“The whole world has forgotten Gaza and its tragedy,” Ahmed says bitterly. As the international media’s attention focuses on the talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the war in the Middle East, the fate of the Gaza Strip has taken a back seat.

Since the armed conflict broke out on February 28 with the U.S. and Israeli attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran, “nobody even remembers us,” says Ahmed Jamali, a 53-year-old Palestinian living in a camp for displaced persons in Gaza City.

“Israel does whatever it wants: it kills, destroys, and occupies Gaza, and no one in the world lifts a finger,” he adds, speaking to Agence France-Presse.

The unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against the southern part of Israeli territory, which left some 1,200 dead on October 7, 2023, sparked Israel’s devastating war in the Gaza Strip, which has claimed over 73,000 lives, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in the Palestinian enclave, whose figures are deemed reliable by the UN.

Subsequently, through the dynamics of alliances, it led, directly or indirectly, to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthis.

Although Israel reached a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in October 2025, four months later it opened a new front, jointly with the U.S., against Iran. The signing of the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding” in mid-June between Washington and Tehran brought an end to hostilities.

Priorities

Initially, Tehran said it wanted an agreement covering the entire region. However, the final text of the “memorandum of understanding” makes no mention of the Gaza Strip, where Hamas took power in 2007. Instead, it explicitly refers to the cessation of hostilities between the Israeli military and Hezbollah in Lebanon, a priority for Tehran.

For Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations, this “reflects a loss of Hamas’s strategic value from Iran’s perspective.”

“The Iranians aren’t really interested in Gaza; Hamas was an ally, but not a pawn of Iran, and it betrayed them: (Iran) did not want a war in the fall of 2023,” asserts Eido Hecht, an Israeli expert on military affairs.

However, according to a Western diplomatic source familiar with the Gaza file, the issue “is absent from the (U.S.-Iran) agreement not because the war has ended, but because no one currently has a credible political solution for the postwar situation.”

At this stage, the situation remains at a complete impasse, with the Palestinian enclave continuing to be mired in a humanitarian crisis, despite the precarious ceasefire, and 60% of its territory occupied by the Israeli army.

The Israeli government demands the complete disarmament of Hamas before it will even discuss any political developments in the enclave. The movement refuses to lay down its arms, especially without guarantees that an alternative Palestinian government will take over.

Behind the scenes

Talks have recently been taking place in Cairo, involving Palestinian figures—including Hamas officials—as well as envoys from Donald Trump’s “Peace Council” and from countries such as Qatar and Turkey.

“Major efforts” are underway, involving “visits” and “experimentation” to “see if we’ll get results,” though many want to see “measures” put in place, a source told Agence France-Presse, on the condition that they not be named, having participated in some of these ongoing backchannel discussions.

The talks “are moving forward,” but “we are still far from the reconstruction” of Gaza, Lovatt cautions.

Meanwhile, fears continue to be expressed that the war will resume. Israeli airstrikes and sporadic clashes have never ceased. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to disarm Hamas by force.

Some Israeli media outlets have reported on preparations for a possible attack against the Palestinian Islamist movement this summer.

However, with its military capabilities stretched to the limit and its key ally, the U.S., seemingly eager to turn the page on the war in the Middle East, “Israel doesn’t have many levers of influence, nor much room for maneuver,” says Michael Milstein, an expert on Israeli military affairs.

In his view, the Jewish state may be forced, under U.S. pressure, to accept some form of gradual disarmament of Hamas and a political transition framework, which is still under discussion.

Nevertheless, as Israel’s parliamentary elections approach—scheduled for late October— the Netanyahu government may well choose to forge ahead, opting to embark on a new “adventure” by ordering new military operations, Milstein adds.

Source: Proto Thema