Is the Gaza War Finally Over?
- Ofek Kehila
- Oct 9
- 3 min read
It all happened within days.
On October 7, 2025, Israel was still mourning the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas-led attack in 2023, which claimed the lives of over 1,000 Israelis in a single day, the biggest loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust.
On October 8, two years and one day after the Gaza war had started, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had signed off on the first phase of the peace plan to release all the hostages and end the war.
By October 10, a ceasefire officially went into effect after the Israeli government had ratified the deal with Hamas.
If everything proceeds as planned, the release of all remaining hostages will take place by Monday or Tuesday, October 13-14. This could potentially mean the end of the Gaza war and the dawn of peace in the Middle East.
President Trump also announced that he plans to travel to the region early next week, with stops in Israel and Egypt. He might even deliver a speech at the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. Trump was also invited to the Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, but it is unlikely that he would have the time to do so, given the short visit.
Is the Gaza war finally over?
According to polls, the majority of Israelis want the Gaza war to end. The Israel Democracy Institute found that 66% of Israelis surveyed believe that the Israel-Hamas War should be ended by the current hostage deal on the table.
Right now, the biggest question that remains unanswered is whether Israel, Hamas, and many world nations supporting the agreement will go through the different phases of the Gaza peace plan. If all goes well, what awaits us is no less than the official end of the Gaza war, a possible expansion of the Abraham Accords, and perhaps even a wider peace and normalization in the region.
Even without a Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump remains determined to make progress: “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a post on X.
However, the Gaza war has to end first. For that to happen, both sides may have to make difficult compromises. As of October 10, the IDF has already withdrawn to the updated “yellow line,” and now Hamas must work toward the release of the 48 hostages, 20 out of which are alive, within 72 hours. In exchange, Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of convicted murderers.
Wrap up
Israel and Hamas agreeing to the first phase of the plan is certainly wonderful news, but it is only the first step in Trump’s 20-point plan. The next stages may prove even harder to accomplish. And yet, the rewards might be worth the tremendous efforts. As if in a dream, peace in the Middle East seems closer than ever.
Ofek Kehila (Israel, 1987) is a scholar of Spanish Golden Age literature and Latin American literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. His research bridges the gap between those traditions, highlighting their aesthetic, cultural, and historical dialogue. He holds a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2022) and was a postdoctoral fellow at Freie Universität Berlin (2023-2025).