It’s been one month since US president Donald Trump announced his Gaza ceasefire plan, forcing both Israel and Hamas to endorse the 20-point plan despite significant reservations.
The initial signs were promising, with the release of all 20 living Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity just a few days later - a dramatic development that few Israelis believed would happen.
Israeli forces withdrew from almost half of the war-ravaged enclave, but since then the plan has essentially been stuck and there is no indication that implementation of the second phase will occur any time soon.
Hamas has transferred the bodies of some of the deceased hostages but failed to meet its commitment to release all of them in the first 72 hours after the ceasefire was declared. If the body handed over to Israel on Monday is confirmed to be that of one of the deceased hostages, that would mean 12 are still in Gaza and Israeli intelligence believes Hamas knows the location of most of them.
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The flow of humanitarian aid has increased significantly but is still far from adequate, according to international humanitarian NGOs. Israel is reluctant to flood Gaza with aid as long as Hamas is keeping hold of some of the bodies.
Washington has taken control of all elements of the ceasefire, co-ordinating all the moving parts from a new centre operating from the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, some 30 kilometres from the Gaza border.
Despite the hands-on approach and last week’s visits by vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio, Washington is finding it difficult translating the deliberately vague clauses in the ceasefire agreement into practical steps.
Hamas is stubbornly resisting calls to disarm and Hamas gunmen are patrolling the streets in the western sector of Gaza, which is effectively still ruled by the militant group.
The “Board of Peace” headed by Trump and former UK prime minister Tony Blair was supposed to assume responsibility for Gaza’s redevelopment until a reformed Palestinian Authority can take over. But the body hasn’t got off the ground and neither has the international stabilisation force that is supposed to provide security.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II told the BBC over the weekend that Arab countries would join the US-proposed international force in Gaza only if its mission were peacekeeping rather than law enforcement.
Arab states and Muslim countries such as Indonesia are reluctant to commit troops as long Hamas exerts control. No one wants to engage Hamas militants and begin the painstaking work of destroying the group’s vast tunnel network under the present circumstances.
Arab and Muslim states will not want to be seen as collaborating with Israel and the US against fellow Muslims. And Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are not willing to finance Gaza’s renovation if the whole thing may go up in smoke in a future round of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Israel has already made it clear there can be no role in postwar Gaza for Turkey. “Countries that want to send armed forces should be at least fair to Israel,” foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said at a news conference on Monday.
Vance raised the prospect of rebuilding and repopulating Rafah, at the southern tip of the enclave, which is under complete Israeli control, with the relocation of tens of thousands of homeless war refugees. But there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from Israel, which wants to prohibit residents from returning to areas under its control “in order to prevent hostile encounters”.
Israel last week started placing large yellow concrete blocks demarcating the temporary “yellow-line” border between eastern and western Gaza. The danger, with the current deadlock, is that the temporary border may become permanent.
