The US-brokered ceasefire brought a moment of relief. But, with Israel launching attacks and annexing land, Hamas refusing to disarm, and a $70bn reconstruction plan stalled, the agreement promising a new chapter for the Middle East could be on the verge of collapse.

Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump’s high-profile Middle East visit and the ceasefire it produced, the region’s fragile calm is already fraying. What the White House once hailed as a 'historic victory' is cracking under renewed Israeli strikes, unanswered questions and a stalled reconstruction effort.

'Generations from now, this will be remembered as the moment that everything began to change and change very much for the better,' the US president said in a meandering speech before the Israeli Knesset on 13 October. 'Like the USA right now, it will be the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East.'

Despite the deep relief felt globally over the potential end to the bloodshed, one of the grimmest in modern warfare, the atmosphere remains marred by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. During Trump's speech, Israeli lawmakers Ofer Cassif and Ayman Odeh were escorted out for holding a 'Recognize Palestine' sign. Odeh later wrote that the celebratory speeches would not absolve Netanyahu of 'the crimes against humanity committed in Gaza'. On the ground, Gazans continued to excavate charred and decomposed bodies from the debris of their homes, while abandoned Israeli spy cameras found camouflaged in the ruins served as a stark reminder of Israel's persistent surveillance.

Trump's speech glossed over the Palestinian death toll, which the Gaza Health Ministry now puts at 67,000, international law violations and international investigations into Israeli military tactics. The US president even boasted about granting Netanyahu every US heavy weapon he requested. 'We have weapons that nobody’s ever dreamt of. We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them. And we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly,' Trump said to a standing ovation. 'Bibi would call me so many times. Can you get me this weapon, that weapon? Some of them I never heard of, Bibi, and I made them. But we’d get them here, wouldn’t we?'

Gains and gaps

Beyond Trump’s celebration and self-congratulation, the deal handed the Israeli government a crucial domestic win by bringing the last hostages home, offering the country a reprieve from a two-year confrontation that had derailed ambitious plans for deeper regional integration.

In Gaza, the lull has started to pierce the tight siege. The United Nations says its agencies are reaching communities in areas that were cut off for months, delivering life-saving aid. For the first time since March, according to the UN's Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), cooking gas was trickling into the strip alongside tents for shattered families, frozen meat, fresh fruit, flour and medicines.

The ceasefire, however, undercut the strategy devised by Israel's government of relying solely on military might to free the hostages. A key war objective was achieved only through negotiations, as Hamas had insisted from the start. The long-term Israeli goal of eradicating Hamas altogether lingers. The group, though battered, remains active and has recently sent forces out to hunt down collaborators with Israel.

The multinational summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, which formed the second leg of Trump’s trip, gathered more than twenty countries, including key Arab and Muslim nations. The agenda tackled turning the temporary truce into a new ambitious regional economic and security framework as well as reconstruction and governance. Gaza, as Trump acknowledged before jetting off, was a 'demolition site'. The summit was supposed to extract commitments from Arab Gulf heavyweights to bankroll a massive, multi-year rebuild. But, so far, no public announcements have been made. Local Palestinian media estimate the cost of destruction at no less than $70bn.

According to Trump's framework, the White House expects Arab and Muslim states to fund the effort, with a US-led civil-military coordination centre, potentially in Israel, managing logistics and security.

The most volatile issue still festering is post-war governance. The plan envisions an international stabilisation force that will include Arab and Muslim troops to enforce demilitarisation and a transitional period of Palestinian technocratic rule under international oversight. But that suffered a setback after Jordan declined to take part and Israel said it would veto Turkish participation.

Hamas has signalled it could hand over civil administration to a politically independent Palestinian body but refused to disarm until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The group says resistance is a non-negotiable right, while disarmament remains a core Israeli demand.

The ultimate foreign policy prize for the Trump administration, particularly for envoy Jared Kushner, remains reviving and expanding the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab states. A key goal is an arrangement with Saudi Arabia, whose path toward ties with Israel was interrupted by the October 7 attacks. The conflict's brutal scenes on TV and social media ignited global condemnation of Israel, straining the Accords and causing public unease not only in Saudi Arabia but even in compliant states like the UAE, Jordan and Egypt.

For all the celebration, if ceasefire violations continue on the ground, or talks falter over the second phase, the region could quickly lapse back into war. For the moment, Trump’s 'Art of the Deal' has engineered a shaky and temporary pause to a grinding war, leaving the region wary of what might come next.

Emad Mekay is a freelance journalist and can be contacted at emad.mekay@int-bar.org

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