD charts the progress of “concrete and approved actions by governments, local authorities, civil society, the private sector, courts, and academia to hold Israeli colonial entities and interests accountable.”
More and more of the world is supporting the Palestinian struggle and the movement to hold Israel accountable for its decades of illegal occupation and ever-escalating international crimes. While the US uses its veto to corrupt the UN Security Council, people and governments have come together to hold Israel accountable in the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Instead of passively accepting subservience to the Security Council, the General Assembly asked the ICJ to rule on the legality of the Israeli occupation and its legal consequences, and the ICJ ruled in 2024 that the occupation is illegal and must therefore be ended as quickly as possible.
Instead of making further demands on the occupation’s long-suffering victims, as the US-controlled Security Council does in its Trump plan resolution, the ICJ and the General Assembly have flipped the US script to make demands on the perpetrator, Israel, including the demand, in September 2024, that Israel must end the occupation within a year.
The ICJ issued a new ruling on October 22, 2025 that Israel must allow all humanitarian aid into Gaza and allow UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East) to reenter Gaza and do its work there without obstruction.
The UN General Assembly can and should respond to Israel’s failure to comply with any of these rulings and resolutions by meeting in an Emergency Special Session to organize a UN-backed arms embargo, trade boycott, and other steps to enforce them, until Israel ends its illegal occupation and starts complying with international law and UN resolutions.
More and more countries are cutting trade and military ties with Israel, and 157 countries now recognize Palestine as an independent nation with the same rights as others. People in many countries are rising up to protest Israel’s genocide and occupation, and to boycott Israeli products and companies that are complicit in its crimes.
The Israeli and US governments are feeling the pinch. If the world was passively accepting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Trump would not have felt compelled to conjure up his fake peace plan. It is a victory for people of conscience everywhere that he felt he had to try to change the narrative. So this is not the time to give up on the real solutions to this crisis: justice and freedom for Palestine, and accountability for Israel.
We shall see in the coming days whether the corrupt governments that hope to profit from the genocide in Gaza will send their own troops to fight the Palestinian Resistance and perpetuate the Israeli occupation. Are they really ready to sacrifice their own young people’s blood to mix with the blood of innocent Palestinians in the rubble of Gaza?
We hope that they will instead make common cause with the people of Gaza and insist that Israel must comply with the demands of the ICJ and the UN General Assembly and immediately end its obscene, decades-long, illegal occupation of Palestine.
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At Least 13 Palestinians, 'Mostly Children,' Killed by Israel in Lebanon Massacre
Despite a November 2024 truce between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli forces have killed at least 121 civilians, including 21 women and 16 children, in Lebanon.
Nov 19, 2025
A series of Israeli airstrikes on targets in southern Lebanon have killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 100 others in recent days, including 13 people—mostly children, according to local officials—massacred Tuesday at a camp for Palestinian refugees.
Officials and residents said that the Israeli strike on Ain al-Hilweh near Sidon struck an area where children were playing soccer. Ain al-Hilweh is the largest camp in Lebanon housing refugees from the Nakba—the ethnic cleansing and terror campaign through which the modern Israeli state was founded—and their descendants.
The Israel Defense Forces said it targeted members of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas "operating in a training compound" in the camp.
Hamas rejected the IDF claim as "fabrication and lies."
The strike was the deadliest IDF attack in Lebanon since Israeli troops shot and killed at least 24 people including 6 women and injured 134 others in January.
The IDF carried out subsequent attacks, including a Wednesday morning drone strike on a vehicle in Al-Tayri that reportedly killed two civilians including the town's treasurer and wounded at least 10 university students. Israeli forces also bombed a residential area of the town of Tair Filsay in Tyre district. It is unknown if anyone was harmed in the strike.
Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike on Wednesday, Nov. 19, targeting several points in the village of Tair Filsay in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district, Anadolu reports.Emergency teams moved toward the targeted locations after the attack.
