The war in Gaza was already over in January. Trump let it reopen and expand. A ceasefire is good—but it should have happened much earlier.
When Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in January 2025, on the last day of the Biden administration, President Joe Biden demanded credit. « This is the exact framework of the deal I proposed back in May. Exact », he said. Of course, that raises the question—if the deal was on the table earlier, why didn’t Biden secure it then?
That ceasefire fell apart after only two months. Seven bloody months later, the Trump administration has finally brokered a new one. President Donald Trump, like Biden before him, wants the credit. « BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS! » he declared in his announcement of the ceasefire, waxing biblical. (Trump also, bizarrely, tried to credit his tariff policy for the truce.) But like Biden before him, Trump deserves scrutiny for the violence that dragged on when a deal was already on the table.
The basic formula has stayed the same. Israel and Hamas exchange hostages and prisoners. The Israeli army leaves Gaza, and a new Palestinian governing authority takes over from Hamas, which will have to disarm. Although the full details are not public yet (and may not even be finalized as of this morning), this ceasefire will be divided into phases, as the January one was. Each phase will be negotiated while the prior phase is ongoing.
The January ceasefire broke down during phase one, the first set of hostage and prisoner exchanges. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to begin negotiations for phase two and added new conditions. Hamas held a series of humiliating « ceremonies » for the release of hostages, including the bodies of the Bibas children who died in captivity.
Trump played spoiler to his own peace efforts at several points.
