[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Gaza ceasefire a deadly illusion: UNICEF

The ceasefire declared in Gaza more than eight months ago is a ‘deadly illusion’, the UN charged on Friday, with 265 children killed there since the fighting was supposed to have stopped.

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Gaza ceasefire a deadly illusion: UNICEF
Agence France-Presse . Geneva, Switzerland 19 June, 2026, 22:57

Displaced Palestinian women mourn loved ones killed in an Israeli airstrike, prior to being taken for burial from the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, on Thursday. | AFP photo

The ceasefire declared in Gaza more than eight months ago is a ‘deadly illusion’, the UN charged on Friday, with 265 children killed there since the fighting was supposed to have stopped.

Despite a ceasefire being declared in October 2025, Israel has continued to launch strikes across Gaza, killing at least 992 Palestinians since then, according to the occupied territory’s health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

The UN children’s agency said the number of Palestinian children killed since the ceasefire was announced between Israel and Hamas, which runs Gaza, was an ‘absurd and devastating figure’.

‘During a period supposedly defined by restraint and protection, a child has been killed, on average, every single day for more than eight months,’ UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Amman.

‘For many, many months, the world has been told there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Yet for Palestinian children, this so-called ceasefire has become a cruel and a deadly illusion.’

Elder stressed that the children killed since the ceasefire was declared ‘were not killed in a war zone’.

‘They were killed in their homes. In their schools. Playing football. Fishing. They were shot, bombed struck by quadcopters,’ he said.

‘If a child is being killed every day, surely the debate is no longer about the quality of the ceasefire. It is about the credibility of calling it one.’

This week, he pointed out, ‘a two-year-old boy was shot and killed by Israeli forces; a 13-year-old boy was shot and killed inside his tent; a five-year-old boy and his father were killed by an Israeli strike, and on and on it goes’.

In addition to those killed, more than 400 children had been injured since the ceasefire was declared, ‘many with catastrophic wounds’, Elder said.

Currently, he said, ‘hundreds of children urgently require medical evacuation’, even as Israeli ‘restrictions on essential medicines mean wounded children are enduring greater pain and face an increased risk of infection, complications and further amputations’.

Elder also highlighted the deep trauma suffered by Gaza’s children.

‘Fear, loss and violence... is woven into the very fabric of their childhood,’ he said, pointing out that ‘the trauma is so profound that it affects children’s ability to eat, sleep and, of course, to develop normally’.

Elder insisted: ‘The continued killing of children is not the consequence of a lack of options. It is the consequence of a lack of political will.’

‘We must stop accepting levels of child deaths that would provoke international outrage anywhere else in the world,’ he said.

‘We must stop normalising the abnormal.’​

 

[Saif]

Israeli army kills journalist in Gaza

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had carried out a strike that killed Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Wishah in Gaza, claiming that he was a .Hamas terrorist’...

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Israeli army kills journalist in Gaza
Agence France-Presse . Jerusalem 21 June, 2026, 01:54

Effluent water runs from the camps housing displaced families towards the Mediterranean sea, after the infrastructure and homes of hundreds and thousands of Palestinian families were destroyed in Israeli military bombardment since 2023, causing disease across the territory in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had carried out a strike that killed Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Wishah in Gaza, claiming that he was a .Hamas terrorist’.

‘The IDF confirms it carried out a strike on Ahmed Wishah, who was a Hamas terrorist,’ a military spokesperson told AFP.

The spokesperson did not immediately provide evidence to support the military’s claim about Wishah, but said that ‘there will be a statement issued with further details’.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera said that an Israeli strike killed one of its journalists, Ahmed Wishah, in the Gaza Strip, the latest of a string of people working for the broadcaster killed in the Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.

‘Ahmed Wishah, a cameraperson for Al Jazeera, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza,’ Al Jazeera said on its website.

A correspondent for the channel said the strike was carried out by a drone in the refugee camp and also injured several people.

The broadcaster said Wishah’s brother and fellow Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed was killed in April ‘by Israeli shelling when he was travelling in his vehicle’.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders said at the time that Israeli forces killed more than 220 journalists, at least 70 of whom were killed in the context of their professional duties.

The Israeli army has repeatedly said it never deliberately targets journalists.

But since October 2023, it has claimed to have killed a number of people who, it says, were Palestinian ‘terrorists’ working under the guise of being media professionals.​

 

[Saif]

Israel’s targeting of Gaza children part of genocide: UN

Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian children in what has become a key factor in an on-going ‘genocide’ in Gaza, United Nations investigators charged on Tuesday, in a report slammed by Israel.