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— Middle East Monitor (@middleeastmonitor.bsky.social) November 19, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Often overshadowed by its genocidal war on Gaza—which has left at least 249,600 people dead, maimed, or missing; millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened; and the coastal strip in ruins—Israel's bombardment and invasion of Lebanon has killed more than 4,000 people since October 2023, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. This figure includes at least 790 women and 316 children. More than 16,600 others have been wounded. Upward of 1.2 million Lebanese were also forcibly displaced by Israel's attacks and invasion.
This, despite a November 2024 truce between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 121 civilians, including 21 women and 16 children, in its northern neighbor—which Israel has invaded or bombed numerous times since 1948, killing and wounding tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians.
Israeli forces also bombed the Qizan an-Najjar area, south of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing at least one Palestinian and wounding a mother and her child, according to local officials, who said at least 280 Palestinians have been killed and 650 others wounded in nearly 400 Israeli violations of the October ceasefire with Hamas.
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UN Approval of Gaza 'Stabilization Force' Slammed as 'Denial of Palestinian Self-Determination'
CodePink said the plan "will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration, assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the new manager of the open-air prison."
Nov 17, 2025
Palestine defenders decried Monday's approval by the United Nations Security Council of a US plan authorizing a so-called international stabilization force for Gaza—a plan decried by one peace group as a denial of Palestinian self-determination.
Thirteen UNSC members voted for the resolution, while no nation voted against the proposal. China abstained, as did Russia, which submitted a rival draft resolution.
While US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz hailed the approval of what he called a “historic and constructive resolution," Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, rejected what it said "imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject."
“Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," added Hamas, which the US labels a terrorist organization.
After waging war on Gaza for over two years, Israeli officials also rejected the resolution for opening the door to Palestinian statehood—which is officially recognized by around 150 nations but is vehemently opposed by Israel—with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling such an outcome "unacceptable."
The approved stabilization force will be tasked with securing Gaza’s borders, protecting civilians, facilitating humanitarian assistance, supporting a redeployed Palestinian police force, and supervising disarmament of Hamas and other militant resistance groups. Under the plan, Israeli occupation forces would fully withdraw from Gaza after the stabilization force achieves security and operational control of the Palestinian exclave.
Then, a transitional governing body—the so-called Board of Peace led by US President Donald Trump—would be established to coordinate security, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction. The plan, which builds on Trump's 20-point peace proposal adopted in last month's tenuous ceasefire, dangles the carrot of a pathway toward Palestinian self-determination and statehood under a reformed Palestinian governing authority.
Human Rights Watch criticized the vote in an X post stating that "the fact that the words ‘human rights’ don’t appear in the resolution adopted by the Security Council today speaks volumes."
The US-based peace group CodePink said in a statement that "the resolution, while disguised as a peaceful and humanitarian proposal, is in reality a blueprint for the internationalization of the Israeli occupation and a complete denial of Palestinian self-determination."
CodePink continued:
The resolution imposes a two-year mandate to "secure borders," "protect civilians," and "decommission weapons," with the stated goal of disarming Palestinian resistance. However, it does nothing to address and end the root cause of the violence: Israel's ongoing siege, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. The United States, which armed and shielded the Israeli government unconditionally as it killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, should not be considered a neutral actor of good faith. A military force that answers to a "Board of Peace" chaired by the US president is an extension of US and Israeli interests, plain and simple.
"The establishment of a 'technocratic Palestinian administration' that answers to a US-led board will strip the Palestinian people of political agency," CodePink added. "Essentially, it will leave Palestine in the hands of a puppet administration, assigning the United States, which shares complicity in the genocide, as the new manager of the open-air prison that Israel has already established."
Members of the New York branch of the Palestine Youth Movement led a demonstration outside the US mission to the UN in Manhattan to protest the resolution.
"We see through this thinly veiled attempt to strip the Palestinian people of their sovereignty, self-determination, and right of return," the group said on Instagram. "The people reject any and all occupation plans for Gaza. Our movement will continue to struggle against Zionism and imperialism until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea."
