Gaza City — One year has passed since President Donald Trump brokered a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which officially took effect on October 10, 2025. While the deal was intended to end Israel’s war in the Strip and secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages, the reality on the ground remains starkly different from the promised peace.
According to NPR reporter Anas Baba, who has documented the past twelve months, there is still no international peacekeeping force in place, and large-scale reconstruction has not begun. Israeli military control now extends to approximately 70% of Gaza, confining more than 2 million Palestinians to a narrow strip of land near the coast. Furthermore, Israel has maintained ongoing operations against Hamas targets throughout the ceasefire period. Data from Gaza’s Health Ministry indicates that these continued strikes have killed over 1,400 Palestinians in the last year, including nearly 500 women and children.
Although the frequency of bombings has decreased compared to the active war phase, lethal incidents remain common. Just over a month into the truce, on November 20, 2025, an Israeli airstrike killed a young man, drawing mourners to Al-Shifa Hospital. The violence has also left lasting physical scars; two weeks later, 12-year-old Zain Al-Angar and his cousin were treated for shrapnel wounds after mistaking an unexploded munition fragment for coal in the rubble.
On a humanitarian front, the cessation of heavy combat has allowed food supplies to increase, reversing the famine that U.N.-backed experts had declared in northern Gaza the previous year. Fresh produce reappeared in Gaza City markets by late December 2025. However, living conditions remain dire. With nearly all buildings destroyed, roughly 1.5 million people were left living in makeshift tents by mid-December, struggling against freezing winter temperatures and damp conditions.
The past year has been marked by a juxtaposition of grief and fleeting moments of normalcy. In October 2025, families in Khan Younis celebrated the release of Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Israeli hostages. By December, Palestinian Christian children decorated a Christmas tree at the Holy Family Church for the first time since the war began. In March 2026, residents gathered for early morning prayers and Eid al-Fitr celebrations, with some children sharing moments of joy alongside clowns and shaking hands with Hamas militants.
Yet, the underlying trauma persists. In December 2025, children in Al-Zuweida utilized virtual reality headsets through a TechMed Gaza initiative to receive psychosocial support for trauma. Medical access also faced new challenges when Israel banned more than 40 international aid organizations from bringing in staff or supplies just days after photos were taken of patients at a Doctors Without Borders clinic.
For many, the war’s aftermath continues to unfold slowly. In February 2026, rescue workers in Beit Lahia began retrieving bodies from the rubble, including the remains of Shawqi Abu Naser, 60, who was identified more than a year after an airstrike killed 132 members of his family. As of March 2026, feminist artists returned to the beach in Gaza City for therapy sessions, attempting to heal from a conflict that has left deep physical and emotional wounds across the territory.
It is heartbreaking to see children still finding unexploded munitions in the rubble. Normalcy feels so fragile here.
Famine easing is a relief, but 1,400 deaths in a ‘ceasefire’ year is unacceptable. The term seems inaccurate.