PRAGMATIC ISSUES

For days, headlines called it “historic.” A fragile truce between Israel and Hamas. A moment when, finally, both sides seemed to blink not out of compassion, but exhaustion. The deal was meant to quiet the skies, open borders for aid, and begin the long road back from carnage.

Now, predictably, it’s falling apart.

Israel says Hamas fired anti-tank missiles and gunfire near Rafah, a direct violation of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Hamas says Israel never truly honored it in the first place, citing airstrikes, blocked crossings, and an unwillingness to return bodies of the dead. Aid shipments remain stuck in bureaucratic purgatory. Hostage remains are still unreturned. Both sides accuse the other of bad faith and both are right.

Because this was never a peace deal.

It was a pause.

A temporary timeout dressed up as diplomacy.

Trump Touted The Win – Everyone Else Saw the Flaws

The ink wasn’t dry before the cracks appeared. Washington, Doha, and Cairo were desperate to claim a win after months of relentless fighting. But the deal lacked everything a real peace requires accountability, verification, trust, and a clear plan for what comes next.

It didn’t even define the simplest things, who governs Gaza after the truce? How is Hamas to be disarmed? Who rebuilds Gaza without rearming militants or enriching corrupt intermediaries? The answers were left vague, hidden behind diplomatic smiles and photo ops.

Israel wanted its hostages back and an end to rocket fire. Hamas wanted an end to airstrikes and some relief for the besieged population. Neither got what they wanted, just enough to reset the clock on the next round of bloodshed.

Now, the clock’s run out.

The Politics of Pretend

It’s convenient to pretend this was progress. It gave President Trump (and his self-declared “deal of the century” ambitions) a headline to wave at his supporters. It gave regional powers breathing room to posture as peacemakers while hedging their bets on who wins the next round.

But on the ground, it gave civilians nothing but false hope.

The Rafah crossing remains sealed tight. Fuel and food trickle in at a fraction of what’s needed. Families still dig through rubble, praying to recover not the living, those are mostly gone, but the bodies of their dead. The so-called “peace” left Gaza starving and Israel restless.

This was diplomacy as theater a carefully staged illusion meant to create the appearance of stability for an audience desperate to believe in it.

No Winners, Only Delusion

The truth is this neither Israel nor Hamas ever came to the table to build a shared future.

They came to regroup.

Israel to rearm and reposition. Hamas to re-legitimize itself as a political actor. The ceasefire was a lull in a war that both sides still believe they can win and neither can.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian cost climbs. Hospitals without power. Families displaced again and again. An entire generation of children growing up knowing nothing but sirens and smoke. The world talks of “peace deals” while Gaza’s streets fill with the smell of death and ash.

We keep calling these truces “progress” because we can’t admit the truth: real peace requires both parties to lose something, pride, territory, power and neither side has ever been willing to bleed politically after bleeding so much physically.

The Deal Was Built to Collapse

The Israel–Hamas “peace deal” didn’t collapse, it expired. It was built to fail, to give politicians breathing space, not people relief. Until both sides acknowledge that you cannot bomb your way to safety or bargain your way out of vengeance, every ceasefire will just be another waiting room before the next war.

Diplomats may call this “fragile.”

But, let’s call it what it really is, a farce.

And in Gaza and southern Israel, where people wake each morning wondering if the silence will last another hour, “fragile” doesn’t even begin to describe it.