A Ceasefire Without Peace

A ceasefire is supposed to mean that the guns fall silent, that people who have spent months running from bombs can begin to return to what remains of their homes, that children can sleep without waking to the sound of explosions, and that humanitarian workers can finally move without calculating whether the road ahead is safe. In Gaza, however, the word has acquired a crueller meaning. The ceasefire announced in October 2025 stopped the war from reaching the intensity at which thousands were being killed and wounded every week. It did not bring an end to violence. It did not end the occupation. It did not remove the threat of Israeli military action. It did not restore Gaza's destroyed hospitals, schools, homes and water systems. And, most importantly, it did not restore to Palestinians the elementary security that a ceasefire is supposed to provide. The bombs may have become fewer, but the fear remains. On September 1, Israeli forces carried out an operation in Gaza City to capture a senior Hamas figure. Airstrikes were launched as Israeli forces withdrew after the operation was detected. At least five Palestinians were killed, including three children and a woman, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel said the operation was directed against Hamas. Hamas described it as another violation of the ceasefire. The distinction between war and ceasefire has therefore become increasingly difficult for the people of Gaza to understand. For a child, there is no legal distinction between a bomb dropped during a declared war and a bomb dropped during a ceasefire. There is only the sound of the explosion, the sudden disappearance of a parent, the panic of a family searching through rubble, and the question that no child should ever have to ask: Where is my mother? That is what makes the continuing violence so morally disturbing. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in August that 1,303 Palestinians had been killed and 4,336 injured since the ceasefire was announced. Even more disturbing is that children continue to be among those killed and maimed. And the killing is only one part of the story. On September 1, the United Nations reported that four children, aged between two and sixteen, had been killed in separate attacks. Israeli strikes had also destroyed more than $770,000 worth of nutrition supplies and damaged critical water infrastructure serving thousands of people. These are not merely statistics in a humanitarian report. Somewhere behind each number there is a family whose life has been permanently altered. Consider the three-year-old boy, Tayyem Hamdan, killed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah only days ago. The other person killed in that strike was Hussam Nusair, whom the Israeli military described as a Hamas militant. Whatever argument Israel may make about Nusair, the death of a three-year-old cannot be made into a military achievement. The child was not a combatant. He was simply a child living in a territory where even a ceasefire has failed to guarantee safety. There is another story, quieter but perhaps equally revealing, about Saqer Abu Rabee, a farmer in Beit Lahiya. Ranjan Solomon is a peace activist. Views expressed here are the writer's own.