The dust has barely settled on what was a momentous day for Israel and Palestine, described by U.S. President Donald Trump as ‘the historic dawn of a new Middle East’.
With the long-awaited return of the last 20 surviving hostages from 738 days in underground captivity, Israelis were finally able to begin the path towards healing from the trauma of the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Meanwhile, the smiling faces of Palestinian children celebrating the ceasefire marked the first time in two years that they could safely go outside without the fear of aerial strikes or gunfire.
But the road to lasting peace is full of minefields, according to experts in the region, who have warned that the success of phase one of Trump’s 20-point plan might soon descend into chaos.
For some Israelis, Hamas has already violated their side of the deal, by failing to return all of the 28 deceased hostages as stipulated in Trump’s peace proposal.
‘Hamas has already broken the agreement by sending over only four bodies yesterday,’ Lianne Pollak-David, a former adviser in Israel’s National Security Council, told the Daily Mail.
‘If this is not resolved in the next few days, if mediators in Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, and of course, Trump’s leadership, do not get that moving fast, it could really break the whole deal,’ she warned.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that the bodies of four hostages returned by Hamas have been identified, with the victims including Guy Iluz, an Israeli national, and Bipin Joshi, an agriculture student from Nepal.
President Donald Trump holds a signed document during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
People watch a helicopter, on the day of hostages-prisoners swap, during a ceasefire deal in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, at Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Hospital, in Petah Tikva, Israel October 13, 2025
Palestinians celebrate following the announcement that Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a peace plan to pause the fighting, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025
Being able to honour the dead with a swift and respectable burial is of paramount importance in Jewish tradition, and Hamas’ delay on returning the other 24 bodies has been interpreted by Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum as a blatant – and dangerous – violation of its commitments.
And while Trump’s plan calls on the Sunni Islamist group to disarm, decommission its weapons, and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, making the Strip a ‘terror-free zone’, Hamas seems to be doing the precise opposite.
It recently recalled 7,000 gunmen to reassert control over areas of the enclave that had been vacated by the IDF, in a bid to cleanse the Strip of outlaws and ‘collaborators with Israel’.
Images show gun-wielding officers, several of them in plain clothes and others in blue uniforms, patrolling the streets, while videos show militants carrying out executions by gunfire on rows of tied-up victims in public squares.
‘At this very moment, they are carrying out executions in the public sphere, without trial, against people they believe collaborated with the IDF,’ said Ruth Wasserman Lande, former member of the Israeli Knesset.
‘They’re literally executing people in the streets, and filming it themselves, because they are currently in control – even though there was an agreement that they would not govern, and they would not police, and they would not be armed.
‘They are shooting them with arms that they carry… terrorising not Jews and Israelis, not Europeans – but Gazans.’
The group has also refused to disarm until a sovereign Palestinian state is established, but Trump’s plan makes self-determination and statehood dependent on the Palestinian Authority first undergoing reforms – resulting in a deadlock.
A horrifying new video on social media appears to show several men being executed
In the video, a crowd can be seen cheering as the men are slaughtered. There are chants of ‘Allah Akbar,’ or God is Great. The men are also called ‘collaborators’
‘Disarming Hamas is a major challenge that’s going to take a while,’ said Pollak-David.
‘Who’s actually going to do it? And when is that going to happen? It needs to be very quick, efficient, and with determination. Somebody has to do this dirty job. The only question is how, when, and how effective will it be?’
It’s not just the terror group that poses a barrier to lasting peace in the region.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could take advantage of Hamas’ violations of Trump’s deal, using any breach as an excuse to continue a war that has killed tens of thousands, warns Anoush Ehteshami, professor of international relations at Durham University.
‘Hamas leaders [have been] told that they will have to comply by what the Arab majority now wants – which is peace, return of law and order to Gaza, and disarming – with a view to provide a secular, civil government, linked with the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, in the West Bank,’ he said.
‘We don’t know whether they will or not, but they will have to submit to move this agenda forward. If they don’t, then that gives Netanyahu the perfect excuse back to a war footing, even though president Trump has made it very clear that he will not tolerate the start of the war again in Gaza.’
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are in favour of settling the enclave, voted against the ceasefire, and support the continuation of the war, that has displaced about 90 percent the Strip’s two million residents and killed more than 67,000, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
If they leave his coalition, the Israeli prime minister loses his majority – creating an incentive to prolonging the war in order to satisfy the religious ultranationalists his government depends on.
