Gaza Ceasefire: What Happened in the First Week, and How Israel Violated the Deal

Gaza (QNN)- Israel has violated the ceasefire in Gaza 47 times since the truce came into effect in early October, killing 38 Palestinians and wounding another 143.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which came into force on October 10, the Israeli forces are stipulated to “immediately end” the genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians in two years, including aerial and artillery bombardment and targeted attacks and allow the flow of aid.

What Happened in the First Week of Ceasefire

Continuing attacks

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel has violated the ceasefire 47 times since the truce came into effect, killing 38 Palestinians and wounding another 143.

“These violations have included crimes of direct gunfire against civilians, deliberate shelling and targeting, and the arrest of a number of civilians, reflecting the occupation’s continued policy of aggression despite the declared end of the war,” said the Office on Saturday.

Authorities in Gaza called on “the United Nations and the guarantor parties of the agreement to intervene urgently to compel the occupation to end its ongoing aggression and to protect unarmed civilian populations”.

On Friday, in the deadliest single violation of the ceasefire, an Israeli tank shell was fired by Israeli forces at a civilian vehicle carrying the Abu Shaaban family in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City, according to Gaza’s civil defence. Seven children and three women were among those killed when the Israeli military fired on the vehicle as the family attempted to reach their home to inspect it.

“What happened confirms that the occupation is still thirsty for blood, and insists on committing crimes against innocent civilians,” civil defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in a statement.

Nouran Mohamed, a resident of central Gaza, told QNN that there is no ceasefire in effect. “We hear the sound of tank shells and gunfire every day. For two consecutive days, a quadcopter has fired indiscriminately at residential homes in al-Maghazi camp,” she said.

“We fear that we survived two years of Israeli genocide, but with this fragile ceasefire, we may not survive what comes next. Death is walking in the streets.”

Aid Flow and Crossings

Israel has continued to seal Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt despite repeated international calls to allow in large-scale aid deliveries.

For several days, the United Nations has warned that there has been little progress in aid deliveries into Gaza and that assistance must enter at scale through all border crossings to meet urgent humanitarian needs.

Under the deal to end Israel’s genocide,, Israel was to allow for a surge in aid deliveries.

The UN said on Friday that aid convoys were struggling to reach famine-hit areas of northern Gaza due to bombed-out roads and the continued closure of other key routes, Zikim and Beit Hanoon (called Erez in Israel), into the enclave’s north.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it has brought an average of 560 tonnes of food per day into Gaza since the ceasefire began last week, but the amount is still below what is needed. The UN agency said it has enough food to feed all of Gaza for three months.

“We’re still below what we need, but we’re getting there … The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance,” WFP spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a news briefing in Geneva.

But the WFP said it had not begun distributions in Gaza City, pointing to the continued closure of Zikim and Beit Hanoon, with Israeli forces remaining in the north of the enclave where the humanitarian crisis is most acute.

UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher said last week that thousands of aid vehicles would have to enter weekly to tackle widespread malnutrition, displacement, and a collapse of infrastructure.

As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal, which calls for their gradual withdrawal, Israeli forces remain in approximately 53 percent of Gaza.

“Access to Gaza City and northern Gaza is extremely challenging,” Etefa said, adding that the movement of convoys of wheat flour and ready-to-eat food parcels from the south of the territory was being hampered by broken or blocked roads.

“It is very important to have these openings in the north; this is where the famine took hold. To turn the tide on this famine … it is very important to get these openings.”

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initial MSF, said many relief agencies had not fully returned to the north, where hospitals are barely functioning, leaving many still unable to access regular care.

“We need all crossings open. The longer Rafah stays closed the more the suffering prolongs for people in Gaza, especially those displaced in the South,” UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said on Tuesday.

“The shift has not yet happened. We are still witnessing only few trucks coming in, and large crowds approaching these trucks in a way that does absolutely not conform to humanitarian standards,” ICRC spokesperson Christian Cardon told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

Israel has been accused of blocking life-saving aid and using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.

Last week, it announced it was intensifying its blockade of Gaza by allowing only half the number of aid trucks it promised to let in.

Israel also notified the UN that no fuel or gas will be allowed into the enclave except for what it deems necessary for “humanitarian infrastructure”.

