Gaza ceasefire takes off, but expect turbulence ahead

Al Majalla lays out four key hurdles to clear to ensure the truce sticks this time around

REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Palestinians, who were displaced to the southern part of Gaza at Israel's order, make their way along a road as they return to the north, amid a ceasefire, in the central Gaza Strip, October 11, 2025.

Gaza ceasefire takes off, but expect turbulence ahead

Brian Katulis

last update on 11 Oct 2025

US President Donald Trump departs for the Middle East on Sunday, 12 October, his second trip to the region in five months—and what a difference five months makes. In Egypt, he will officially sign the Gaza ceasefire and captive release deal and encourage forward momentum on the many unresolved issues left vague in the agreement—particularly its longer-term aspects.

To use an analogy, if this Gaza ceasefire deal were an aeroplane, it is currently picking up speed on the runway and arrives at the crucial point of immediate takeoff when all hostages held in Gaza are released in exchange for 2,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. This moment of “takeoff” will mark the end of a war, but the beginning of what is sure to be a long and bumpy flight. Time will tell if the plane ascends to higher altitudes or comes crashing to the ground.

Given the unsettled situation in the Middle East, one thing is certain: there will be turbulence ahead. Here, I identify four hurdles to overcome to ensure the ceasefire sticks this time.

1. Hamas disarmament

First and perhaps foremost is the question of whether Hamas will give up its weapons. The Islamist movement has built its legitimacy and credibility on the fact that it stood up to Israel. “Resistance” is literally its middle name. But the movement has sustained multiple losses and failures over the past two years of war, and there are many open questions about how the remnants of the leadership and rank and file of Hamas will operate in the coming phase—questions that won’t likely be answered in a short period of time.

SAID KHATIB / AFP — Masked men from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas

2. Gaza governance

The current plans about who will govern and administer the Strip remain ill-defined beyond Hamas’s acceptance that it will not play any role in Gaza’s ‘day after’. For its part, Israel has rejected notions that the Palestinian Authority might play a role, and—much like his first administration—Trump’s second has done little to bolster the Palestinian people in its Middle East approach.

In fact, the Trump team spent the past few months isolating and placing its own form of pressure on the Palestinian Authority, including banning visas to the United States for all Palestinian passport holders and preventing Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas from addressing the United Nations General Assembly in person last month.

Additionally, the US—in close cooperation with the current Israeli government—opposed a push led by France and regional power Saudi Arabia to symbolically recognise a State of Palestine. The notion that significant progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian front without extensive consultations and cooperation with the Palestinian people is far-fetched, but the foreign policy of successive US administrations, Republican and Democratic alike, has prioritised bilateral relations with Israel over dealing with the question of Palestine.

A key reason behind Trump's success in clinching a ceasefire was listening to and working closely with Middle East partners. This needs to continue and grow.

3. Domestic Israeli politics

A third source of possible turbulence comes from within the Israeli political system. Overall, the Israeli public rejects the notion of a two-state solution at this point in time, and no credible Israeli political leader with significant political standing has come out in favour of a Palestinian state. Those politicians who express vague notions of one are drowned out by louder calls from the Israeli right to expel Palestinians, annex the West Bank, and continue the military campaign in Gaza.

Watch carefully what happens with the current coalition in the Israeli government, as well as whether right-wing extremists take violent action to scuttle possible progress. It's important to note here that it was a right-wing religious zealot who murdered Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 in an effort to scuttle peace efforts.

4. Trump's attention span

Nominally, Donald Trump is the one who will be in charge, but the president has his hands full most of the time. Currently on his plate are the US government shutdown, the economic fallout from the tariff and trade wars Trump waged on much of the world and not to mention the lingering war in Ukraine, which—despite the president's many attempts to end it—is still raging.

A distracted Trump means that someone either on his team or in the region needs to step up to coordinate the multilateral effort needed to implement later phases of this plan. Flooding Gaza with immediate aid and coordinating reconstruction efforts requires law and order, and vague notions of an international force coordinating with some Palestinian entity require greater clarity. For example, some Arab partners have apparently conditioned their possible participation in an international stabilisation force on the Israeli army's full withdrawal from Gaza. Coordinating these key policy moves will be essential.

Jack GUEZ / AFP — Israeli army soldiers gather near infantry-fighting vehicles (IFVs) at a position along the Israel-Gaza border fence on October 10, 2025.

What next

Any number of these four hurdles—along with other associated questions—could cause the "Gaza ceasefire" plan to either crash to the ground or remain flying at a low altitude, essentially indicating that while heavy combat operations and war may end, the overall situation remains cloudy.

To bring the Gaza ceasefire to higher altitudes requires engaging the Palestinians—not just in Gaza, but also in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem—and linking them to regional actors who will provide long-term financial, diplomatic and security support. Sustained success in this arena could possibly open up a pathway to more normalisation accords, including between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

This means the United States, under President Trump's leadership, will need to do two things that it hasn't really done before. The first would be to prioritise the concerns of Palestinians and not just use them as a partisan punching bag, in the way that Vice President JD Vance did this past week in Trump's cabinet meeting. Second, it will need to advance a steadier and more consistent policy approach coordinated with partners in the Middle East.

A key reason behind Trump's success in getting to the first phase of this ceasefire was listening to and working closely with Middle East partners—something that hadn't exactly been prioritised before. But Israel's 9 September strike on a Hamas delegation in Qatar—a key US ally—marked a turning point.

At this critical juncture, the Trump administration will need to enhance its cooperation with regional partners and invest in long-term partnerships with like-minded countries that seek a lasting and just peace in the Middle East.

+ / -