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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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