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Netanyahu Blows Up Ceasefire, Ordering 'Powerful Strikes' on Gaza
Israel accused Hamas of breaking the US-brokered ceasefire in a manner in which no one was physically harmed. Gaza officials say Israel has violated the truce 125 times, killing or wounding hundreds of Palestinians.
Oct 28, 2025
Following Israel's 125 reported violations of the October 10 Gaza ceasefire in attacks that have killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered "powerful strikes" in response to an alleged Hamas breach of the deal in which no one was physically harmed.
Netanyahu's office said the right-wing prime minister instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to immediately carry out the attacks on the flattened strip, where two years of genocidal war and siege have left at least 248,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands of others starving; and the vast majority of Gaza's more than 2 million people forcibly displaced.
Israel said the decision to escalate came after IDF invaders—none of whom were reportedly harmed—came under fire in southern Gaza, and amid Israeli anger over alleged Hamas subterfuge regarding the return of bodily remains from an Israeli hostage abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack.
Netanyahu's announcement also came on the same day that the prime minister appeared in a Jerusalem court to continue his testimony in his ongoing trial for alleged fraud, breach of trust, and bribery. His testimony was cut off three hours early due to unspecified "security developments." Critics, including relatives of hostages, have accused Netanyahu of unnecessarily prolonging the war in order to further delay his trial. The prime minister denies any wrongdoing.
Hamas said it would respond to Israel's escalation by delaying the handover of the remaining 13 dead hostages it either holds or is trying to locate. The armed resistance group, which governs Gaza, said Tuesday it had recovered the body of another hostage.
The Gaza Government Media Office responded to Israel's accusation of Hamas ceasefire violations by noting what it said are 125 incidents in which Israeli forces broke the truce, "resulting in the killing of 94 Palestinians and the injury of more than 344 others."
Israeli violations of the current ceasefire include several massacres, such as the October 18 bombing of a bus that killed at least 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family, who were trying to return to inspect their home in Gaza City. Among the victims were three women and seven children ages 5-13.
Israel was also accused of nearly 1,000 violations of the previous ceasefire earlier this year—breaches that officials said left at least 116 civilians dead and nearly 500 others wounded.
There has been scant reporting of Israeli ceasefire breaches in the US corporate media. In a glaring act of apparently selective inattention, the Associated Press on Tuesday called Netanyahu's strike order "a new test for the US-brokered ceasefire."
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Ceasefire Imperiled as Israel Kills Scores of Palestinians in Gaza
Officials said that at least 51 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks Sunday, including massacres at a school, café, beach, and refugee camp.
Oct 19, 2025
The shaky Gaza ceasefire further frayed on Sunday as Israel launched at least 20 airstrikes and blocked all aid delivery in the obliterated Palestinian exclave, while Hamas rejected US allegations that it is preparing to violate the tenuous truce.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that it has "now begun a wave of strikes" in southern Gaza "following a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement earlier today" by Hamas, whose fighters are accused of killing two Israeli occupation troops and wounding three others in Rafah on Sunday morning.
Gaza officials said that at least 51 Palestinians, including numerous children, were killed across the strip on Sunday. Attacks include but are not limited to a double-tap drone and missile strike on a café west of Deir al-Balah that killed five people, all of them reportedly civilians; an airstrike on a the al-Bureij refugee camp that killed four civilians; an airstrike on the Sardi school that killed four displaced civilians; artillery shelling that killed six civilians on al-Zawaida Beach; and the bombing of a building housing journalists in al-Zawaida that killed two civilians.
The US State Department on Saturday accused Hamas of planning an attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza “in grave violation of the ceasefire." Hamas has been battling Israeli-backed criminal gangs that oppose its longtime rule of Gaza.
In a statement Sunday, Hamas slammed the US allegations as lies that “fully align with the misleading Israeli propaganda and provide cover for the continuation of the occupation’s crimes and organized aggression” against Palestinians.
