Here's the Truth About Trump's 'Peace Plan' for Gaza
The US allowed Netanyahu to create four key loopholes in the deal to ensure Israel can continue its Gaza genocide – regardless of the 'ceasefire' agreement.
The war may be declared “over,” but Gaza is still bleeding. In a spectacle of premature celebration, President Donald Trump stood with Israeli leaders, announcing the end of hostilities, a ceasefire signed in ink but soaked in blood. Yet, to Palestinians and seasoned diplomats alike, the silence from Israel’s most extreme ministers spoke louder than Trump’s fanfare. Behind the curtain of political theater, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already engineered a roadmap to continue the destruction of Gaza, not through tanks and missiles alone, but through legal loopholes, manipulated agreements, and the weaponization of diplomacy. What lies ahead is not peace, but a more insidious, systematic continuation of genocide in slow motion.
“The war is over,” declared President Donald Trump on his way to Israel. This announcement, however, rang hollow with Palestinians, mediators, and every expert I have spoken to. One immediate red flag was the total absence of protestation from Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who had repeatedly vowed to quit and collapse the government if Israel ends the genocide in Gaza. While the pair voted against the ceasefire, the two ministers haven’t quit the government, and they didn’t even comment about Trump’s specific announcement, neither positively nor negatively, which could mean they are under instructions from the prime minister to keep quiet for tactical reasons.
It didn’t take long before Israel resumed killing and besieging Gazans. Within 24 hours of the ceasefire’s beginning, Israel killed at least 35 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 72 others. On Tuesday morning, the day after Hamas released all living captives, Israel resumed aerial bombardment in Gaza with an airstrike that reportedly killed five civilians in Shejaiya and another that killed two in Khan Younis.
Israel then officially declared it would continue to close the Rafah crossing, Gazans’s only gateway to the world, although it was supposed to open both ways immediately after the hostages’ release. Israel also announced restricting humanitarian aid entering the enclave under the pretext that Hamas was “not taking sufficient steps to locate the bodies of [dead] hostages.”
This is one of at least four loopholes Netanyahu created to ensure Israel can continue its Gaza genocide despite Trump’s ceasefire agreement.