Two years on, ceasefire talks shadowed by airstrikes and the weight of memory
On the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks that plunged Israel and Gaza into an ever-expanding war, negotiators gathered in Sharm el‑Sheikh for what many describe as the most serious attempt yet to halt the fighting. Yet beneath the diplomatic fanfare, tanks rolled, jets and naval vessels struck and families on both sides marked the day with grief that a single negotiated text has so far failed to touch.
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The talks — cautious hope, stubborn obstacles
Delegates in Egypt are discussing a plan put forward by former US President Donald Trump that, in essence, proposes a pause in hostilities in return for the release of hostages, massive humanitarian access and a timetable toward a broader political settlement. Arab and Western capitals have publicly endorsed the framework; Qatar and Egypt are again acting as intermediaries. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged negotiators to seize “this moment” to move toward a two‑state solution.
But the outlines are easier to agree on than the details. Who will rule Gaza afterwards, how disarmament would be verified, the sequencing of withdrawal and hostages, and whether a 72‑hour return window for captives is realistic — all are fraught. Palestinian officials and a source close to Hamas told mediators they need a clear timeline for Israeli withdrawal and firm guarantees the fighting will truly end. Planners warn that recovering the remains of those killed — scattered across a shattered landscape — may make any 72‑hour deadline impossible to meet.
Violence and memory collide
Even as negotiators worked behind closed doors, Israeli forces struck parts of Gaza on the anniversary, and militants fired rockets toward southern Israel. In Gaza City and Khan Younis, residents reported bombing from air, sea and ground. In Israel, crowds returned to site of trauma: Nova festival grounds, Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square and other places that have become communal loci of grief and fury.
For many Israelis, October 7 remains the single most cataclysmic day since the Holocaust. At Nova, where 364 people were killed, parents and friends placed photos and flowers. “They were supposed to get married on February 14th,” Orit Baron said of her daughter Yuval, who died with her fiancé. “They are buried next to each other because they were never separated.” Such images of intimate loss illustrate how politics, law and strategy are continually dragged back into the personal realm.
Humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza
The statistics are stark. Gaza’s health authorities say more than 67,000 people have been killed since the war began, nearly a third of them children. Hundreds of thousands are homeless, sheltering in overcrowded camps with little access to water, food, sanitation or reliable medical care. “We have lost everything — our homes, family members, neighbours,” said Hanan Mohammed, displaced from Jabalia. “I can’t wait for a ceasefire to be announced and for this endless bloodshed and death to stop.”
International institutions have reacted forcefully: a UN commission last month concluded that Israel’s conduct in Gaza met the threshold of genocide; Israel dismissed the finding as biased. Humanitarian access, reconstruction funding, and the legal and moral responsibilities for postwar rebuilding now top the agenda — but so far there is no binding blueprint for how Gaza would be rebuilt and governed if the guns fall silent.
Domestic politics and the pressure to act
Two years in, the war has worn on Israeli society as well. A recent survey from the Institute for National Security Studies found 72% of Israelis dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the conflict. Military leaders have warned that if negotiations collapse, they will return to fighting. On the Palestinian side, militant factions have doubled down rhetorically: a coalition statement on the anniversary insisted that armed resistance will be passed to future generations until “the land and sacred sites are liberated.”
Diplomats and analysts watch nervously as regional tensions also create a feedback loop: Israel’s campaign has reverberated beyond Gaza — from targeted strikes on Iran‑linked actors to confrontations with Hezbollah in Lebanon and attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea — complicating any simple ceasefire calculus.
Why agreement will be hard — and what it must answer
Even if negotiators in Sharm secure a pact that pauses the fighting and returns hostages, the terms will likely leave open the most consequential questions. Who governs Gaza? How are weapons accounted for and civilian security guaranteed? How will aid get in and be used to rebuild, not to entrench new mafias of power? And how will accountability for the dead and for alleged atrocities be handled in a way that prevents future cycles of vengeance?
These are not just technical problems. They are fundamental tests of whether an international system that has struggled for decades to resolve the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict can now craft arrangements durable enough to withstand the pressures of trauma, displacement and regional realpolitik.
At stake beyond the ceasefire
The current moment is both perilous and promising. Diplomats see the convergence of pressure — international outcry over Gaza’s humanitarian plight, Israeli fatigue with prolonged military operations, and new American engagement — as an opening. Yet openings collapse when the underlying political and social fractures are ignored. A temporary halt to fighting, without a credible plan for governance, security and justice, risks being the prelude to the next round of war.
As negotiators move from principle to paper, two questions should guide them: can any arrangement stop the killing now while creating realistic mechanisms to prevent future atrocities? And if a pause is possible, who will lead the long, messy work of rebuilding lives so that memory does not calcify into perpetual revenge?
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
