The ceasefire in Gaza is heavily flawed. It is the EU that holds the key to a solution, writes Palestinian journalist Rajaa Natour.
The sight of Palestinian children rejoicing over the announcement of the ceasefire and the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel this week said it all. Malek Al-Adisi told Al Jazeera: “I hope to return to the life I had before the war. In this war, I lost my uncle, my cousin, our home, and even my memories. I still dream of going back to school and to my previous life.”
I can undoubtedly understand Malek and the tens of thousands of other Palestinian children who paid the heaviest price during the genocide that unfolded in Gaza. They long to return to their homes, not because they have reconciled with the occupation, but because they are exhausted from the starvation, the cold, the daily deaths, and life in tents.
Despite the genocide and the humanitarian catastrophe that unfolded in Gaza, Hamas framed this agreement as a sweeping Palestinian victory. According to Hamas, Israel failed in its mission to obliterate Hamas, which represents Palestinian resistance, failed to establish control over Gaza, release all Israeli hostages, or achieve complete ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau, claimed that the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood was a significant turning point in Palestinian history, emphasizing that resistance would not cease after this battle.
Conversely, the agreement was met with broad dissatisfaction and bitterness in Israel, spanning both right- and left-wing camps. The reason is quite simple: in the eyes of many from both camps, Israel was “defeated” because it failed to achieve its war objectives—namely, the elimination of Hamas.
Since I assume readers are familiar with the agreement’s details, I will summarize it. The deal, brokered by senior American, Qatari, and Egyptian officials, will unfold in three phases, each expected to last six weeks. During the first phase, Hamas will release 33 hostages—women, children, and individuals over the age of 50—while Israel will release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, withdraw from some areas, and significantly increase humanitarian aid to Gaza. In the second phase, Hamas is expected to release the remaining hostages as Israel completes its withdrawal from Gaza. The third phase will involve the return of deceased hostages and the beginning of reconstruction.
Before delving into the problematic aspects of this agreement, I must note that this is not a ceasefire agreement, as some critics describe it, but rather a truce intended to facilitate prisoner exchanges, with the possibility of renewed fighting once implemented. Furthermore, there is no complete consensus on the latter two phases, making the agreement non-final. The second and third phases—primarily concerning the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the dismantling of military infrastructure—remain subject to future negotiations by Israel.
This is the crux of the matter. While many experts focus on the agreement’s practical and operational challenges—such as mechanisms to oversee the IDF’s withdrawal, the return of Palestinian refugees, Gaza’s reconstruction, and the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid—I believe the main issue lies elsewhere entirely. Specifically, the agreement ignores the political questions. The most pressing question left unaddressed is: Who will govern Gaza? Consequently, what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians there?
It must be emphasized that successive Israeli governments have always viewed Gaza as a security-military issue rather than a political one. As a result, Israel’s approach to dealing with Gaza and its Palestinian population has always been—and continues to be—military and security-driven rather than political. This means cycles of war, ceasefire, genocide, and intermittent humanitarian aid. Based on this, Israel will never agree to relinquish complete control over Gaza because, for many in the current Israeli government, such a concession would be tantamount to jeopardizing Israel’s security, undermining its sovereignty, and conceding a future military defeat to Hamas—a scenario Israel will never allow.
So, with Israel’s continued, uncompromising control over Gaza seemingly inevitable, the question arises: how will this control be maintained? The answer is quite simple: by turning Gaza into another West Bank. That is, replicating the territorial fragmentation strategies used in the West Bank. According to Haaretz, Israel plans to employ two primary and brutal military strategies: the “Five Fingers” plan and the “Generals’ Plan.”
The former involves dividing Gaza into small, isolated, and densely populated enclaves by constructing wide “corridors” controlled by Israeli checkpoints to control Palestinian movement within Gaza. This approach will enable daily raids and arrests by the IDF. These corridors require large-scale demolition of Palestinian homes, mass displacement, and the construction of new Israeli infrastructure—including water, sewage, and electricity networks, as well as expanded roads to serve future Israeli settlements.