Hamas urged the US to “stop repeating the occupation’s misleading narrative and to focus on curbing its repeated violations of the ceasefire agreement."
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israel has violated the nine-day ceasefire at least 48 times, including by bombing residential areas and killing civilians approaching the so-called "yellow line" beyond which Israeli forces withdrew in accordance with the truce.
Scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
On Friday, Israeli forces massacred 11 members of a Palestinian family attempting to return by bus to their home in Gaza City.
In response to what it said were Hamas ceasefire violations, Israel on Sunday closed off crossing points into Gaza, blocking the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid into the strip, where famine conditions persist due to the siege imposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—who are both fugitives from the International Criminal Court—at the start of the genocidal war two years ago.
Amjad Al-Shawwa, who heads the Network of Civil Society Organizations in Gaza, warned Sunday that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, especially pregnant women and children, are suffering severe malnutrition. At least hundreds of Gazans have died of malnutrition and related causes.
A senior Egyptian official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Guardian that “round-the-clock” talks were under way to salvage the ceasefire.
Responding to the renewed Israeli bombing, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: "Since the start of the ceasefire, the Netanyahu regime has been itching to fully restart the genocide in Gaza."
:The cruel and unnecessary mass bombing of civilians across Gaza constitutes a blatant violation of President [Donald] Trump's ceasefire agreement and a resumption of the genocide," CAIR added. "President Trump must rein in the Israeli occupation forces and stop sending American weapons and American taxpayer dollars to fund Israel’s war machine.”
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It's Up to the Global Community to Transform the Gaza Ceasefire Into a Lasting Peace
Whether Israel actually withdraws from the occupied Gaza Strip and upholds the ceasefire remains in question so long as the Trump administration and US congressional leadership of both parties refuse to condition military aid to Israel.
Oct 17, 2025
Israel violated its fragile, days-old ceasefire agreement with Hamas on Tuesday by killing six Palestinians in Gaza City and another near Khan Younis, as reported by Middle East Eye. At least 5 of the 6 victims in Gaza City were killed by an aerial attack while inspecting the ruins of their destroyed homes, as described by local Palestinian Civil Defence personnel. The seventh was the victim of a separate drone strike in al-Fukhari, east of Khan Younis.
Israel’s actions are in clear violation of the October 10 ceasefire agreement, which requires “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment and targeting operations [to] be suspended.”
A shaky ceasefire is better than an ongoing genocide. The release of the remaining Israeli hostages should be celebrated, along with the freedom for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees—most of whom have been held without charge. And it is a huge step forward that food and medical supplies will now be allowed into Gaza to aid the starved and suffering Palestinian population.
But Israel has already flouted some aspects of the ceasefire agreement. It has failed to allow the amount of humanitarian assistance promised in the ceasefire agreement into Gaza, and announced on Tuesday that it would halve the number of aid trucks being let in down to 300 per day, saying that Hamas not returning the bodies of its deceased hostages quickly enough—though many of these hostages’ remains may be buried under the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel over the course of the two-year-long war. And it continues to bar international media from entering Gaza to report from the ground. So while the first phase of the ceasefire plan seemed likely to be successful, the subsequent parts remain in question.
No plan will lead to a real and permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians unless it is premised on equal rights for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, either in a viable two-state solution or a single binational state with guaranteed equal rights for both.
Let’s remember that the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in January had been fully implemented when Israel—with the support of the US government—resumed the war two months later. This could happen again in the case of this month’s agreement. Whether Israel actually withdraws from the occupied Gaza Strip and upholds the ceasefire remains in question so long as the Trump administration and US congressional leadership of both parties refuse to condition military aid to Israel or allow the United Nations Security Council to enforce its resolutions.
To make matters worse, Hamas’ delay in releasing the remains of deceased Israeli hostages leaves it with even less leverage in enforcing the terms of the agreement, and Israel is taking advantage of that.
