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Gaza Ceasefire Outlook Darkens as Israel Delays Aid and Hamas Tightens Grip
Red Cross vehicles escort a truck transporting the bodies of Palestinians who had been held in Israel during the war, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Israel delayed aid into Gaza and kept the enclave’s border shut on Tuesday, while re-emergent Hamas fighters demonstrated their grip by executing men in the street, darkening the outlook for US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.
Three Israeli officials said Israel had decided to restrict aid into the shattered Gaza Strip and delay plans to open the border crossing to Egypt at least through Wednesday, because Hamas had been too slow to turn over bodies of dead hostages. The militant group has said locating the bodies is difficult.
Meanwhile, Hamas has swiftly reclaimed the streets of Gaza’s urban areas, following the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops last week.
In a video circulated late on Monday, Hamas fighters dragged seven men with hands tied behind their backs into a Gaza City square, forced them to their knees and shot them from behind, as dozens of onlookers watched from nearby shopfronts.
A Hamas source confirmed that the video was filmed on Monday and that Hamas fighters participated in the executions. Reuters was able to confirm the location by visible geographic features.
DELAY IN HANDING OVER BODIES
Trump has given his blessing to Hamas to reassert some control of Gaza, at least temporarily. Israeli officials, who say any final settlement must permanently disarm Hamas, have so far refrained from commenting publicly on the reemergence of the group’s fighters.
On Monday the US president proclaimed the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” to Israel’s parliament, as Israel and Hamas were exchanging the last 20 living Israeli hostages in Gaza for nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees and prisoners.
But so far, Hamas has handed over only four coffins of dead hostages, leaving at least 23 presumed dead and one unaccounted for, still in Gaza.
Aid trucks have yet to be permitted to enter Gaza at the full anticipated rate of hundreds per day, and plans have yet to be implemented to open the crossing to Egypt to let some Gazans out, initially to evacuate the wounded for medical treatment.
HAMAS RETURN DEMONSTRATES HURDLES TO SETTLEMENT
The highly public return of Hamas to control of Gaza’s streets demonstrates the hurdles to progressing from the initial ceasefire – phase one of Trump’s plan – to a permanent settlement that would prevent a new eruption of fighting.
Gaza residents said Hamas fighters were increasingly visible on Tuesday, deploying along routes needed for aid deliveries.
Palestinian security sources said dozens of people had been killed in clashes between Hamas fighters and rivals in recent days.
Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire. The Israeli military said it had fired on people who crossed truce lines and approached its forces after ignoring calls to turn back.
A summit co-hosted by Trump in Egypt on Monday ended with no public announcement of major progress towards establishing an international military force for Gaza, or a new governing body.
HAMAS ASSERTS CONTROL
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently maintained that the war cannot end until Hamas gives up its weapons and ceases to control Gaza, a demand that the fighters have rejected, torpedoing all previous peace efforts.
But Trump, having announced that the war is now over, said on Monday Hamas still had a temporary green light to keep order.
“They do want to stop the problems, and they’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” he said.
Hamas sources told Reuters on Tuesday the group would tolerate no more violations of order in Gaza and would target collaborators, armed looters and drug dealers.
The group, though greatly weakened after two years of pummeling Israeli bombardment and ground incursions, has been gradually reasserting itself since the ceasefire took hold.
It has deployed hundreds of workers to start rubble clearing on key routes needed to access damaged or destroyed housing and to repair broken water pipes. Road clearance and security provision will also be needed for increased aid delivery.
AID AND HOSTAGES
The ceasefire has stopped two years of devastating warfare in Gaza triggered by the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas-led terrorists killed around 1,200 people and seized 251 hostages.
Swathes of Gaza are in ruins and the global hunger monitor said in August there was famine in the territory. Thousands of Gazans have been returning to homes since the ceasefire, many finding whole streets bombed into dust.
UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said that while aid was getting into Gaza with tents, tarpaulin sheets, winter clothes, family hygiene kits and other critical items, she hoped for a significant increase later this week.
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Pennsylvania Man Pleads Guilty to Arson Attack on Governor’s Mansion
Cody Balmer appears in a booking photograph after his arrest on suspicion of an attack on Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro’s official residence, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. April 14, 2025. Photo: Dauphin County District Attorney/Handout via REUTERS.
A 38-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to attempting to murder Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in an April arson attack on the governor’s residence in which he scaled a fence and ignited part of the house with gasoline-filled beer bottles as Shapiro and his family slept inside.
Cody Balmer also pleaded guilty to terrorism, 22 counts of arson, 21 counts of reckless endangerment, burglary, aggravated assault, and loitering, according to records from the Dauphin County Court in Pennsylvania.
A Pennsylvania judge sentenced Balmer to 25 to 50 years in state prison, according to Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo, who prosecuted the case.
The April attack was part of a surge in political violence in the United States. There were about 150 politically motivated attacks in the first half of 2025, nearly double the number from that period last year, according to political violence researchers.
In an emotional press conference on Tuesday, Shapiro said the attack had taken a profound toll on him and his family, and that despite rising levels of political violence in the US, nobody should “grow numb” to it.
“We need real accountability for acts of political violence, and today is real accountability for the violence that came here to Pennsylvania,” said Shapiro, who is seen as a potential candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in 2028.
After the attack, Balmer told police he “harbored hatred” toward Shapiro and would have beaten him with a hammer if he had encountered the governor inside the residence.
According to a police search warrant released in April when Balmer called 911 to confess, he told police he believed Shapiro, who is Jewish, was encouraging the war in Gaza, and that he “needs to stop having my friends killed,” and “our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Since the attack on Shapiro’s residence, other acts of political violence in the United States have targeted figures on the right and left.
In June, a Christian nationalist murdered a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota, and wounded a second Democrat.
In July, a group of at least 11 militants in black military-style clothing attacked an immigration detention center in Texas. The group set off fireworks, spray-painted “traitor” and “ICE Pig” on vehicles, and shot a responding police officer in the neck, wounding him, while another sprayed gunfire at detention guards, according to the FBI.
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Hamas to Start Handing Over Bodies of Four Israeli Hostages Tuesday Night, Official Says
Trucks carrying aid move, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri
Hamas has informed mediators it will begin transferring bodies of four deceased Israeli hostages to Israel at 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Tuesday, an official involved in the operation told Reuters.
Earlier, Israeli officials said the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would stay closed at least through Wednesday and the flow of aid into the Palestinian enclave would be reduced to put pressure on the terrorist group to hand over the bodies of the hostages it is holding.
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Hamas Executes Dozens of Gazans Accused of ‘Treason’
Hamas fighters on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Majdi Fathi via Reuters Connect
i24 News – Hours after the release of the final Israeli hostages under the US-brokered ceasefire, Hamas gunmen executed more than 30 Palestinians accused of treason and collaboration, in what security sources and witnesses described as a brutal bid to reassert control over the war-torn Gaza Strip.
According to various reports and videos, at least 33 people were shot dead across several neighborhoods after being accused of spying for Israel or belonging to rival armed groups.
Videos shared on social media showed masked fighters forcing men to kneel before executing them at close range, as crowds gathered, chanting “Allahu Akbar.” Reuters and other outlets were unable to independently verify the footage or its location.
The wave of executions comes as Hamas, weakened by months of Israeli military strikes, cautiously redeploys members of its Qassam Brigades into Gaza’s streets.
The executions took place just hours after US President Donald Trump, en route from Jerusalem to Sharm el-Sheikh for ceasefire talks, said he had authorized Hamas to “manage internal security in Gaza as it sees fit” under the current agreement.