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SINCE the Gaza ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, Israel has once again demonstrated that its impunity is limitless. In less than twenty days since following the signing of the ceasefire, Israel has murdered 226 Palestinians, injured 594, and continues to demolish homes at will. In the same period, Israel has breached the ceasefire more than 125 times.

The most recent was on October 28, when Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza City and Khan Younis, murdering 109 people, including 46 children and 20 women. President Donald Trump justified the killing of the Palestinian children stating ‘they (Israel) should hit back.’

In one of the targets, entire residential buildings were flattened in central Gaza, wiping out 18 members of the same family: children, parents, and grandparents alike. Still, US vice president J.D. Vance dismissed the Israeli attacks as ‘little skirmishes,’ insisting the ceasefire was ‘holding.’ An American spokesman called the murder of more than 100 Palestinians ‘limited and targeted.’ For Washington, the truce is ‘holding’ as long as the victims are Palestinians, and the Resistance doesn’t fire back.

One would ask, if Palestinians have responded proportionally, would it still be described as ‘limited’? Or is it only Jewish life that counts for the American administrations?

Other mediators — Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — weren’t much different. Qatar’s prime minister went so far as to crow that both parties are still committed to the ceasefire. It is as if pretending compliance mattered more than murdering 226 Palestinians in three weeks. Even worse, hours after he announced the resumption of the ceasefire, Israel bombed Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, killing at least two more civilians. Israel has carried out many more attacks since.

From day one, Israel has ignored its obligations in key provisions of the agreement. For instance, Item 7 required that ‘full aid be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip’ at levels matching the January 19, 2025 — roughly 600 trucks per day. According to international human rights organisations, in the first two weeks following the ceasefire, Israel rejected 99 applications to deliver aid to Gaza. As of November 1, Israel has allowed, on average, only 145 trucks a day to enter the Strip, or just 24 per cent of the ‘full aid’ under the ceasefire agreement. Further, Israel has barred UNRWA, the largest UN aid organisation with the most extensive storage and distribution system on the ground, from delivering shelter and food supply for 1.3 million human beings. This contravened the International Court of Justice ruling specifically ordering Israel to allow UNRWA to operate freely.

Israeli violations of accords are a familiar Israeli pattern. In southern Lebanon, a ceasefire demanded Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory by January 26, 2025. Ten months later, it still occupies posts inside Lebanon and carries out daily attacks on targets throughout Lebanon. As in Gaza, the US and France, who brokered that agreement seem to be unbothered by the Israeli violations. Ironically, these same countries would predictably ‘cry and condemn’ if the Lebanese Resistance retaliated against Israel.

For Israel, agreements are a la carte, it takes what suits it, while refusing to fulfill its obligations. All Israel had wanted from the ceasefire agreement was the return of its captives. Once that was secured, it gained a free hand to do as it pleased in Gaza. The ceasefire is no more than a façade allowing Israel to manage a ‘starvation diet’ for more than two million humans.

By trivializing Israeli violations of the ceasefire, the US and its Arab partners have turned what should be a mutual commitment into a one-sided war license. When Israeli breaches are not confronted, the Trump administration and Arab mediators turn those violations into an accepted policy. For Israel’s strategy is to create a ‘new normal,’ hiding behind ceasefires to maintain the status quo, anchor a permanent occupation, ‘security zones,’ and make murdering Palestinians a routine.

This has been the ‘new normal’ where Israel conducts regular incursions into Syria and attacks Lebanon, and now Gaza, unchallenged. In this framework, ceasefires become deceptive tactics to secure occupation and normalise aggression.

As long as Washington and its vassal Arab dictators sanitise Israeli violations as ‘skirmishes,’ and as long as Palestinian lives are expendable under a system where ‘ceasefires’ exist in press releases only to boast Trump’s narcissistic ego, and where one side can violate agreements without consequence, ‘ceasefires’ serve to legalise perpetual one-sided war. Thus, exposing Trump’s ‘peace’ as a transactional tool that restores Israel’s leverage to starve, and commit mass atrocities with impunity.

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CounterPunch.org, November 3. Jamal Kanj is the author of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America, and other books. He writes frequently on Arab world issues for various national and international commentaries.