Bridge To Nowhere: Unending Agony Of Palestinians In Gaza

Abu Mohammed survived an Israeli attack after rescuers pulled him from beneath the rubble. Four of his children did not. Since then, he has lived beside the ruins of his home, where their shattered bodies remain trapped in the debris. He wants closure and burying his kids is what he desperately wants at the moment. He gets nightmares thinking of them alone in the darkness amidst the cold concrete slabs. They should have been alive and running, going to school, playing. He is haunted by these thoughts every single waking moment. He lives now in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, near his home, a desolate man who also lost his wife, mother and another child in the Israeli attack. He is not the only one in the town of Bureij waiting to find the remains of his loved ones. In just one apartment block in Bureij, at least 50 bodies are still trapped beneath the rubble, untouched since October 2023.

Bureij was hit in the beginning of the conflict. Families continue to wait. It is the same story across the enclave. Nearly 10,000 Palestinians remain missing, buried under the 61 million tonnes of rubble in the battered Strip. Outlook did not visit the Gaza Camp, but the ground reality is obvious. Six months since the `peace’’ deal this is the reality on the ground in Gaza. Yes, the daily bombings have stopped. But not much else. Israeli drones strike at will. Mohammed Wishah, a journalist working for Al Jazeera’s local service Mobbasa, was driving when a drone struck his vehicle. It went up in flames. He was burnt alive together with the car. He was not a terrorist. Nor a member of Hamas. Just a professional reporter. No questions were asked of the IDF. Why did they kill him? This lack of scrutiny of Israeli action, this refusal of the international community to hold Israel responsible for its actions, has emboldened the IDF, knowing that as the US, the most powerful nation in the world, has its back, the IDF can kill, murder and torture with impunity. In October last year, a peace deal had promised this would be over.

There is no return to normal life in Gaza. People still remain in overcrowded tents, the promised re-construction has not begun. The flow of aid is limited, depending on the IDF’s whims. Shortage of food and medicines continue. “Look at our children, living in these camps. There is pollution and disease here. Nothing is as we anticipated,’’ a grandmother in the Khan Younis camp tells Palestinian reporters. “We continue to wait outside morgues to get bodies of our brothers killed by Israeli drones and gun fire,’’ a young man said. “We are cast aside. Forgotten,’’ says yet another frustrated Palestinian living in one of the many camps stretched across the enclave.

“This situation stems from two central factors: first, Israel continues to act as a state above international law; and second, the international community remains entrenched in double standards and political paralysis, effectively tolerating the continuation of the recognised genocidal war,’’says Abdullah Abu Shawesh, Palestine’s ambassador to India.

20-point ceasefire

When the three-stage peace deal was announced by US President Donald Trump, it was celebrated with much fanfare. Trump, the man of peace, was fulfilling his commitment to stop the never-ending wars around the world. The signing of the agreement in Sharm El Sheikh, a resort city on the Red Sea, on October 13, 2025, co-chaired by Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was a moment of hope for the world. Trump, the master of ceremonies, held forth on what he was able to get done. The world poured lavish praise on him.

Today, the first phase has been completed. Israel’s hostages are freed, so are hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. The remains of the dead hostages were handed over. The guns did fall briefly silent, some aid did trickle in, and for a moment, the world allowed itself to believe that Gaza might begin to breathe again.

But the second phase, demilitarisation of the enclave, deployment of an international force, transitional governance by Palestinian technocrats, large-scale reconstruction, remains on paper. Nothing has moved. The people of Gaza are hanging in a twilight zone–neither war, nor peace, a punishing in-between place where over a million people remain displaced, where tents have replaced homes, and where the threat of Israeli strikes lingers, dark, unpredictable and constant. Cynics are asking whether the peace was ever designed to hold. Was the aim merely to get Israeli hostages back home and nothing beyond?

“The aim of the ceasefire was simply to help Israel out of the quagmire in Gaza. For two years they were not able to defeat the Palestinians nor get back their prisoners. So President Trump made a plan where he could get back the Israeli prisoners of war, and defeat Hamas through non-military means,’’ says Mohammad Makram Balawi, director general of the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds.

Israel has its eyes not just on Gaza, but an emboldened leadership is continuing expansion plans in the Occupied West Bank. Daily reports come about aggressive Jewish settlers backed by the IDF attacking Palestinians. Here the aim is not just land grab but to fragment Palestinian communities, restrict movement between villages by hundreds of check points where people are abused and harassed. All of the policies are to make life unbearable for Palestinians to force them to leave.

Considering the situation on the ground in Gaza, disarming Hamas will be a major issue.`` Trump’s twenty point plan stated that no construction was possible without surrendering the weapons of Hamas. Hamas is very apprehensive because of historical examples, when local resistance surrendered their weapons and they were massacred by the enemy so they are reluctant,’’ says Makram Balawi. “The move seems to be: Let the Palestinians suffer, eventually they won’t have a choice but to surrender …’’

There is no political roadmap either at the end of the road. From the beginning, the focus on the third stage was vague. The Gulf-Arab leaders, like much of the world, have put their faith in the two-State solution, an independent Palestine living side by side and in harmony with Israel. But it is well-known that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will never accept a full-fledged Palestinian State. The US, Israel’s closest ally that provided both equipment and diplomatic cover to Israel, is unlikely to go against Netanyahu.

Trump has now moved on from the Gaza peace deal. Greenland was his obsession for a while. Venezuela happened. Now the US-Israel war on Iran has pushed every other conflict to the background as the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz affects every country.

“Even though Israel has been using the Iran war as an excuse to delay the implementation of the Gaza peace deal, the basic framework of peace process is intact and the regional actors are patiently waiting for the end of Iran conflict,’’ says Omair Anas of Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversitesi. “The countries of the region are less interested in engaging with Israel at this stage. Israel is facing more isolation and international criticism over its occupation of Gaza and Lebanon putting the Abraham Accord and other normalization process at risk,” he adds. Anas says that Netanyahu’s expansionist adventurism is changing “the region’s strategic thinking and security architecture, and is less favorable for Israel than ever.’’

Between a stalled process, an emboldened Israel and a distracted international community, the enclave remains suspended in a brutal limbo. For Palestinians, it is an unending wait for justice and relief.