As the dust settles, one truth becomes unavoidable. No people can live forever under siege, and no state can claim security through annihilation.
By Matthew A. McIntosh
Public Historian
Brewminate
Introduction
Gaza, October 2025: They return home to rubble. As the latest ceasefire between Israel and Hamas takes hold, thousands of Palestinians are venturing back across Gaza’s shattered terrain, only to find ruins where houses once stood, roads replaced by debris, and lives displaced beyond recovery.
From Khan Younis to northern Gaza City, returning families pick through wreckage, shrouded in grief and disbelief. The air is thick with resentment and sorrow: children sifting dust for remnants of toys, mothers calling names of loved ones presumed dead, men climbing piles of concrete hoping to glimpse a familiar wall. In many neighborhoods, electricity and water systems lie in ruins, hospitals lie crippled, and unexploded ordnance threatens every footstep.
The contrast is stark. After more than two years of war, in which over 67,000 Palestinians have died, most of them civilians, this fleeting truce feels like a cruel beginning: relief and return shadowed by the scale of devastation.
Yet amidst that crushing destruction and loss, small acts of defiance flicker. In the gutted shell of their home, a family lays down a rug. In crossing a frontline road, displaced residents reclaim their right to exist on their own land. In searching for bodies under collapsed beams, survivors insist on memory and truth.
This story is not just about a truce. It is about a return: to a land ravaged by war, to the memory of what was lost, and to a people’s determination to rebuild, demand justice, and resist erasure. In the coming sections, we will examine the fragile ceasefire, the scale of destruction, the humanitarian crisis taking shape, and the political stakes that could define Gaza’s future.
Ceasefire Agreement and Immediate Terms
The ceasefire, brokered jointly by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States, took effect on October 9 after weeks of secret negotiations and growing international outrage over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The agreement mandates a phased exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, alongside a temporary halt in air and ground assaults. In its first stage, Hamas agreed to release 50 hostages, while Israel pledged to free 150 Palestinian detainees, primarily women and minors.
For the first time in nearly two years, the guns have fallen silent, at least for now. Israeli troops have withdrawn from several northern sectors, and humanitarian corridors have opened to allow aid convoys to pass through Rafah. Under the deal, Israel will permit limited shipments of fuel and medical supplies, though reconstruction materials remain prohibited pending further negotiations.
Yet the calm is fragile. Both sides accuse the other of preparing for renewed hostilities, and political factions within Israel have condemned the truce as a “capitulation,” while Hamas leaders have called it only a “pause for breath.” Trump, who publicly celebrated the exchange as a personal diplomatic achievement, declared that a “full peace framework” could follow, but few in the region share his optimism. As in previous ceasefires, the lines between respite and relapse remain perilously thin.
Return to Ruin: What People Are Coming Back To
When the first waves of displaced Gazans began to return under the ceasefire, they came not to homes but to dust. Across Khan Younis, Beit Lahia, and Gaza City, families wandered streets erased from the map. Apartment blocks are now piles of concrete; schools are open shells without roofs; mosques and churches stand gutted beside clinics reduced to steel frames. Entire neighborhoods once dense with life have been flattened so completely that residents navigate by memory rather than street signs.
In the southern city of Rafah, where thousands had taken refuge, returning residents describe a silence broken only by the hum of drones and the shuffle of feet through debris. Some carry plastic bags filled with salvaged belongings: a wedding ring, a photograph, a fragment of a child’s toy. The BBC noted that as many as 80 percent of Gaza’s buildings have suffered damage or total destruction, an unprecedented level of devastation in modern urban warfare. Power lines hang like webs between ruins; sewage leaks into cratered streets; and the stench of decay seeps through the air.
Hospitals that still stand have become triage stations for the living and morgues for the dead. The Le Monde investigation documented how Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, once Gaza’s main medical center—was shelled repeatedly, losing its intensive care unit, maternity wing, and most of its staff. Doctors now operate by flashlight, using donated bandages and morphine substitutes smuggled through Egypt.