Israel has been noncommittal regarding the full timetable and the extent of the withdrawal thus far. It has also violated its withdrawal agreements in Lebanon and continued its occupation of southern Syria in recent months without objections from the United States, raising questions as to whether Israel will follow through on these commitments.
Among the outstanding issues is Israel’s demand for Hamas’s disarmament. Many Palestinians in Gaza have long resented their unelected militia’s intimidation and violence, and its terrorism and other provocations that have brought misery upon the Palestinian population. At the same time, Hamas has often been the only force capable of maintaining order, as armed gangs—some backed by Israel—have been stealing relief supplies and wreaking havoc in the region. This, in turn, has led to Hamas militia engaging in attacks on its political opponents, including summary executions. Without clearer guarantees from Israel regarding a full withdrawal of its troops from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire, and the establishment of a credible Palestinian administration to maintain order, Hamas will continue to refuse to disarm.
As of now, it is unclear who will rule over what remains of the Gaza Strip in the event of Israel’s withdrawal from the area. While Hamas has agreed to step aside under these circumstances, Israel, with US support, has ruled out allowing the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is recognized by 157 nations as the government of the State of Palestine, to govern Gaza. While the PA is riddled with corruption and dysfunction, it is arguably the most likely entity to provide some level of stability in the region: It has decades of experience governing most urban areas of the West Bank, has recognized Israel’s statehood, is demanding a Palestinian state on only 22% of historic Palestine, and has long renounced the use of violence.
But while the ceasefire agreement calls for the creation of a technocratic Palestinian administration overseen by a “Board of Peace,” the board would be chaired by Donald Trump—who has advocated turning the Gaza Strip into a vast Mediterranean resort—with the involvement of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a key architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Given the history of British colonialism and American neocolonialism in the Middle East, the agreement’s insistence that Palestinians in Gaza live under the control of foreigners in Washington and London, rather than their recognized government in the administrative capital of Ramallah, is not likely to be acceptable to them indefinitely.
What’s more, the costs of reconstruction in Gaza will be astronomical given that nearly 80% of structures in the Gaza Strip had been fully or partly destroyed. And it’s unlikely that the Gulf States will be willing to finance the removal of debris and mass reconstruction so long as there is still a possibility of the war resuming.
And while it should be seen as something of a victory that Trump is no longer talking about razing the entire territory and expelling the population, as he proposed earlier this year, the tragic fact is that he could have stopped the war months ago—and President Joe Biden could have, as well. Indeed, Biden put forward a remarkably similar ceasefire proposal in May 2024, which was accepted by Hamas but rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While previous presidents—including Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan—were willing to pressure Israel to halt military offensives or withdraw from occupied territories by threatening to withhold military aid, Biden refused to adequately utilize his substantial leverage during his presidency.
Similarly, Israeli mediator Gershon Baskin notes that Hamas had agreed to the same terms back in September of last year, and that, as with the current agreement, Netanyahu initially refused to support it. All that was needed to make the agreement a reality was some pressure from the Biden administration against Netanyahu. Last week, Baskin wrote on X that he “met with members of the American negotiating team in October 2024 and they were as frustrated as I was in their inability to convince Biden and Biden’s people to look seriously at the deal on the table.”
What finally led Trump to force Netanyahu to agree? One reason appears to have been that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Egypt—who have long worked to convince Hamas to accept concessions demanded by Israel—pressured Trump to get Israel to compromise as well. Israel’s bombing of Qatar less than a week ago, and the apparent unwillingness by Trump to attempt to stop it, raised the possibility that continued US support for Israel could threaten his close strategic, financial, and personal relationships with the Gulf monarchies.
Another factor was the resistance of Israelis themselves. In August, a group of Israelis numbering into the hundreds of thousands, including ordinary citizens as well as leading military and security officials, gathered in the streets to protest the ongoing war, signaling widespread recognition that continuing the war would have little strategic value and put the lives of the hostages and Israeli soldiers at further risk.
