The ceasefire is a tactical pause designed to manage global outrage. Israel and its allies have long relied on ceasefires to recalibrate strategy, recover international legitimacy and delay accountability, while leaving the structures of apartheid, blockade and occupation intact. Continued bombardment and repression during this period confirm that the underlying conditions remain unchanged.

What has shifted is not state behaviour, but global consciousness. The scale of killing, combined with unprecedented levels of documentation, has destabilised dominant narratives that frame Palestinian suffering as accidental or self-inflicted. These narratives are rooted in colonial racism that normalises violence against the colonised while demanding restraint only from the oppressed.

The ceasefire exists largely because global civil society forced it into being. The danger is that without sustained global pressure, the ceasefire will simply reset the power asymmetries that have favoured Israel for decades. A pause without accountability is not peace; it is a reconfiguration of domination.

Civil society mobilisation has reshaped the political terrain around the genocide in Gaza in ways states have been unwilling to do. Diasporic organising, labour actions prioritising justice over profit, mass protests across continents and student movements have turned Palestine into a global moral and political reference point. These transnational movements, led by diasporic networks, justice advocates, racialised communities and young people, have disrupted narratives that dehumanise Palestinians and normalise Israeli violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

What distinguishes this moment is the convergence of struggles. Palestine has become a connective tissue linking movements against incarceration, police violence, racial capitalism and settler colonialism. Activists increasingly recognise that legal doctrines, surveillance regimes and technologies tested on Palestinians circulate globally. Gaza is no longer treated as an exception, but as a warning.

Civil society’s role in accountability extends beyond monitoring ceasefire violations. Through documentation of war crimes, economic pressure campaigns, institutional disruption and legal advocacy, grassroots movements are redefining what accountability looks like. Civil society is one of the few remaining arenas where international law retains political meaning.

President Trump’s proposed Board of Peace is unlikely to deliver. It is fundamentally flawed because it reproduces colonial trusteeship in the language of humanitarian care, a care that was conspicuously absent during over two years of sustained mass violence against Palestinian civilians. By excluding Palestinians from meaningful decision-making while empowering western states and regional allies historically opposed to Palestinian liberation, the proposal strips Palestinians of political agency.

The proposed involvement of Gulf states is particularly revealing. They are often framed as neutral regional stakeholders and models of economic prosperity, yet many have normalised relations with Israel while remaining largely disengaged from Palestinian struggles. Their participation would likely prioritise investment opportunities, regional stability and risk management over decolonisation and justice. Gaza is thus reimagined as a site of technocratic management and capitalist reconstruction rather than political struggle and historical redress.

From a political economy perspective, the Board of Peace functions as a disciplinary mechanism. Aid, political recognition and reconstruction are made conditional upon Palestinian compliance with externally imposed norms that prioritise economic growth. Reconstruction without sovereignty would turn Gaza into a dependent enclave governed by donors, investors and security actors.

Ultimately, this model will fail because it ignores the root of the crisis: Israel’s structural domination and the international system that sustains it.

Moving beyond the ceasefire requires abandoning the illusion that peace can exist without justice. As long as Israel eludes accountability, violence will remain cyclical.

In the short term, I am pessimistic. Palestinians continue to be framed as inherently suspect. They are deemed dangerous when they resist and invisible when they comply. Yet global pressure is growing. Like South Africa under apartheid, Palestine represents a turning point in global political consciousness. The speed, scale and volume of documentation have destroyed plausible deniability. Governments are increasingly forced to choose between complicity and accountability; there is no neutral position. The future of peace will depend not on elite negotiations alone, but on whether this global awakening can be translated into change that centres equality and justice.