For many Gazans, returning is an act of both mourning and defiance. They rebuild tents beside their demolished houses, sweep dust from broken floors, and hang laundry across shattered balconies. Aid groups describe this as “psychological reconstruction”: the attempt to reclaim dignity when material restoration is impossible. As one displaced teacher said, “We’re coming home only to prove we still exist.”
“Disproportionate Response” — Assessing the Scale
Under international humanitarian law, proportionality forbids attacks that are expected to cause civilian harm excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. The rule is clear, and it applies to all parties. The International Committee of the Red Cross defines it as a prohibition on incidental civilian loss that is excessive to the anticipated advantage in a given attack. This is the legal lens through which the devastation must be read.
By the time this ceasefire took effect, Gaza’s death toll had surpassed 66,000 according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with injuries above 168,000, figures based on Gaza’s Ministry of Health. A separate analysis by Brown University’s Costs of War project, drawing on the same official data, reported 67,075 deaths as of October 3, 2025. These are staggering civilian losses in a territory of roughly 2.2 million people.
Physical destruction is widespread. UN satellite assessments and field reporting indicate that a large share of Gaza’s buildings are damaged or destroyed. UNOSAT found massive structural loss through 2024 and into 2025, while updated humanitarian briefings say about 83 percent of structures in Gaza City are damaged. A recent UNEP briefing estimates around 78 percent of Gaza’s buildings across the Strip have been damaged or destroyed, generating an estimated 61 million tonnes of debris that will take years to clear.
The social infrastructure has been gutted. UNRWA and United Nations documentation indicate that more than three quarters of Gaza’s school buildings suffered direct hits. Health services are near collapse. The World Health Organization reported at the start of October that only 14 of 36 hospitals were functioning, with many operating at minimal capacity. These indicators point to a level of civilian harm that goes far beyond immediate battle damage and spills into long-term public health, education, and sanitation.
Israel argues that the campaign was necessary to dismantle Hamas, rescue hostages, and neutralize military threats. Those claims are central to Israel’s self-defense argument and will feature in any legal assessment. Yet independent indicators of scale and civilian impact raise urgent questions about excess. Reports note an official death toll above 67,000 and details on hostages and prisoner releases, while satellite-based damage surveys show destruction consistent with some of the most intense urban warfare of the century. The burden of proof in proportionality is contextual and case specific, but the observable outcomes place the onus on parties to justify the anticipated military advantage measured against such civilian costs.
Humanitarian Crisis and Persistent Needs
Relief convoys began crossing into Gaza within hours of the ceasefire, but what awaited aid workers was a landscape nearly devoid of infrastructure. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that more than 1.9 million Gazans, roughly 85 percent of the population, remain displaced, with most living in makeshift shelters or amid rubble. Even as fuel and food trickle in, access remains perilously limited: hospitals operate without anesthesia, dialysis units are powered by car batteries, and aid trucks queue for miles at Rafah.
The World Health Organization describes the situation as a “total systems failure.” Medical teams work in tents and warehouses, using candlelight to sterilize instruments. Infectious disease outbreaks (cholera, typhoid, and respiratory illnesses) are rising as clean water grows scarce. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warns that one in three children under five is now acutely malnourished.
Electricity remains cut off across most of the Strip. Gaza’s sole power plant, bombed early in the war, has not resumed operation. Without refrigeration, vaccines and insulin spoil in the heat, while bakeries close for lack of fuel. Aid agencies say even the most basic deliveries (flour, blankets, antibiotics) require diplomatic coordination that can take days. As one UN field officer said, “Every hour of quiet counts, but we are racing against disease, not time.”
The ceasefire allows for a small surge of humanitarian access, but reconstruction remains a distant hope. Israel has not lifted restrictions on cement, steel, or heavy machinery, arguing that such materials could be repurposed by Hamas. That limitation effectively paralyzes large-scale rebuilding. “We can’t live on aid forever,” said a resident. “We need homes, not tents.”