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Israel’s targeting of Gaza children part of genocide: UN
Agence France-Presse . Geneva, Switzerland 23 June, 2026, 23:56

Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian children in what has become a key factor in an on-going ‘genocide’ in Gaza, United Nations investigators charged on Tuesday, in a report slammed by Israel.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry said it had found evidence that ‘Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by Israeli security forces’.

This, it said, was a key factor in establishing ‘the genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the larger Palestinian group in Gaza’.

The three-member investigative team, which does not speak for the UN itself, first determined in a report last September that Israel had committed ‘genocide’ in the war in Gaza — a finding Israel flatly rejected.

In Tuesday’s follow-up report, they said the intense scale and systematic nature of Israeli military operations had continued, resulting in the ‘unprecedented’ death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.

There were ‘reasonable grounds’ to conclude that Israel’s authorities and security forces ‘have continued to commit the crime of genocide’ in Gaza, they said.

Israel, which has long been harshly critical of the commission, slammed the report as ‘defamatory’ and a ‘libellous sham’.

It accused the investigators of ignoring ‘the brutal tactics of Hamas, which ruthlessly attacks Israeli children and uses Palestinian children as human shields’.

The commission, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, examined for its latest report crimes affecting Palestinian children, and how living conditions imposed by Israel in Gaza were ‘resulting in preventable mortality of children’.

‘Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, and war crimes in the West Bank,’ the team said in a statement.

The commission said that severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation, and the collapse of education and healthcare had ‘erased childhood’ in Gaza and would continue to affect the children throughout their lives.

‘By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future,’ said Indian judge Srinivasan Muralidhar, who chairs the inquiry.

As for documenting crimes, Muralidhar added: ‘Israeli soldiers have themselves put in the public domain so much incriminating evidence about what they’ve been doing.’

The report comes days after the UN children’s agency UNICEF said at least 265 children had been killed and hundreds more wounded in Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect.

The Hamas October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory response in Gaza has killed more than 72,800 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry,

The UN inquiry said that during the first two years of the war at least 20,179 children were killed and 44,143 injured ‘as a direct result of the hostilities in Gaza’.

The killing and maiming of Palestinian children ‘was part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group’, it said.

Israel was responsible for causing a ‘severe orphan crisis’, while wounded youngsters ‘face a lifetime of disability’, the report said.

The siege of Gaza ‘directly undermined reproductive and new-born health’, while the collapse of public health programmes ‘eroded the conditions necessary for a healthy next generation’.

The report listed Israeli divisions, brigades and units that may be responsible for killing children, in specific incidents in Gaza and the West Bank.

‘We know who they are,’ commissioner Chris Sidoti told a press conference.

‘Every international legal norm has been violated by the actions of the Israeli authorities towards Palestinian children — and they need to be held accountable.’

Addressing Israeli citizens directly, he said: ‘What kind of people are your leaders when they give orders, they make statements, that encourage this kind of conduct: not merely permit it, but encourage it?’

Besides Gaza, the commission also documented a sharp increase in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian children in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

The commission urged all UN member states, including Israel, to ensure accountability for crimes committed.​

 

[Saif]

Fate of Gaza Strip eclipsed by Middle East war

More than two-and-a-half years later, Gaza remains mired in a severe humanitarian crisis, and despite a fragile ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, efforts to bring the war to a definitive end have stalled for months

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Fate of Gaza Strip eclipsed by Middle East war

AFP, Gaza City

Palestinian children swim in the ocean in Gaza City on July 3, 2026. The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, prompting Israel to launch a retaliatory campaign against the territory. Photo: AFP

The Gaza war was the spark that touched off years of Middle East conflict culminating in the US-Israeli war with Iran, but as Washington and Tehran wrangle over terms for peace, the devastated territory's fate seems largely out of mind.

"Ever since the United States went to war with Iran, the whole world has forgotten Gaza and its tragedy. We no longer have anyone standing by us," Palestinian Ahmed Jamali, 53, told AFP from the displacement camp in Gaza where he lives.

"We are weak and oppressed, and Israel is doing whatever it wants: killing, destroying and occupying Gaza, while no one in the world lifts a finger."

The apparent inattention paid to the Palestinian territory is all the more striking because it sits at the heart of the chain of events that plunged the region into its most dangerous confrontation in decades.

Hamas's unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered a devastating military response in Gaza, drawing in Tehran-backed allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen's Houthi rebels -- and eventually Iran itself.

