This week brought cheers to many families across the divide. Twenty Israeli families joined in celebration as their dear ones returned home, ending 738 days of captivity of the Palestinian militant group Hamas since October 7, 2023. All 20 returned pale and frail, but smiling and standing on their legs, with most of them held in horrific conditions in tunnels deep under Gaza, where many faced abuse, starvation and received limited medical treatment.

The supposedly peace accord is not signed by the two principal belligerents, Israel and Hamas. Does anyone remember another peace accord where the warring factions themselves are neither represented nor are signatories?

In exchange for the 20 hostages, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 terror convicts serving life sentences, as stipulated by the ceasefire proposal, signed with much fanfare and ceremony at the Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh brokered by US President Donald Trump, joined by mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey. The White House issued a statement titled "The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity" for the Middle-East.

Sceptics point to many absurdities in this triumphant Trump showmanship. For one, the supposedly peace accord is not signed by the two principal belligerents, Israel and Hamas. Does anyone remember another peace accord where the warring factions themselves are neither represented nor are signatories?

The Hamas didn't not attend the official signing of the Gaza peace deal in Egypt, citing objections to parts of US President Donald Trump's proposed plan. Hamas leaders described as "absurd" a suggestion in the plan that its members leave the Gaza Strip and also termed the group's disarmament as "out of the question".

Two days before the signing ceremony, on Saturday last week, Hamas recalled about 7,000 members of its security forces to reassert control over areas of Gaza that had been vacated by Israeli troops as a ceasefire went into force. The group also appointed five new governors all with military backgrounds. A call was made to "cleanse Gaza of outlaws and collaborators with Israel."

The "Peace Accord" was in tatters even before the ink had dried up. Hamas carried out mass public executions in Gaza, just hours after the peace deal was signed.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't even bother to show up, officially blaming a Jewish holiday, while his government now threatens to restart military operations in Gaza, claiming Hamas hasn't handed over enough corpses. The summit's goal was to lock in guarantees and mutual commitments but the absence of Israel as a direct signatory makes any deal intrinsically shaky. Now, with global cameras focused elsewhere and diplomatic cover secured, the Netanyahu coalition appears poised to resume the assault and finish what it started.

The "Peace Accord" was in tatters even before the ink had dried up. Hamas carried out mass public executions in Gaza on Monday itself, just hours after the peace deal was signed. A wave of brutal retribution has followed the withdrawal of Israeli forces, according to disturbing video footage which shows eight blindfolded men, brutally beaten and forced to kneel in the street, being executed by Hamas fighters as a crowd cheered in the background. The militant group claimed, without offering proof, that the victims were "criminals and Israeli collaborators."

A day earlier, on Sunday, violent clashes had broken out between Hamas' internal security forces and the powerful Dagmoush clan, leaving 52 clan members dead. Reports from Gaza said that 12 Hamas fighters were also killed in the fighting, including the son of senior official Bassem Naim. Witnesses claimed that Hamas militants used ambulances to enter the neighbourhood of the clan, accusing them of working with Israel.

Israel's own recent admissions about empowering local actors to weaken Hamas strip away any illusion of disorder. What might once have been dismissed as chaos now reads as a deliberate tactic. The deliberate use of proxy militias or collaborator networks to settle scores, intimidate communities, or silence critics turns cruelty into policy with plausible deniability. When a regime outsources killing to local proxies, it maintains the appearance of distance while still harvesting the daily dividends: a fractured society, terrorized civilians, and the quiet elimination of inconvenient witnesses.

Are we back to square one? More or less. Fundamental issues underpinning the hostility have never been squarely addressed, deliberately pushed to the background or to the future in the quest for showcasing some imaginary peace and progress.

Are we back to square one? More or less. Fundamental issues underpinning the hostility have never been squarely addressed, deliberately pushed to the background or to the future in the quest for showcasing some imaginary peace and progress. The idea that the very existence of the State of Israel ("the Zionist entity") is illegal and immoral, has been ingrained in Hamas' world view since its founding. Hamas documents taken from Gaza during the Gaza War confirm what Hamas officials had publicly stated and indicate that the plan to eliminate the State of Israel had been regarded in recent years by the Hamas leadership, (as well as by its allies, Iran and Hezbollah), as executable and highly feasible in the near future.

Cries of 'From the River to the Sea... Palestine will be free' continue to rent the air as tens of thousands march down streets of New York, London, Berlin, Paris or elsewhere. This just cements the fact that the Palestinian issue remains an existential challenge to the state of Israel and the "Axis of Resistance" has the "same intention" to wipe out the Jewish people as the Nazis. Eight decades after the end of the Holocaust, Israel again faces a "ruthless and brutal" enemy who seeks its destruction.

It is critical that a political horizon or framework of principles be outlined that provides a pathway toward a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The "Two States Solution" must find the right traction.

The reality is that today, there are approximately 7 million Israeli Jews and 7 million Palestinian Arabs between the Jordan River and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. Neither, one or the other, is going anywhere else. It is critical that a political horizon or framework of principles be outlined that provides a pathway toward a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The "Two States Solution" must find the right traction. There are high barriers to overcome but they are not insurmountable.

An accord signed without the principal belligerents, without addressing the core issues and by deliberately side-lining the UN even in a post-accord peace monitoring mission only exposes the reality of a deeply fractured global geopolitics. It is hard for the US to accept that its decades of global hegemony are over. The Sharm-el-Sheikh grand show with Trump and his cohort of some willing (like Pakistan) and some unwilling (like France and Italy) leaders (minus BRICS) genuflecting to his capabilities as a "Dealmaker" must be acknowledged for bringing cheer to the families of 20 Israeli hostages freed by Hamas and the 2000 odd families of Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails. Beyond that, conflating Palestinian terror groups, like Hamas with the Nazis, the Holocaust continues to cast its long shadow over Middle-East.