While the world’s attention is consumed by the high-stakes negotiations between Washington and Tehran, the supposed ceasefire in Gaza, brokered by the United States in October 2025 has quietly become one of the most flagrant deceptions of the entire conflict.
On a single Sunday, just as mediators gathered to salvage what remains of the truce, Israeli forces killed six Palestinians: an airstrike obliterated four near Al-Yeman Al-Saeed Hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp, while two more were shot dead in separate incidents in Khan Younis and Gaza City.
The brutality of the post-ceasefire period is not anecdotal; it is statistically damning. According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israeli forces have killed more than 990 Palestinians since the truce took effect on October 10, 2025. The total death toll since October 2023 has now surpassed 73,000. In response, the Israeli military admits to having lost only four soldiers in the same period, a casualty ratio of nearly 250 Palestinians for every Israeli life.
On Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk issued a damning statement, confirming that Israeli forces have killed “almost 1,000 Palestinians since the ceasefire was announced last October, the vast majority civilians”. The UN Human Rights Office also reported that 57 Palestinians have already been killed in 2026 alone, alongside nearly 1,300 injured.
The Israeli government’s disregard for the October truce is not a recent development. It is a systematic policy of “ceasefire erosion.” The Government Media Office in Gaza documented that within the first three months of the truce, from October 10, 2025, to January 9, 2026, Israel committed at least 1,193 documented violations through air strikes, artillery shelling, and direct shootings. By mid April, that number had ballooned to over 2,400 violations, which included 921 separate shootings targeting civilians.
The violations extend far beyond aerial bombardment. In late May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly stated he had “given orders to the Israeli army to seize control of 70% of Gaza”.
The mechanism for this seizure is the “Yellow Line,” a demarcation that Israeli forces have been steadily pushing westward. By constantly shifting this line through military operations and the destruction of civilian homes, Israel is effectively eating away at the limited land remaining for Palestinian survival, while Hamas accuses the guarantor states of the truce of utter impotence.
The Israeli doctrine of violating ceasefires is not confined to Gaza. In Lebanon, a US-brokered ceasefire announced on April 17 has been equally meaningless. Despite the nominal truce, Israeli troops have maintained a deep occupation of southern Lebanon, conducting wide scale demolitions of villages, and launching daily airstrikes on towns where Israeli pilots claim Hezbollah is present.
On June 6 alone, 9 people were killed in such strikes. The Iranian Foreign Ministry has slammed these operations as a “violation of the general ceasefire,” noting that Tehran considers the Lebanon front an inseparable part of any truce agreement. When the ceasefire in Lebanon was first announced, it was supposed to lead to an Israeli withdrawal. Instead, as the Russian envoy to the UN observed, the “ceasefire became a cover for further aggression”.
As the bodies were being pulled from the rubble near the hospital in Jabalia, Hamas called on the guarantor states to “condemn the Israeli enemy's ongoing crimes” and force Israel to “respect its pledges”. Hezbollah has also explicitly stated that it has not carried out attacks since the US-Iran ceasefire announcement, but that its adherence to the truce is “dependent on Israel's commitment”.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the “continued military assault in clear violation of international law”.