Photos: What a year of ceasefire in Gaza looks like — SkimNews
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- Israel expanded military control to roughly 70% of Gaza during the ceasefire year, squeezing more than 2 million Palestinians toward the sea without any reconstruction or international peacekeeping force deployed.
- Israeli attacks killed more than 1,400 Palestinians in the 12 months since the ceasefire, including nearly 500 women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry — though bombings slowed compared to the war.
- Israel banned more than 40 international aid organizations from bringing staff or supplies into Gaza on Dec. 31, 2025, even as more food entered and reversed the UN-declared famine in the north.
- Trump's promised international peacekeeping force and Gaza reconstruction have not materialized a year after he brokered the deal between Israel and Hamas that secured the release of remaining Israeli hostages.
- Hamas continued to be targeted: a May 16, 2026 Israeli airstrike killed Izz al-Din al-Haddad, leader of the group's military wing, along with his wife, daughter, and a neighbor.
- Palestinians showed small returns to normal life — VR trauma therapy for children, the first chess tournament since the war, Christmas and Eid celebrations, beach painting workshops, and a World Cup viewing under Egyptian flags — while ~1.5 million remained in makeshift tents.
- Rescue workers retrieved corpses from under rubble in Beit Lahia in February 2026, more than a year after a single Israeli airstrike killed 132 members of the Abu Nasr family in October 2023.
- Casualty moments included a father retrieving 10-year-old Bayan after she was shot in her tent, two children wounded by shrapnel they mistook for coal, and a teenage girl killed while seeking internet for her final exams.
Why it matters: The photo essay crystallizes the gap between the diplomatic milestone Trump claimed and the lived reality for 2 million Palestinians: 70% of their territory is now under expanded Israeli military control, 1,400+ civilians have died during a supposed ceasefire, and international aid groups were banned entirely — making the 'ceasefire' a label that obscures rather than describes conditions on the ground.
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