What began as a local war between Israel and Hamas evolved into a regional conflict and, in turn, a direct confrontation between arch-foes Tehran and Washington.

More than two-and-a-half years later, Gaza remains mired in a severe humanitarian crisis, and despite a fragile ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, efforts to bring the war to a definitive end have stalled for months.

Although Iranian officials initially spoke of an agreement to end the Middle East war that would encompass the entire region, the preliminary text endorsed by Tehran and Washington last month contains no mention of Gaza.

For analysts, that shows a shift in regional priorities.

"It reflects Hamas's declining strategic value in Iran's eyes," Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

Iran has long armed and financed Hamas as part of its "axis of resistance" -- an array of regional forces opposed to Israel and the US -- but the October 2023 attack appears to have fundamentally altered that relationship.

"Iranians do not really care about Gaza. Hamas was an ally, not an Iranian tool," said Israeli military expert Eado Hecht.

"It betrayed them. They did not want war in autumn 2023, it was too early for them."

- 'Gradually fading' -

Michael Milshtein, another Israeli military analyst, argued that Tehran's calculations have shifted elsewhere.

"It places greater value on preserving Hezbollah as a pillar of the regional balance," he said.

The diplomatic focus has also shifted, with a growing sense of international fatigue over Gaza.

"Gaza is gradually fading from international attention," said Lovatt.

One diplomat involved in negotiations described a widespread belief among governments that "most actors see the issue as insoluble in the short to medium term".

Another veteran diplomat based in Jerusalem told AFP that Gaza's absence from the discussions reflected political paralysis rather than progress.

"Gaza is absent from the agreement not because the war is over, but because no credible political framework exists for the day after," he said.

Israel insists that Hamas must fully disarm before any political transition can begin, while Hamas refuses to surrender its weapons without guarantees that an alternative Palestinian governing authority will replace it.

Neither an international stabilisation force nor a credible transitional mechanism has emerged in the months since the ceasefire took effect, both of which were called for in the US-brokered framework that halted the fighting.

- Cairo talks -

Behind the scenes, negotiations over Gaza's future continue in Cairo.

The talks bring together Palestinian factions, including Hamas, alongside the Board of Peace set up by US President Donald Trump and regional players including Qatar and Turkey.

"Trump may want to give this process a chance," said a source close to the negotiations.

"Whether it succeeds remains to be seen."

Although few details have emerged publicly, diplomatic and security sources told AFP that negotiators are working on a roadmap combining the gradual disarmament of Hamas with the creation of transitional governing authorities for Gaza.

Israeli media has reported that the government would reject such a framework.

"For now, this diplomatic process exists only around the negotiating table," Lovatt said.

"There has been progress, but reconstruction remains a distant prospect, and nothing is changing for the people on the ground."

- Return to combat? -

With diplomacy stalled, concerns are mounting that the fighting could yet resume.

Israeli media have reported military preparations for a possible summer 2026 offensive against Hamas should political negotiations fail.

But military expert Hecht cautioned against assuming that contingency planning meant another war was inevitable.

"Having the military opportunities is not the same as having the political opportunity," he said.

"Preparations are not the same as implementation."

Analyst Milshtein argued that Israel had little leverage left.

In his view, Washington could ultimately pressure Israel to accept a phased disarmament of Hamas alongside a transitional political framework -- or even to withdraw from Gaza.

"Alternatively, Israel could embark on another military adventure. Given this government's record... (it) cannot be ruled out," Milshtein said, adding that Israeli leaders still lacked a coherent long-term strategy.​

 

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/middle-east/305611/israel-says-gaza-hospital-chief-lawfully-detained

Israel says Gaza hospital chief ‘lawfully detained’
Agence France – Presse . Geneva, Switzerland 10 July, 2026, 20:01

Tents and shelters are pictured next to rubble of collapsed buildings at a camp for people displaced by war in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City on July 6, 2026. | AFP photo

Israel said on Friday that the detention of a Gaza hospital director, who has been held since December 2024, was ‘lawful’, and rejected reports that he suffered a life-threatening condition.

Hussam Abu Safiya ‘is lawfully detained by Israel based on concrete intelligence’, Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said on X, accusing him of being a colonel in Hamas.

‘At no stage of his detention has he exhibited any indication of a life-threatening condition.’

The statement came after a United Nations investigative team and several UN rights experts this week raised the alarm about the case.

The paediatrician and director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital rose to prominence in 2024 by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.

