The ceasefire that took effect in Gaza in October 2025 brought a sharp decline in the intensity of fighting, but it did not end the conflict. When the US-Israeli war with Iran erupted in February 2026, international media attention shifted decisively toward the Iranian front, while Israeli military operations continued and lines of control inside Gaza kept moving. This shift in focus was not a direct cause of Israeli decisions, but it provided Israel with an environment of reduced international scrutiny and pressure at a time when the map on the ground was gradually being redrawn.
The ceasefire that began on October 10, 2025, was less an end to the war than a transition into a lower-intensity and more ambiguous phase. Casualties fell sharply compared with the height of the war, but military operations did not cease, Israel did not fully withdraw, and the next political phase of the agreement was never meaningfully implemented. Then, on February 28, 2026, the US-Israeli war with Iran pushed Gaza into a different position: the fighting in Gaza did not stop, but the world began looking elsewhere.
Al Jazeera documented this paradox in April, noting that international coverage of Gaza had declined as global attention shifted toward the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran, despite the continuation of Israeli military operations. It also reported that Israel carried out attacks in Gaza on 36 of the 40 days following the outbreak of the war with Iran. In other words, the event that transformed the media agenda did not produce a comparable transformation on the ground.
This is where the significance of the shift lies. The war with Iran did not replace the war in Gaza; it replaced Gaza as the center of international attention. That shift was not itself an Israeli decision, nor is there evidence that the war with Iran was launched for this purpose. But the decline in intensive media scrutiny effectively gave Israel greater room to operate in Gaza at a moment when each new development was receiving less international attention.
The more consequential change, however, was not in the news cycle. It was on the map.
Since the beginning of the ceasefire, Israel has retained military positions inside Gaza, while the so-called “Yellow Line” has gradually shifted. In June, OCHA reported that areas subject to heightened Israeli restrictions had reached approximately 64.9% of the Gaza Strip, amid further movements of the line and indications of an Israeli push to extend the area to roughly 70%. The restricted areas included agricultural land, populated areas, water and sanitation facilities, and humanitarian infrastructure.
The figure of 64.9% does not mean that Israeli forces maintain a permanent military presence in every square meter of that territory. But it reveals a direction that cannot be ignored: the space accessible to Palestinians is shrinking, while the scope of Israeli restrictions and control is expanding.
This is where the ceasefire itself becomes the central question. If its purpose was to reduce hostilities as a prelude to Israeli withdrawal, political arrangements, and reconstruction, then the continued reconfiguration of territory during the ceasefire produces a very different outcome: the intensity of the war may decline while some of its territorial consequences become increasingly entrenched.
That is the danger created by time. A formal annexation or the drawing of new borders is not necessary for a new reality to become harder to reverse. It is enough for troops to remain, restricted zones to expand, displacement and demolition to continue, and the second phase of the agreement to remain stalled. What begins as a temporary security arrangement can, over time, become a permanent political reality.
The casualty figures underscore the paradox. More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,100 injured since the ceasefire began, according to the latest figures reported by the United Nations from Gaza’s Health Ministry. These numbers do not mean that the war has returned to its pre-ceasefire intensity; rather, they demonstrate that the ceasefire has reduced the level of violence without bringing it to an end.
Meanwhile, the second phase of the agreement—intended to pave the way for security and political arrangements, Israeli withdrawal, civilian administration, and reconstruction—remains stalled amid disagreements over Hamas’s disarmament and the conditions for Israeli withdrawal.
Gaza is therefore caught between two states: it is no longer experiencing the full-scale war of previous years, but neither has it reached the peace the ceasefire was supposed to produce.
The international question, therefore, should be less about the number of daily strikes and more about what is happening to the map. Is Israeli control contracting or expanding? Are Palestinians returning to their homes, or is their freedom of movement shrinking? And is the ceasefire leading toward a political settlement—or simply giving the military reality enough time to become entrenched?
While Iranian missiles were making the headlines, military movements in Gaza were creating quieter facts on the ground—facts that may prove far more enduring.
That is the paradox that deserves attention. The world’s shift toward Iran did not itself create the changes taking place in Gaza, but it helped create an environment of reduced scrutiny and pressure in which those changes could continue. That may be the most consequential political effect of Gaza’s decline in the news cycle.
The war may eventually end, but the map that changed while the world was looking elsewhere may remain for years to come.
Dr. Marwa El-Shinawy, Academic and Writer