Politics, Accountability, and the Future of Gaza
With guns silent for the first time in two years, the question now shifts from survival to sovereignty. Who will govern Gaza when the smoke finally clears? Under the ceasefire’s framework, the United States and Egypt are pressing for an interim administrative body combining elements of the Palestinian Authority (PA) with technocratic oversight from Arab states and the United Nations. But Hamas (battered, underground, and still armed) remains entrenched, rejecting any arrangement that sidelines its authority. The PA, meanwhile, is viewed by many Gazans as both distant and discredited, its leadership in Ramallah disconnected from the Strip’s lived reality.
President Donald Trump, who has personally claimed credit for brokering the truce, has hinted at a broader “peace framework” to be unveiled in Washington in the coming weeks. His plan reportedly envisions a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision, funded by Gulf states and secured by U.S.-trained forces. Critics note that similar proposals under previous administrations failed precisely because they ignored Palestinian political agency and the fundamental imbalance of power between Israel and Gaza. As one analyst said, “No plan that treats Gaza as a problem to be managed rather than a people to be heard will ever hold.”
Calls for accountability are growing louder. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and multiple UN agencies have urged independent investigations into alleged war crimes, citing indiscriminate attacks and collective punishment. The International Criminal Court confirmed that its inquiry into both Israeli and Hamas actions remains active. Israel continues to deny wrongdoing, asserting that its operations complied with the laws of armed conflict and were aimed solely at neutralizing militant infrastructure.
Within Israel, political fractures are deepening. The far-right coalition led by Prime Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich accuses military commanders of “conceding under pressure,” while opposition figures warn that without a credible path to peace, Israel’s moral standing is collapsing globally. Meanwhile, in Gaza, no political faction yet commands legitimacy. The population, shattered and grieving, faces the grim irony of being caught between competing authorities, none of which can yet guarantee safety, justice, or reconstruction.
Amid these power struggles, one truth endures: the ceasefire has paused the killing but not the conflict. The battle over Gaza’s future (its leadership, its borders, and its very right to exist as more than a ruin) has only begun.
Voices from Gaza and Israel
Across Gaza’s decimated streets, the ceasefire feels less like peace than exhaustion. “We are alive, but everything that made life worth living is gone,” said a nurse outside what remains of the Al-Shifa complex. She has not seen her husband since the first weeks of the bombardment, yet still arrives daily to treat the wounded. Nearby, children chase a soccer ball through the dust, their laughter cutting briefly through the ruin. For many Palestinians, returning home is an act of defiance, proof that identity itself can outlast destruction.
Aid workers describe a population trying to “relearn normality.” In makeshift classrooms, volunteer teachers write lessons on the backs of cardboard boxes. A father builds a woodstove from the axle of a destroyed car so his family can boil tea. Each small act becomes a form of resistance, a way to reclaim dignity amid systemic collapse. “The truce may be fragile,” one local journalist said, “but Gazans are stubborn. We rebuild even when we know it might all fall again.”
Across the border, the mood is equally complex. Families of Israeli hostages gather outside government offices, clutching photographs and demanding that the truce hold long enough for every captive to return. “We want our loved ones home, not another war,” said one father in Tel Aviv, his words echoed in demonstrations that have split Israeli society. Within Israel’s security establishment, officials express relief at the pause but uncertainty about what comes next. Some soldiers returning from Gaza speak of moral fatigue, of battles fought in densely populated areas where civilians were everywhere and nowhere.
Yet voices of anger persist on both sides. Far-right Israeli politicians denounce the ceasefire as weakness, while Hamas hardliners warn that surrender will invite betrayal. The human cost, however, has tempered even the rhetoric of vengeance.
In these testimonies (grief, defiance, fatigue, and faint hope) lie the raw materials of what might someday become reconciliation. The ceasefire has not ended the war in hearts or in politics, but for the first time in years, ordinary voices are louder than artillery.