On December 27 that year, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility, labelling the only functioning hospital in northern Gaza at the time a Hamas ‘terrorist centre’, and arresting dozens of medical staff, including Abu Safiya.

Four independent UN rights experts said in a statement on Tuesday that ‘Dr Abu Safiya’s ongoing arbitrary detention without charges or trial is a reflection of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian health workers’.

The UN’s independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories issued a separate statement on Wednesday voicing ‘grave concern at credible reports that Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya... has been subjected to continued and severe abuse’ during his detention.

It called for his ‘immediate, unconditional and safe release’ and urged Israeli authorities to provide him immediate independent medical care.

The CoI, which has previously accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, maintained that the reported mistreatment of Abu Safiya fitted into that ‘broader pattern of violations’.

The Israeli mission statement rejected that Abu Safiya had been arbitrarily detained and said he had managed the Kamal Adwan Hospital ‘as one of Hamas’s terror hubs’.

The doctor, it added, ‘exploited his position at the hospital to divert humanitarian resources intended for civilian needs towards terrorist purposes’.

‘His lawful detention is subject to regular administrative review and judicial oversight,’ it said, including by the Supreme Court last month.

The Israeli statement also said that ‘no indications were found to support the claims raised regarding his condition’.

Abu Safiya had been ‘examined by medical personnel upon his arrival at Nitzan Detention Centre on June 24, 2026, and several times thereafter’, it said.

He ‘remains under continuous medical supervision and receives treatment in accordance with the professional determination of medical personnel’.​

 

[Saif]

Why does Israel target Palestinian children?

An examination of how mythology, politics, and war converge in the targeting of Palestinian children amid Gaza's devastation.

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Why does Israel target Palestinian children?

Jawed Naqvi

The Palestinian woman was breastfeeding her baby in a tattered shelter abutting the ruins of her devastated home. Right then, a direct sniper shot pierced the infant’s semi-formed skull, leaving a limp body without scratching the mother. The child evidently posed a threat to the ancient oracle’s prophecy for a country called Israel, which would prosper from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea but only after vanquishing its enemies, the Amalek. The child Amalek of Gaza would become an adult Amalek and that’s problematic.

Pinpointed precision with which the well-planned genocide is being executed in Gaza borrows inevitably from ancient myths. The Egyptian pharaoh ordered all newborn babies to be killed to reverse his oracle’s prediction that one Moses among the children would bring his doom. The CIA reportedly used the legend of the pharaoh’s cruelties as depicted in the Cecil B. DeMille movie to superimpose it on its bête noire, one Joseph Stalin. The precision targeting of the infant’s head in Gaza is documented with invaluable detail by Justice S. Muralidhar, chairperson of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The report was released late last month, and it observes among other atrocities the fact that Palestinian children were being strategically killed and maimed to fulfil the mythical promise of a Greater Israel. One Zionist officer who ordered the hail of bullets to mow down the little Hind Rajab in her mangled car, however, was blown up recently by a Hezbollah guerrilla. But that act of retribution hasn’t deterred the continued killing of Palestinians, overwhelmingly the children. Of the six million Jews that Adolf Hitler murdered, over a quarter were children. The Nazi rationale for the inhumanity lay in their penchant for a combination of logistics and racism. There just was no need, the tyrants concluded, to arrange for food for the unemployable children. The driving factor tipping the balance against the victims was their condemnation by the Nazis of being an inferior race. Like we hear ‘termite’ for Indian Muslims of late.

For the Jewish extremists killing both, regardless of the gender, has been kosher since they were both deemed to be the Amalek. While the Amalek were cousins of ancient Israelites, according to Jewish belief, they turned upon each other as sworn enemies. The current definition conjured by Benjamin Netanyahu damns the Palestinians as the Amalek.

The slaughter in Gaza is a one-way street but the planned elimination of a people in their occupied lands to fulfil some oracle’s command has crucially not left a few young Israeli soldiers unsinged. In fact, some of the more horrific details of the ongoing bloodletting and torture has come from those who carried out their orders but were unprepared for the toll it would take on their conscience. Brutality and remorse are both human traits but in a perpetually adverse ratio. Shakespeare had observed them both.

A report released last month observes how Palestinian children were being strategically killed and maimed to fulfil the mythical promise of a Greater Israel.

