A ceasefire is supposed to stop the killing. Since the US-brokered Gaza truce was signed in October 2025, Israel has killed at least 857 more Palestinians, including 229 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry and UNICEF.
The numbers tell the story the diplomatic language tries to hide. In the first six months of the ceasefire alone, the Gaza government media office documented more than 2,400 Israeli violations, 1,109 air strikes and other shelling attacks, plus 921 shootings targeting civilians. More than 2,486 people were wounded. At least 50 people were arbitrarily detained.
The so-called ceasefire did not end the war. It changed its tempo.
One key mechanism enabled the continued violence: the “Yellow Line.” The October agreement froze battle lines where they stood, which meant Israeli forces kept control of roughly 53 percent of Gaza. Since then, Israel has expanded that line to cover approximately 64 percent of the enclave, according to Reuters. Palestinians are now crowded into less than half of their own territory, much of it bombed flat.
The agreement was supposed to move through phases toward a full Israeli withdrawal, disarmament of armed groups, and reconstruction. None of that has happened. The US has failed to advance talks toward the second phase, leaving the ceasefire in a permanent holding pattern where Israel continues strikes and demolitions while claiming to honor the truce.
Humanitarian conditions have barely improved. Only about 145 aid trucks enter Gaza daily, far below the 600 needed. Around 10 percent of essential medical supplies have been allowed in. Heavy machinery to clear rubble and reopen roads remains banned. Frozen meat, eggs, and livestock are largely kept out.
Israel justifies its strikes by accusing Hamas of violating the agreement. Hamas denies the accusations and says it has complied fully. But many of the attacks documented by local and international observers targeted civilians without any claimed justification, farmers near the Yellow Line, fishermen off the coast, people queuing for aid.
In one incident in April, Israeli gunboats shot a woman dead off the northwestern coast of Gaza.
The overall death toll since October 2023 now exceeds 72,700, with thousands more missing under rubble. The ceasefire was supposed to stop the count. Instead, it has given Israel a framework within which it can keep killing at a lower but still deadly intensity, while the world looks at the truce and pretends the war is over.
At what point does a deal that fails to stop the killing stop being called a ceasefire?