A Year Into the Gaza Ceasefire, the 'Temporary' Divide Is Hardening

One year after the Gaza ceasefire was supposed to pause the war, the map of the enclave is being redrawn instead. Satellite-image analysis published September 28 by the New York Times found that Israel has built 12 military sites in Gaza since the truce took effect — cementing what was meant to be a temporary division of the territory. The findings landed on the same day the UN Security Council met to confront a stalled peace plan, and a day later an Israeli airstrike killed a senior Hamas commander in Gaza City.

According to the Times' analysis, the construction amounts to a permanent-looking footprint along the dividing line both sides call the Yellow Line: an expanded Israeli-controlled zone and a smaller Hamas-administered pocket where the majority of Gaza's roughly two million residents now live. Analysts, diplomats, and Gaza residents quoted in the reporting describe a division hardening in concrete and earthworks rather than softening. Israeli forces have also destroyed thousands of buildings in areas under their control since the truce began — demolitions Israel describes as targeting Hamas's tunnel network and booby-trapped homes.

The Israeli military, in a statement to CBC News, said it is working "to clearly and visually mark the location of the Yellow Line on the ground in order to reduce friction" with Palestinians, and that its measures are intended to prevent infiltrations. Whether the construction is defensive housekeeping or annexation-in-all-but-name is now one of the sharpest disputes of the ceasefire's first year.

The peace plan is stalling

The Security Council session on September 28, covered by UN News, made clear how far the diplomacy has drifted from its own documents. The year-old plan's remaining phases — the disarmament of Hamas and a full Israeli withdrawal — have yet to begin. Nickolay Mladenov of the Board of Peace told the Council that the situation on the ground "does not yet match the documents."

The human cost of the Gaza ceasefire's first year is stark. The UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees reports that 1,394 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began, and that 94 percent of Gaza's population needs shelter assistance. A UN satellite assessment counts more than 201,000 damaged buildings — 82 percent of all structures in the territory — and 91 percent of households face moderate-to-severe water insecurity.

Reconstruction exists mostly on paper. At a Board of Peace summit on September 23, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner announced a $2.45 billion reconstruction plan. But before funds flow, a planned International Stabilization Force is supposed to decommission Hamas weapons and tunnels — and that force does not yet operate. "There is a cease-fire, imperfect as it may be, but it still exists," Witkoff said at the summit, arguing that all hostages are home and humanitarian efforts have achieved historic results.

Violence has not stopped

The bloodshed keeps puncturing the truce. On September 28, Israeli strikes killed at least two Palestinians, according to Reuters: a woman on the rooftop of her building in Gaza City and a woman in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The Israeli military said it had struck a militant in Nuseirat and gave no comment on Gaza City.

Then, around dawn on September 29, an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in Gaza City's Nasr neighbourhood, killing Izz al-Din Al-Beik, the head of Hamas's armed wing in northern Gaza — a killing confirmed by both Israeli and Palestinian officials. Medics said a second person later died of wounds. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said Al-Beik was involved in planning attacks and recruiting militants, and the Israeli military says it has killed at least 20 Hamas figures this month.

Gaza authorities paint a far bleaker compliance picture. Their government media office reported more than 5,100 Israeli ceasefire violations, and said Israel had allowed in only about a third of the agreed aid trucks — roughly 72,800 of 210,600 — while warning of "imminent catastrophe" as winter approaches with 1.98 million people needing shelter assistance.

The West Bank front is heating up too

The truce year has been grim beyond Gaza. The UN's humanitarian office has recorded more than 1,600 settler attacks in the West Bank this year — an average of 6.7 a day, up from five a day in 2025 — displacing more than 4,300 Palestinians. UN officials also warned that Israel has invited bids for 1,234 new homes in the E1 area near East Jerusalem, with a deadline of October 19. If built, they say, the settlement would effectively divide the West Bank in two.

For context on scale: Palestinian authorities say more than 73,000 people have been killed in the assault on Gaza launched after Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel in October 2023. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire began.

Why a year into the Gaza ceasefire, the "temporary" divide is hardening

This is the war a generation watched unfold live on their phones for three years — and its supposed off-ramp now looks increasingly like a redrawing of the map. For the roughly two million Palestinians squeezed into a shrinking pocket of the enclave, the practical difference between a temporary buffer and a permanent frontier is measured in demolished neighborhoods, blocked aid, and another winter in tents.

What changes next comes down to three clocks. The October 19 deadline on the E1 settlement bids will show whether the West Bank partition advances. The International Stabilization Force either deploys and starts disarming Hamas, or the $2.45 billion reconstruction plan stays theoretical. And the death toll — 1,394 and counting since the truce — tests how long Washington can call an imperfect ceasefire progress while both sides trade blame for every violation.

Israel and its supporters reject the framing entirely: the construction and strikes are ceasefire-consistent self-defense, they say, and Hamas is rearming in violation of the October deal — which is precisely why figures like Al-Beik are targeted. Hamas, for its part, denies rearming and accuses Israel of systematically undermining the agreement. Both narratives cannot be true, but both are driving what happens next. Follow the primary record at UN News, Reuters, and the New York Post, and see more coverage on our War and The World pages.