Beyond Ceasefire: The Gaza Agreement and the Struggle for Palestinian Dignity
Salim J. Munayer, Ph.D.
The October 2025 Gaza agreement, brokered by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, has been welcomed internationally as a long-awaited breakthrough. It promises a temporary ceasefire, a phased exchange of hostages and prisoners, a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops, and a surge in humanitarian aid. After nearly two years of devastation, it offers a rare pause in the violence. Yet for Palestinians, it is a pause in suffering — not yet a promise of justice.
The unhealed wound beneath the truce
Gaza today stands as a landscape of ruin. Entire neighborhoods have been erased, hospitals and universities reduced to rubble, and over two million people displaced. The United Nations has called the humanitarian situation “beyond catastrophic.” The ceasefire may stop the bombs, but it does not rebuild homes, restore dignity, or return sovereignty.
This agreement, though lifesaving, treats Palestinians primarily as objects of relief — not subjects of rights. It frames the crisis in humanitarian terms, while sidestepping its political roots: occupation, blockade, and dispossession. For Palestinians, the real question is not when aid will arrive, but whether they will ever be free to rebuild their lives on their own terms.
What the agreement achieves — and what it conceals
The ceasefire’s immediate benefits are clear. Every truck that enters Gaza brings food, medicine, and hope to those who have endured the unendurable. Families of hostages and prisoners finally glimpse the faces of their loved ones. Yet these gestures, however humane, cannot substitute for the deeper transformation Palestinians seek — an end to the structures that perpetuate their dependency and vulnerability.
The agreement says nothing about the lifting of the 18-year blockade, nothing about Palestinian governance of reconstruction, and nothing about the broader occupation that continues in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It also contains no mechanism for accountability for the massive civilian toll of the war — no investigation, no recognition of the trauma inflicted on an entire people. In this silence, the deal mirrors the logic of past ceasefires: short-term calm in exchange for long-term injustice.
Aid without freedom is control
Humanitarian access is essential, but it must not become another instrument of domination. Under current arrangements, Israel retains the authority to approve what enters Gaza, where aid is distributed, and when borders open or close. This control turns aid into a tool of political leverage, not liberation.
Palestinian civil society, local institutions, and community leaders — those who have kept life going amid destruction — remain largely excluded from decision-making. Their exclusion reflects a deeper problem: the world continues to speak about Palestinians, not with them. If reconstruction is to mean more than rebuilding ruins, Palestinians must govern their own recovery.
The need for justice and accountability
No ceasefire can endure without justice. The agreement’s silence on accountability for war crimes and civilian deaths risks normalizing impunity. Human rights groups have documented systematic violations — indiscriminate bombardment, collective punishment, and the targeting of civilian infrastructure. The absence of an independent investigation sends a dangerous message: that Palestinian lives can be mourned but not defended.
Justice is not vengeance; it is the foundation of peace. Without it, the cycle of violence will continue, and each new agreement will collapse under the weight of unacknowledged grief.