On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes in Gaza, ordered the Rafah crossing to remain closed until further notice, in a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement. Netanyahu’s decision effectively blocks thousands of Palestinians, including patients and students, from returning home.

According to Salah Ashour, a resident of Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, Israel is still starving the people of Gaza.

“We returned to our homes in the north, but we came back to rubble,” he said. “There is no real food, only small amounts of canned goods. Israel continues to block the essential food our bodies need. For two years, we’ve been deprived of meat, protein, and fresh fruits.”

What We Know

Israel is threatening to resume the genocide in Gaza and derail the ceasefire agreement, alleging that Hamas is moving too slowly in handing over the bodies of deceased captives. The Palestinian group, the Red Cross, and US President Trump have acknowledged that recovering the remains has been challenging due to the widespread destruction in Gaza.

Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, released a statement saying it has met its commitments under Trump’s Gaza plan as it pertains to Israeli captives in Gaza.

“The resistance has adhered to what was agreed upon and has handed over all the living prisoners it has and the bodies it can access,” it said.

“As for the remaining bodies, they require significant efforts and special equipment to search for and retrieve them, and we are making great efforts to close this file.”

The ceasefire plan introduced by Trump called for all captives – living and dead – to be handed over by a deadline that expired Monday. But under the deal, if that didn’t happen, Hamas was to share information about deceased abductees and try to hand them over as soon as possible.

Hamas and the Red Cross have said recovering the remains of dead captives was a challenge because of Gaza’s vast destruction, and Hamas has told mediators some are in areas controlled by Israeli forces.

Hamas said it is doing its best to uphold its end of the ceasefire deal and honouring the agreement, but it’s certainly going to need assistance in trying to locate the remaining bodies of captives because Gaza is completely in ruins.

However, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has instructed the Israeli military to draw up a “comprehensive plan” to completely defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip should the truce collapse.

According to The Times of Israel, citing Katz’s office, he instructed “the preparation of a plan for the complete defeat of Hamas in Gaza if it refuses to implement President Trump’s plan, and it becomes necessary to resume fighting”.

“If Hamas refuses to implement the agreement, Israel, in coordination with the US, will return to fighting and act to achieve the complete defeat of Hamas, change the reality in Gaza, and attain all the objectives of the war,” Katz’s office added.

Israel has told the Trump administration the next phase of the ceasefire with Hamas cannot be entered into until all of the captives’ remains are returned, Axios reported.

“Israeli officials acknowledge that a small number of the bodies will be hard to locate, but claim between 15 and 20 could be quickly returned.”

“Both Israeli and US officials close to the process are concerned that elements within the Netanyahu government – particularly ultranationalist ministers Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir – will use the issue of hostage remains to undermine the deal [which they oppose] and push for the resumption of the war,” the news report said.

Trump spoke earlier on the difficulty of retrieving the bodies of Israeli captives from destroyed areas in Gaza.

“It’s a gruesome process. I almost hate to talk about it so. But they’re digging. They are actually digging,” Trump told reporters in the White House.

“There are areas where they are digging, and they are finding a lot of bodies. Then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn’t believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time. And some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble,” Trump said.

“Some are in tunnels, that died in tunnels, that are way down under the earth. And the tunnels are like three feet. Can you believe it, three feet high? They lived like this for a long period of time. It’s a horrible atrocity,” he said.

On Monday, the last 20 living Israeli captives were released by Hamas in exchange for 1,968 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Now, the bodies of the last dead captives are being recovered by Hamas and delivered to Israel.

Israel is also still blocking the entry of heavy equipment and machinery needed to dig out bodies from under the rubble. It is not just the bodies of deceased Israeli captives under the rubble, it is the thousands of Palestinian bodies buried and missing and trapped under tonnes and tonnes of rubble and debris.

What Hamas Adds

Hamas condemned Israel’s decisions, calling them “blatant breach of the ceasefire terms and a denial of Israel’s commitments to mediators and guarantor states.”

“The occupation continues its aggression and blockade against more than two million Palestinians in Gaza,” the Palestinian resistance movement said.

“War criminal Netanyahu is fabricating false excuses to obstruct the agreement and evade his obligations.”