There has also been growing awareness of the international implications of prolonging the war. Over the course of its two-year genocidal campaign in Gaza, Israel has squandered the international outpouring of sympathy following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas and become an international pariah. Many European countries have now suspended military aid to Israel, and have recently threatened to impose economic sanctions as well.
And much of this pressure and resulting agreement was made possible by the power of global civil society, with massive anti-war demonstrations in cities and universities around the world, as well as the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose members were intercepted by Israel at the beginning of this month and subjected to abuse and torture. Much to the horror of many Israeli citizens, these events have led people around the world to not only challenge Israel’s war and occupation, but to begin questioning the legitimacy of Zionism entirely.
No plan will lead to a real and permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians unless it is premised on equal rights for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, either in a viable two-state solution or a single binational state with guaranteed equal rights for both. Unfortunately, the United States has been hopelessly biased toward Israel while leading the “peace process”; the United States has used its veto powers to prevent the United Nations from enforcing its resolutions and Washington refuses to condition military aid to Israel to force it to end its occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory. In light of this, while the United States may have taken the lead in making this ceasefire possible, it will be up to global civil society and other governments to take the lead in demanding a fair, just, and lasting peace.
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Israel Returns Palestinian Prisoners' Bodies With 'Signs of Torture, Mutilation, and Execution'
An unknown number of Palestinians abducted by Israel died or were killed while in custody; living former prisoners have described horrific and sometimes deadly torture.
Oct 16, 2025
Israel on Wednesday returned the bodies of dozens of Palestinians abducted during the Gaza genocide showing "signs of torture, mutilation, and execution," as one US-based news site reported—a description consistent with the testimonies of former prisoners held by the Israeli forces over the past two years.
So far, Israel has returned 90 bodies, with more expected to be handed over soon, as part ofo the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas last week. The Gaza Health Ministry's forensic team said that some of the bodies were blindfolded and bound, and bore signs of torture similar to those seen on many of the living Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel on Monday.
Some of the dead prisoners appeared to be victims of field executions—a war crime Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have allegedly committed against men, women, and children alike.
Furthermore, Israel's obliteration of Gaza's healthcare and medical infrastructure is making it difficult for Palestinian forensic personnel to identify the bodies returned by Israel, which are in various states of decomposition.
"The horrific scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs returned by the occupation, bearing marks of torture, abuse, and field executions, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army and the moral and human decadence this entity has reached," Hamas said in a statement.
"We call upon international rights groups, foremost among them the [United Nations] and [its] Human Rights Council, to document these atrocious crimes, open an urgent and comprehensive investigation into them, and bring the occupation leaders to trial before relevant international courts, as they are responsible for committing unprecedented crimes against humanity in our modern history," the statement added.
🟢 New Press Statement - Hamas:—The horrific scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs returned by the occupation, bearing marks of torture, abuse, and field executions, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army and the moral and human decadence this entity has...
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— Drop Site (@dropsitenews.com) October 16, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The International Court of Justice is also weighing an ongoing genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations.
Although warned by their Israeli captors against speaking out, Palestinians freed from Israeli imprisonment this week described being held in a "slaughterhouse" rife with torture and abuse, including beatings, electrocution, and being shot with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Palestinians imprisoned by Israeli forces—including children—have described being raped and sexually assaulted by male and female soldiers, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music. Dozens of detainees have died in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. IDF officers allegedly brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured.
Israeli physicians who served at the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison also described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations.
Hamas' treatment of the Israelis it abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack is more complicated, with some freed captives saying they suffered torture and other abuse while others—especially those released early during the war—said they were treated relatively well. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier captured after the rest of his tank crew were killed said that although he was tortured, his captors granted his request for religious materials including a Torah. One woman even pushed back against Israeli media lies claiming she was wounded by her captors, when in fact it was an Israeli airstrike that injured her.
So far, Hamas has returned the bodies of nine Israeli and other hostages. Israel is calling on Hamas to “make all necessary efforts” to find and hand over the bodies of 21 remaining dead hostages still unaccounted for.
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