Risks and Fragility of the Truce
Every ceasefire in the long Israeli–Palestinian conflict begins with two fragile assumptions: that the guns will stay silent, and that both sides still believe silence serves their interests. In Gaza, neither is certain.
Reports from Reuters indicate that while hostages are being exchanged and humanitarian corridors remain open, both the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas have kept forward positions in place. Tanks linger just beyond the buffer zones, and drones hover constantly over Gaza’s skyline. Hamas units, though weakened, still patrol the streets with weapons visible. Each side accuses the other of preparing to exploit the truce’s loopholes: Israel warns that tunnels and weapons stockpiles remain active; Hamas claims Israeli surveillance flights violate the ceasefire terms.
History casts a long shadow. Previous truces, like those of 2014 and 2021, collapsed within days or weeks, often triggered by small skirmishes or disputed airstrikes. Tis agreement lacks any permanent monitoring mechanism; there are no international observers on the ground, no neutral guarantor to verify compliance. Diplomats in Cairo and Doha say that even a single misfire could unravel the deal before substantive negotiations begin.
Meanwhile, political volatility in Israel adds new uncertainty. Prime Minister Bezalel Smotrich faces fierce criticism from hardline coalition partners who see the truce as a betrayal of military sacrifice. A new surge of far-right protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv calls for the “total elimination” of Hamas, rejecting any diplomatic settlement. Inside Gaza, Hamas officials publicly support the pause while privately regrouping, aware that another round could either consolidate or destroy their rule.
President Trump has announced plans to visit the region within days, framing the ceasefire as proof of his administration’s “deal-making power.” But analysts warn that political spectacle may outweigh substance. As one Egyptian mediator said, “A truce held for cameras is not peace; it is only an intermission.”
Even the humanitarian reprieve carries risk. Each day that aid enters Gaza is a logistical miracle dependent on multiple actors (Israel, Egypt, Hamas, and international agencies) whose interests rarely align. A breakdown in coordination, or a single strike misattributed, could collapse the fragile chain of trust.
The truce, then, is less a peace agreement than a narrow bridge stretched over the abyss of renewed war. Every step must be deliberate, every gesture restrained. Beneath that bridge lies the wreckage of decades of failed diplomacy, where one misstep could again plunge both peoples back into darkness.
Conclusion / Reflection
The guns have quieted, but silence does not always mean peace. In Gaza, the stillness after bombardment feels like the breath between storms, a pause heavy with grief and uncertainty. The ceasefire may have stopped the killing, but it has not resolved the imbalance that produced so much death, nor addressed the rage that now defines both sides of the border.
Walking through streets where every wall has become a memorial, Palestinians face the impossible work of rebuilding both their homes and their sense of safety. The truce offers no justice, only reprieve. The United Nations calls the destruction “beyond precedent in the twenty-first century,” and it is difficult to imagine how Gaza will recover under blockade and isolation. The international community has promised aid, but reconstruction without accountability risks becoming another cycle of ruin, relief without repair.
For Israel, the truce raises its own moral reckoning. The stated objective, to dismantle Hamas and secure the release of hostages, came at an incalculable civilian cost. Military victory has brought neither safety nor moral clarity, only global condemnation and deepening isolation. In Jerusalem, even some former security officials have begun to question whether such devastation could ever make Israel more secure.
And yet, in Gaza’s ruins, defiance endures. A family hangs curtains across a windowless frame; a teacher opens a school beneath a tarpaulin; children plant flowers in tin cans beside the rubble of their playground. Each act insists on a future still possible. The ceasefire’s value lies not in what it guarantees, but in what it allows: a moment to breathe, to remember the dead, to imagine a different kind of survival.
As the dust settles, one truth becomes unavoidable. No people can live forever under siege, and no state can claim security through annihilation. If there is to be peace, it will not be dictated by power or enforced through fear. It will begin, as it always must, with the recognition of shared humanity rising from the ruins.
Originally published by Brewminate, 10.16.2025, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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