What next for Gaza’s ceasefire? The obstacles that lie ahead
Gaza destruction, October 2025
Aseel Mafarjeh writes in The New Arab on 14 October 2025:
The ink on Gaza’s ceasefire agreement has barely dried, yet Palestinians are already questioning whether to celebrate.
While the first phase delivers concrete outcomes – prisoner exchanges, limited Israeli withdrawals, humanitarian aid convoys – the thorniest questions have been deferred to a nebulous “second phase” that lacks enforcement mechanisms, clear timelines, or international guarantees.
The result is a precarious pause that could either evolve into lasting peace or collapse into renewed violence, depending on political will that currently appears absent.
“Everyone jumped into the air without exception. Trump decided the starting point – negotiations for a trade between stopping the war on Gaza and exchanging prisoners,” says Jibril Rajoub, secretary of the Fatah central committee, in an exclusive interview with The New Arab. “Everyone wants to stop the tragedy and killing in Gaza, but this jump lacks solid foundations.”
The scepticism is rooted in experience. For Rajoub and other Palestinian leaders, the absence of binding international commitments threatens to reduce this agreement to another in a long list of broken promises.
The fundamental questions – who will govern Gaza after Hamas, whether Israeli forces will fully withdraw, and how reconstruction can begin amid unresolved sovereignty disputes – remain unanswered.