🚨BREAKING: A ceasefire deal has been agreed on, but I want to explain what it does and does not mean for Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump and Netanyahu call it peace. Hamas calls it a risk. And as Gaza exhales for the first time in two years, the world must hold its breath.

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A Cease-Fire at Last — and Still the Sound of Explosions

Tonight, even as Israeli warplanes are still bombing Gaza, a cease-fire framework has finally been signed.

Hamas and every major Palestinian faction have accepted the first phase of a deal brokered by President Donald Trump — a plan that promises the release of Israeli hostages, the freeing of roughly 2,000 Palestinian hostages, and the slow entry of aid back into a strip of land that has known nothing but starvation, rubble, and mourning for two straight years.

There is real hope in Gaza tonight.
I’ve heard from teachers in Khan Younis and families in Deir al-Balah who are weeping with relief that the war might, finally, pause. They deserve that hope.

But the truth, brothers and sisters, is that this deal is as fragile as the dust rising over the ruins of Gaza City. Let me explain….

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Jeremy Scahill’s Reporting — What’s Real

I worked with

Jeremy Scahill

years ago at The Intercept. I trust his reporting more than almost anyone alive, and his piece for

Drop Site News

is the clearest account of what actually happened in Sharm el-Sheikh tonight.

Jeremy quotes senior Hamas officials confirming the words no one thought they would say:

“From our side, yes … It’s over. Everybody’s agreed on it.”

He reports that Hamas accepted the framework only because Trump personally guaranteed that the United States would stop Israel from resuming the war once hostages are released — a promise that any Palestinian would call a gamble, given Washington’s history.

“This is a risk,” Hamas negotiator Mousa Abu Marzouk told him, “but we trusted President Trump to be the guarantor … Had there been no commitment from the American president, we would never have agreed to take the risk.”

That single sentence explains the emotional contradiction of this moment: trusting the man who armed Israel’s genocide to guarantee its end.

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What Trump and Netanyahu Are Calling Victory

Thirty-seven minutes after Jeremy’s story went live, Trump posted on Truth Social:

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan… This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America.”

In Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu echoed him:

“With God’s help we will bring them all home.”

By dawn, the talking points were set. Trump is already portraying himself as the man who “brought peace to the world,” and Netanyahu is declaring “a great day for Israel.”

But read the fine print Jeremy obtained: Israeli forces will not withdraw completely. They’ll simply redeploy to “an agreed-upon line” inside Gaza. The Rafah crossing will reopen — but under Israeli and Egyptian control. Six hundred aid trucks will enter daily — barely the UN’s minimum. And all of it rests on Trump’s personal word, not on law or binding resolution.

This is what peace looks like when written by men who bomb while they negotiate.

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How The New York Times Spins It

Compare that to The New York Times. I read their late-night feed so you don’t have to. The Times calls this “a long-awaited breakthrough,” yet every paragraph softens Israeli accountability. Bombs are described as “deployments.” A massacre becomes “a two-year war.”

They celebrate Trump’s “20-point peace plan” as if it were the Camp David Accords, even though the plan demands Hamas disarm, foreign troops occupy Gaza, and a ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by Trump and Tony Blair oversee reconstruction. That isn’t peace; that’s privatized colonization with better branding.

The Times even quotes Trump bragging that he can “bring peace through tariffs.” Gaza doesn’t need tariffs. Gaza needs oxygen, medicine, and justice.

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What the Deal Actually Does

If implemented, Phase One will:

• Release 20 living Israeli hostages and the remains of 28 others.

• Free about 2,000 Palestinian hostages — mostly women and children detained since October 7.

• Resume aid shipments and reopen Rafah in both directions.

• Establish a temporary cease-fire while negotiators hammer out Phase Two, which will decide the future of Gaza’s governance, disarmament, and reconstruction.

Those are real, measurable gains. For a mother in Gaza who hasn’t fed her child in two days, a single aid truck is not symbolism. It’s life.

But Hamas officials admit the trade-off is brutal. Once the hostages are returned, their only leverage disappears. If Israel resumes bombing, Trump’s guarantee will be the only shield they have — and history tells us how paper-thin that shield can be.

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A Gamble Written in Blood

“This is a risk,” Abu Marzouk said plainly. “If it works, they’ll be considered geniuses. If it fails, fools.”

And while world leaders congratulate themselves, Israel is still bombing Gaza tonight.
The smoke outside al-Shifa Hospital doesn’t care that diplomats are tweeting hashtags about peace. The cease-fire may be signed, but the killing has not ceased.

That contradiction — hope announced over the sound of explosions — is the only honest way to describe this moment.

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What Comes Next: Phases Two and Three

The real fight now moves to what negotiators are calling Phase Two — questions of disarmament, governance, and long-term reconstruction.

Trump’s draft plan hands control of Gaza to a “technocratic, apolitical committee” overseen by his new “Board of Peace.” In practice, that could mean U.S., Israeli, and British oversight of a territory they’ve spent years destroying.

Hamas, the Popular Front, and Islamic Jihad have all said these demands are unacceptable. So has nearly every Palestinian civil-society group. They know what “technocratic” means in Western diplomacy: a polite word for occupation without the uniforms.

If those talks collapse, the bombs return in full force. If they succeed, Gaza could see the first sustained calm in two years — but only if the world holds Netanyahu to a promise he’s broken every previous time.

That is the fragility of this peace. It can live or die on any phone call between Trump, Netanyahu, and the billionaires who fund them both.

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What We Must Remember

I’ve covered Gaza for years. I’ve watched cease-fires come and go like mirages: each one greeted with headlines, each one violated before the ink dried.

But tonight feels different because ordinary Palestinians are daring to hope again. They are texting relatives abroad. They are imagining tomorrow.

We owe it to them not to let that hope be stolen by politicians who never keep their word.

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What We Do Now

Hold them accountable.
Demand that Israel’s bombs actually stop.
Insist that aid trucks roll and that Rafah truly opens.
And remind the world that a cease-fire is not peace until Gaza lives free from siege, surveillance, and starvation.

Trump and Netanyahu can claim victory; Jeremy Scahill can report the facts; but history will remember what the people of Gaza did with the silence between the bombs.

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This truth costs courage.
That’s the price of journalism free from governments and propaganda. Please subscribe so we can keep telling the truth while the powerful tell their lies.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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