“I have given suck and know/ How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me./ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,/ And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you/ Have done to this.” Lady Macbeth’s cold-hearted rebuke to her unhelpful husband was telling him she would kill her own infant if its life posed an obstruction to the throne she sought for Macbeth. The latent violence sprang from a macabre human trait and its equally gory lore. She wanted the king, her trusting guest for the night, to be killed in cold blood to usurp his throne. Shakespeare didn’t conjure the plot. He shared what he knew as a common lore or a slice of history.

That Macbeth was getting cold feet betrayed a human element in the once valiant general. The chilling soliloquy in the dagger scene captures the would-be killer’s inner turmoil and guilt as he hallucinates a bloody weapon floating in the air, drawing him towards the murder of King Duncan. ‘Banquo’s ghost’, after Macbeth kills another friend, is an oft-used phrase to describe the re-enactment of the crime in the killer’s nightmares. Take Lady Macbeth’s trauma, which surfaces in her relentless washing of her hands to remove invisible bloodstains she didn’t expect.

Palestinian children were being strategically killed and maimed to fulfil the mythical promise of a Greater Israel. One Zionist officer who ordered the hail of bullets to mow down the little Hind Rajab in her mangled car, however, was blown up recently by a Hezbollah guerrilla. But that act of retribution hasn’t deterred the continued killing of Palestinians, overwhelmingly the children.

Killing of fathers or brothers or one’s entire family has been lore and history in the path of gaining power, or, in some cases, in finding salvation. But none has been as powerless before the timeless threat as infants and children. Too readily they fall victim to the mysterious voice cited in pseudo-religious texts that seals their fate. At times, there are different precepts at play in choosing a male or a female victim. For the Jewish extremists killing both, regardless of the gender, has been kosher since they were both deemed to be the Amalek. While the Amalek were cousins of ancient Israelites, according to Jewish belief, they turned upon each other as sworn enemies. The current definition conjured by Benjamin Netanyahu damns the Palestinians as the Amalek. For other Zionists, Iranians can’t be far behind. Ignore the fact that their hatred is malleable and opportunistic. Until 1979, Iran and Israel were thick as thieves in a pact against Arab nationalism. In any case, is it possible that an Amalek ceases to be an Amalek if they sign the Abraham Accords?

The male child has featured in political challenges, and the female child is mostly targeted as a socially defined burden in its patriarchal milieu. The stories of Krishna and Moses, from the Hindu and Abrahamic lore target boys. Both were marked to be murdered in their infancy after the oracles of their respective rulers saw them as bringing doom to them as adults. The pharaoh’s mass murder of male babies sought to vacate the threat of a Moses. In the Indian tradition, King Kansa, the uncle of Krishna, his would-be killer throws a similar dragnet to eliminate male babies. Both were rescued from the river in reed baskets. A YouTube clip of a convicted killer in the Gujarat pogroms shows him gloating about putting a foetus to sword after ripping it from the mother’s womb. Similar exultations were heard in Iraq when IS was on the rampage to placate its own oracle.

This article was first published under the title “The curse of the oracle" in Dawn, an ANN partner of The Daily Star, on July 14, 2026.​

 

[Saif]

After 1,000 days of war, why peace in Gaza remains out of reach

After 1,000 days of war, Gaza's peace process remains paralysed by occupation, political deadlock, and shifting international priorities.

www.thedailystar.net

After 1,000 days of war, why peace in Gaza remains out of reach

Maleeha Lodhi

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has now exceeded a thousand days. It continues despite the ceasefire brokered by the US last October. Death and destruction have been on an epic scale. More than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 21,000 children. Thousands remain missing. Gaza lies in ruins with 80 per cent of it devastated. Over 200 journalists have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli army. Israel has expanded its control of more territory in Gaza, ignoring UN warnings that “this increases deadly risks for Palestinians”.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is still catastrophic. Even as Israeli strikes continue in violation of the ceasefire, the world has moved on — its focus fixed instead on the US-Iran conflict and talks for a negotiated deal. Regional powers too have pulled away. Gaza has been relegated to the sidelines. This has left the peace plan in limbo and disarray.

