THE ANNOUNCEMENT of a so-called peace agreement between Israel and Hamas has been heralded by Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies as a 'historic breakthrough' and trumpeted similarly by the western media.
Yet beneath the rhetoric of 'durable peace' and 'new beginnings' the deal is neither a path to Palestinian liberation nor a genuine end to Israel’s domination of Gaza. Instead, it is a carefully staged performance that secures Israel’s immediate interests, shores up the interests of the U.S. Empire in the region, and leaves Palestinians once again trapped in a cycle of occupation, siege, and broken promises.
The first phase of the agreement, brokered by the United States, centres on the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, alongside a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops to an 'agreed line' inside Gaza. This is presented as a balanced trade with both sides making concessions. But Israel, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and reduced Gaza to rubble, is rewarded with the safe return of its citizens while Palestinians are offered only the conditional release of prisoners—many of whom should never have been detained in the first place. The exchange is framed as a humanitarian gesture, but in reality it is a transaction that reinforces Israel’s power to decide who lives, who dies, and who is allowed to breathe free air.
The fine details of the deal reveals its true purpose: to consolidate Israel’s military and political dominance, while giving the United States a renewed role as the indispensable arbiter of Middle Eastern affairs. The plan requires Hamas to disarm and hand over governance of Gaza to a foreign-led transitional authority, with no guarantee of Palestinian self-determination. In other words, Palestinians are asked to surrender their only means of resistance in exchange for a vague promise of 'aid' and 'reconstruction,' both of which will be tightly controlled by the very powers that have enabled their destruction. This is not liberation; it is the rebranding of occupation under international management.
The United States, for its part, has seized the opportunity to present itself as peacemaker while ensuring that Israel’s strategic supremacy remains untouched. Washington’s fingerprints are all over the agreement: the sequencing of hostage releases, the conditions for aid delivery, even the proposed oversight mechanisms. At every stage, the U.S. is positioned as guarantor—not of Palestinian rights, but of Israeli security. This is the same U.S. government that armed Israel throughout its devastating assault on Gaza, vetoed ceasefire resolutions at the United Nations, and dismissed mounting evidence of war crimes. To imagine that it now serves as an honest broker is to ignore decades of history in which American diplomacy has functioned as a shield for Israeli impunity. And, yet, the corporate media - a media that has whitewashed Israel's genocidal rampage in Gaza - has uncritically swallowed the US narrative.
Even the limited concessions Israel has made are riddled with escape clauses. The withdrawal of troops is not a full retreat but a redeployment to lines of Israel’s choosing, leaving the door open for future incursions. The ceasefire is conditional, temporary, and already fraying. Reports from Gaza indicate that Israeli airstrikes have continued even after the deal was announced, a grim reminder that Israel has repeatedly violated past truces whenever it suited its military objectives. There is no enforcement mechanism to hold Israel accountable if it resumes bombing, no independent body to monitor compliance, and no consequences spelled out for violations. Palestinians are asked to trust the word of a state that has broken every previous agreement, from Oslo to countless ceasefires, while continuing to expand settlements, tighten blockades, and entrench apartheid.
The agreement also strips Palestinians of political agency. Hamas, for all its flaws, is being compelled to relinquish its leverage without any assurance that Palestinians will gain meaningful sovereignty. The transitional authority envisioned by the deal is foreign-led, with no guarantee of democratic representation for the people of Gaza. This is a familiar pattern: Palestinians are treated not as a nation with the right to self-determination but as a humanitarian problem to be managed by outsiders. The underlying structures of dispossession—the blockade, the denial of refugee return, the occupation of the West Bank, the apartheid system inside Israel itself—remain untouched. A ceasefire that ignores these realities is not peace; it is pacification.
Meanwhile, Israel emerges from the agreement with its international legitimacy restored. After months of global outrage over its bombardment of Gaza, the deal allows Israel to rebrand itself as a partner for peace. Western leaders rush to congratulate themselves for 'ending the war,' even as the rubble of Gaza testifies to the scale of destruction. The United States, too, claims a diplomatic victory that bolsters its standing in the region at a time when its influence has been waning. For Palestinians, however, the outcome is grimly familiar: their suffering instrumentalised, their rights deferred, their future mortgaged to the interests of others.
The tragedy is that many will mistake this agreement for progress. Headlines will celebrate the release of hostages, the trucks of aid entering Gaza, the images of leaders shaking hands. But beneath the optics lies the same brutal reality: Israel retains the power to decide the fate of Palestinians, and the United States ensures that this imbalance is preserved. The supposed peace is built on the erasure of Palestinian demands for freedom, justice, and return. It is a peace that asks the oppressed to accept their subjugation in exchange for temporary relief.
There is, of course, another path. Genuine peace would mean lifting the siege of Gaza permanently, dismantling the apartheid system, recognising the right of return for refugees, and establishing a sovereign Palestinian state free from foreign domination. It would mean holding Israel accountable for its crimes, not rewarding it with new guarantees of security. It would mean allowing Palestinian voices in negotiations, not sidelining them in favour of U.S. and Israeli dictates. Until such a vision is pursued, every 'peace agreement' will be little more than a pause in the violence, a breathing space before the next round of bombardment.
The current deal is not a breakthrough but a trap. It entrenches the dominance of Israel and the United States, denies Palestinians their right to liberation, and offers no assurance that the bombs will stop falling. To call it peace is to mock the very idea of justice. For the people of Gaza, who continue to bury their dead under the ruins of their homes, the agreement is not an end to war but its continuation by other means. Until the world confronts the root causes of this conflict—occupation, apartheid, and imperial complicity—no agreement will deliver the freedom that Palestinians deserve.
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