Israelis gather at Hostages Square to celebrate after the release of the first group of hostages held in Gaza on October 13, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel
Released Israeli hostage Evyatar David reacts upon arriving at Beilinson Hospital in the Rabin Medical Centre in Petah Tikva in central Israel on October 13, 2025
Released Israeli hostage, Omri Miran, held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, embraces his father, Dani Miran
‘My concern is that he might fall short on every count, because for him, the most important factor is to secure his government and stay in power,’ said Ehteshami.
‘Otherwise, he faces a multitude of legal challenges over his past misdeeds, and secondly, he’s very conscious of the legacy that he wants to leave. He has, in the eyes of the rightwing in his government, given away the Gaza Strip they were dreaming of settling on.’
Trump’s maintained interest in a sustainable peace will play a crucial role in determining whether stability is possible, according to Andrew Fox, former British Army paratrooper and defence analyst.
‘I think if it’s a Democrat in the White House next time, this whole thing falls apart on the spot, because it’s being held together by Trump’s personality – his strong-arming technique wouldn’t necessarily work with another president,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘We’ve seen with Ukraine, he gets bored and walks away if something’s not working,’ Fox added, referencing Trump’s recent Truth Social post where he appeared to wash his hands with the conflict beyond providing Ukraine with weapons, wishing ‘good luck!’ to the warring sides.
‘As far as he’s concerned, he’s got the hostages home, so he’s got his big win. And actually, if you look at American polling, support for continuing the war was around 30 to 34 percent across the political spectrum, so there was a domestic incentive for him to get this ended.’
According to the U.S. president’s peace plan, the second phase of the process involves a transitional, technocratic committee made up of Palestinians and international experts who will run Gaza.
Oversight would be provided by a new international ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by Trump, with other leaders such as former British prime minister Tony Blair suggested as members.
But for Fox, the problems run deeper than deciding what authority will run the enclave.
‘What this peace deal doesn’t really address at the moment is the radicalisation of Gazan society,’ he said.
‘Even if you get rid of Hamas, everyone there still hates Israel and still supports armed action against Israel, with rockets and such like. So how you achieve as a transitional authority a change in that attitude is exceptionally difficult.’
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid echoed the sentiment. ‘The burden of proof today is on the Palestinians – they just prove they reject the path of terrorism, that they will end the incitement in their schools and mosques, that they will fight corruption,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘Hamas must stick to its part of the agreement or be forced to do so by all the leaders who supported the Trump plan, especially Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. That includes the return of the bodies of all the murdered hostages and the disarmament of Hamas. That is the agreement, that is what must happen,’ he continued.
‘We need to now put a timeline and mechanism on the plan to make sure it is fully implemented.’
As part of the next stage of the deal, the U.S. has committed to deploying a multinational, 200-strong task force of troops to Israel, comprised of personnel from Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
In his historic speech to the Knesset on Monday, Trump heralded a new era of prosperity in the Middle East, saying: ‘This is not only the end of a war, this is the end of an age of terror and death, and the beginning of the age of faith and hope.’
And in Sharm El-Sheikh later that day, he assembled leaders from more than 20 countries for his ‘Peace 2025’ conference, showing an unprecedented unity in the Arab world and beyond for lasting stability in the region.
Major challenges remain. Across Israel, there is little support for a two-state solution, despite Trump including that aim into deal.
Meanwhile, some 50 percent of Palestinians supported the October 7, 2023 massacre, and 41 percent supported armed resistance, according to a poll in May.
For professor Ehteshami, it’s the job of the European, Arab and Muslim parties present at the summit to consolidate the vague 20-point plan, adding precise ‘objectives’ about the future governance of Palestine and injecting it with the necessary ‘infrastructure’ and ‘scaffolding’.
And this must happen ‘as soon as possible, before Trump moves on’.
‘I’m hopeful, because I see the smiling faces of the families of the hostages, and I see the smiling faces of the Palestinians returning to what are devastated homes,’ he said.
‘I’m hopeful that all the parties will use this opportunity to – for once – think of a different future.
‘But I was here when the Oslo Accords were negotiated, and look where we are now. So my hope is always tinged with a degree of anxiety.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .