The guns have gone quiet in Gaza, but the Israel-Hamas war is far from over. Israel’s catastrophic assault on the Palestinian territories — which the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks triggered — has left over 46,000 Palestinians dead and displaced nearly two million people. The recent ceasefire deal, while providing a momentary reprieve from bloodshed, does nothing to address the structural realities that have perpetuated the conflict. Trading hostages for prisoners is a media spectacle. It pulls at heartstrings, but it papers over the root of the problem: an Israeli occupation that has brutalized Palestinians for years and an international order complicit in its continuation.
Instead of dismantling the underlying system of apartheid and occupation that fuels Israel's 50 years of dispossession in Palestine, this deal props it up. As U.S. President Donald Trump took a victory lap during his first week in office, claiming credit for a diplomatic breakthrough, this fragile truce rests on quickly loosening political quicksand: The recent delay of Palestinian prisoner releases from Israel has cast further doubt on the deal’s sustainability. As Israel’s closest ally, the United States must abandon its unwavering support of Israeli militarism. Instead of perpetuating an apartheid regime, Trump must push for a one-state solution that guarantees equality for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal has three phases, each fraught with risk. Hamas, despite its heavy losses, remains Gaza’s dominant power. Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, in complicity with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s agenda, supplied arms as Israel leveled neighborhoods and starved civilians, setting the stage for this Band-Aid over Palestinians’ gaping wounds. Trump’s claim of responsibility for the deal through aggressive brokering may have coincidentally overlapped with the finalization of negotiations, but his last-minute pressures did not alter the fundamental flaws of the ceasefire. Despite the shifting hands of American leadership, the ceasefire leaves Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe unaltered and the deeper conflict unresolved.
Critics may point to this ceasefire as evidence that diplomacy can work. While Biden’s defenders argue that his administration laid the groundwork for the deal, Trump’s bluster sought to steal the limelight. However, diplomacy that leaves the occupation intact is not diplomacy — it is complicity. Trading human lives as political currency, without addressing the land theft, military blockades and systemic violence that sparked the conflict, is a moral failure.
If Trump truly wants a legacy highlighting his deal-making prowess, he must go beyond ceasefires. For the president to demonstrate competency on the world stage, the United States must condition aid to Israel on compliance with international law. Military funding should be contingent on ending settlements, lifting the Gaza blockade and dismantling the apartheid system. Further, the United States should support international investigations into war crimes committed by all parties. Anything less would be a continuation of the United States’ long-standing failure to stand up for human rights.
Trump’s team claims his envoy, real estate executive Steve Witkoff, brokered the ceasefire with boasts of “tough” diplomacy. Netanyahu begrudgingly agreed to the deal, but not without reserving the right to resume war. Netanyahu’s far-right allies, including former Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, have already defected in protest, demanding a return to war. Hamas, meanwhile, has survived Israel’s onslaught since the initial attacks, regrouping in Gaza. Israel’s strategy of eradicating Hamas, much like its strategy to control the Palestinian people’s resistance through military might, remains elusive.
Without a coherent plan for Gaza’s governance after Hamas, Israel risks repeating its past failures. Former Prime Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant criticized Netanyahu for rejecting proposals to empower secular Palestinian actors, such as the Palestinian Authority, as potential administrators of Gaza. This refusal leaves a power vacuum that Hamas is already filling, ensuring the cycle of violence will persist. By neglecting to pair military action with a long-term vision for political stability, Netanyahu has not only undermined Israel’s security but has also handed Hamas an opportunity to regain strength and reassert control.
In Gaza, the humanitarian devastation is “staggering,” according to United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher. Hospitals are running at triple capacity, children are dying from preventable diseases and 93% of the population is starving. This carnage is the predictable outcome of Israel’s strategy to collectively punish Palestinians for Hamas’ actions. A blockade cutting off food, water and medical supplies is a war crime. U.S.-made bombs that flattened refugee camps have slaughtered civilians — actions in clear violation of international law. Yet, the recent ceasefire largely leaves these conditions intact. Humanitarian aid will trickle in, but Gaza remains under siege. Israel will dictate who governs, when borders open and who can rebuild. This is not peace — it is apartheid with a pause button.
Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, has promised to prioritize negotiations for Saudi-Israeli normalization, a deal that might entrench occupation rather than dismantle it. Trump’s previous foreign policy ventures, from the Abraham Accords to a cavalier approach to Palestinian sovereignty, offer little hope of meaningful change.
It is time to stop pretending that a two-state solution is viable. Israeli leaders have made it clear that Palestinian statehood is not on the table: The Knesset’s 2024 declaration that Palestinian sovereignty is an “existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens” buried that proposal for good. For his own political legacy, Trump should embrace the one solution capable of lasting peace — a single, democratic state in which all people, Jews and Palestinians alike, live with equal rights.
Peace would require ending unconditional military aid from the United States and demanding Israeli compliance with international law. It would mean supporting the International Criminal Court’s investigations into Israel’s war crimes. It would involve backing Palestinian self-determination not as a concession, but as a moral imperative.
Trump will trumpet the ceasefire as proof of his mastered art of the deal. Biden will insist it validates his own efforts in providing the new administration with a “very strong hand.” But, history will judge both men on what comes next. Peace is not a momentary pause in violence — it is the dismantling of systems that perpetuate oppression. If Trump wants to be the “great negotiator” he claims, he must broker not just a ceasefire, but a just and lasting peace. That begins with confronting the truth about Israel’s apartheid regime and committing the United States to the principle that no people are free until all people are free.
Contact Eliana Liporace at eliana.liporace@emory.edu.
Eliana Liporace (she/her/hers) (27C) is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and minoring in Community Building and Social Change. She is from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and is an avid matcha sipper and firm believer in the Oxford comma. When she’s not buried in research papers, she's curating the perfect Letterboxd list, adding to the nichest of Spotify playlists, and spending exuberant amounts of money on caffeine to fuel the pre-med grind. You can find her crafting her spiciest hot take in the School of Public Health.