Now Hamas is trying to change that and seize the attention of the international community. Last week, it announced it would transfer power in Gaza, where it was a de facto government for two decades, to a committee of technocrats. Called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), this transitional body of Palestinian technocrats was established in January under President Donald Trump’s peace plan. It was meant to assume governance in the Strip and work under the supervision of the Board of Peace (BoP). This, along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops, Hamas’s disarmament and the Strip’s demilitarisation was to take place in the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan. The first phase involved the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

None of this happened. The NCAG was given no resources and remains stuck in Cairo in the face of Israeli opposition to its entry into Gaza. The international stabilisation force has yet to be deployed. The BoP has remained mostly inert and advanced little on any front. It has been mired in legal and political problems with the official fund for the Board having no cash. In an appalling move, the BoP announced last week that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, “has no place in the new Gaza”. The Palestinian leadership condemned this as elimination of the refugee question. The Board also plans a ‘closed’ pilot ‘humanitarian zone’ in southern Gaza ostensibly to accommodate thousands of ‘vetted’ Palestinians. This controversial move is widely seen as incompatible with international humanitarian law and amounting to forced displacement of the population.

There is also the question of how much the US is prepared to press Israel to comply with its commitments under the plan. So far it has turned a blind eye to Israeli expansion of areas in its control and its continuing destruction of Gaza. Statements from Washington demand Hamas should disarm but say nothing about the almost daily Israeli strikes on Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian assistance or the gradual Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. The US also said nothing as Israel carried out de facto annexation of the West Bank, conducted deadly raids and engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin and herding communities. With Netanyahu facing re-election in fall amid dwindling public support, this makes him even less willing to push ahead with the peace plan.

Hamas says it will relinquish governance “to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination”. With this, the Palestinian resistance group disbanded its governing body. The aim is to mount pressure on Israel, expose the impediments it has placed in the path of any forward movement and kick-start the stalled peace process by pushing the BoP to move. Israel has dismissed Hamas’s announcement. Its foreign minister dubbed it “a trick” to avoid disarming.

The Board has taken note of it but said its assessment “will be guided by actions, not promises”. It added that all weapons in Gaza should be under the control of the NCAG. Hamas didn’t say anything about giving up weapons. It had made it clear from the very start it would only do that when Israel delivers on its commitment to withdraw from Gaza and end its occupation. Hamas also insists a Palestinian administration must be in place before it considers disarming. Disarmament cannot happen unless a civilian Palestinian authority is up and running in Gaza because otherwise who does Hamas hand over weapons to?

Israel now occupies around 60pc of Gaza. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military to seize 70pc of the Strip. Meanwhile, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz declared Israeli forces would remain in what he described as “security zones” in Gaza for an indefinite period, with no timetable for withdrawal.

The move by Hamas may be symbolic but it can easily be tested by allowing the transitional 13-member Palestinian technocratic committee, headed by Ali Shaath, to enter Gaza and take over the enclave’s day-to-day governance. It is Israel that is blocking that. Talks in Cairo have taken place between Palestinian factions including Hamas and BoP representatives, as well as mediators Qatar and Turkiye. But the Hamas-Israel deadlock continues over implementation of the second phase of the peace plan.

Hamas says it will relinquish governance “to remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination”. With this, the Palestinian resistance group disbanded its governing body. The aim is to mount pressure on Israel, expose the impediments it has placed in the path of any forward movement and kick-start the stalled peace process by pushing the BoP to move. Israel has dismissed Hamas’s announcement. Its foreign minister dubbed it “a trick” to avoid disarming.

What happens next depends on several factors. The most important is how engaged and interested the Trump administration is in pushing the Gaza plan forward. For now, it is entirely preoccupied with the latest flare-up of tensions with Iran. The US and Iran traded military strikes last week and Washington rescinded the licence allowing sales of Iranian oil. Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran is over. But he also said talks will continue. Nevertheless, the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding hangs in the balance. Trump’s impatience, Iran’s hardened position after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral and the clash over control of the Strait of Hormuz are contributing to the escalation of tensions. This won’t revive Washington’s focus on Gaza. The longer the US-Iran confrontation drags on, attention will be diverted from Gaza.

There is also the question of how much the US is prepared to press Israel to comply with its commitments under the plan. So far it has turned a blind eye to Israeli expansion of areas in its control and its continuing destruction of Gaza. Statements from Washington demand Hamas should disarm but say nothing about the almost daily Israeli strikes on Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian assistance or the gradual Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. The US also said nothing as Israel carried out de facto annexation of the West Bank, conducted deadly raids and engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Bedouin and herding communities. With Netanyahu facing re-election in fall amid dwindling public support, this makes him even less willing to push ahead with the peace plan.

These developments are undermining the prospects for advancement on the Gaza plan. Once again, Palestinians were promised peace, but instead got death, destruction and endless suffering.

This article was first published under the title “Thousand-day war" in Dawn, an ANN partner of The Daily Star, on July 13, 2026.

Maleeha Lodhi is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.​