The second strategy, already in implementation in northern Gaza, seeks to dismantle the Palestinian population through violence, starvation, mass incarceration, and expulsion. According to a senior IDF officer involved in the operation, the mission is to “create a cleansed space.”
Based on these plans, there are increasing indications that Israel is advancing permanent expulsions in certain areas of northern Gaza as a prelude to reestablishing Israeli settlements dismantled after the 2005 withdrawal. This would fulfill the dream of the settler movement, whose leaders claim to have already recruited 700 families “ready now” to return to Gaza. This is a physical occupation of Gaza—but this time, produced with the help of the Arab world! Israel’s security establishment has no desire to manage Gaza’s civilian population alone. Instead, Qatar is expected to do Israel’s dirty work.
If this weren’t enough, Israel intends to regress Palestinian society in Gaza to a pre-modern tribal structure. For those who don’t know, Israel is actively seeking local and regional “subcontractors” to assist in managing Gaza’s civilian population. Consequently, Israel is courting prominent families and clans in Gaza to govern “Hamas-free zones,” distribute aid, administer local governance, and coordinate reconstruction.
In March, the IDF proposed to arm five clans, including the Dughmush tribe—associated with ISIS and notorious for looting international aid— to fight Hamas and potentially replace them in the future. By bypassing Gaza’s local government and UN agencies, Israel seeks to perpetuate internal Palestinian chaos, giving free rein to such gangs to control the fate of Gaza’s population. While such a plan might have seemed absurd in the past, the rise of Trump emboldened Israel, earning broader support for deepening its control and fragmentation of Gaza, much as it did in the West Bank.
Undoubtedly, the picture painted is grim, but hope is not lost. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only end when Israel feels the international cost of sustaining apartheid and deepening occupation. It’s simple: European states and their citizens must halt funding for Israeli settlements by banning the import of settlement goods and financial services, as demanded by the International Court of Justice in its July ruling.
The EU must also expand sanctions on organizations funding Israel’s illegal settlement projects, like Amana (already sanctioned by the UK and US), and threaten automatic sanctions on entities involved in resettling Israelis in Gaza. Moreover, the EU should reconsider its association agreement with Israel, which underpins its economic relations with the bloc, as it has done at least 26 times in response to human rights violations by other partner states.
Beyond this, the EU must take active steps to end military aid that has enabled and continues to enable the erasure of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. It must hold those responsible for war crimes accountable, which means fully supporting the implementation of ICC arrest warrants and ICJ rulings.
These measures would create tangible, daily dilemmas for Israelis who have not faced such consequences for decades. In this scenario, Israelis would have to choose between economic prosperity or an eternal war that isolates them forever. It is disheartening to say that while these dilemmas primarily rely on economic pragmatism rather than belief in Palestinians’ right to dignity, equality, and justice, they still have the potential to impose the reality of occupation on Israelis in a manner detached from the securitization of Palestinians. Instead, this would come through understanding that the cost of occupation is not only high for the Israeli government but also for its citizens, making its termination inevitable.
A heavy and significant responsibility rests on the shoulders of many European states. In the absence of a comprehensive, transparent, and decisive European policy that makes the Israeli occupation a daily dilemma for every Israeli citizen, the Palestinians will experience a continuous genocide.
Through the genocide that occurred in Gaza, Israel has set dangerous precedents in all legal, political, and humanitarian arenas. It has demonstrated that ethnic cleansing can be carried out in full view of the world and that it is above international law, above all international legal authority. It has shown every Palestinian, wherever they may be, that their blood is permissible, and it will be spilled before the eyes of a world that will stand silent. Therefore, the pressing question is not whether the European Union can stop the spilling of Palestinian blood but whether it can look a Palestinian child in the eyes and tell them, “Your life matters!”