Negotiations offer Gaza hope, but residents say collapse is already here - feature

Employees of a water desalination plant speak to the press about the water crisis in the Gaza Strip.

(photo credit: Screenshot/The Media Line)

In Gaza, uncertainty over negotiations and postwar arrangements is deepening the strain of daily life. As shortages spread across water, fuel, health care, and basic services, people inside Gaza and beyond say the current framework is not addressing the deeper crisis on the ground.

Political analyst Iyad Jouda describes a growing sense that the political process is preserving the status quo rather than changing it. “I believe the actual agreements were not what they should have been. There were headlines that the Peace Council wanted to promote and convince us were real, but in reality, the coordination being carried out with the Israeli prime minister reflects an agreement on procedures that maintain the current situation in Gaza.”

For him, the gap between promises and reality is central. “Israel is not abiding by its commitments, and the Peace Council is not acting according to a real plan that would lead to the end of the occupation in Gaza,” he tells The Media Line. “If we return to the basis on which the Peace Council was formed, it was supposed to lead to the end of the occupation in Gaza, Israeli withdrawal, and then the unification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”