Israel now controls nearly 70% of Gaza despite truce

Belgrade, which has spent years trying to balance its European perspective against long-standing ties to the Arab world, is watching closely as the Washington-brokered ceasefire in Gaza hardens into a frozen conflict with no prospect of a swift resolution. Nine months after the guns fell silent on paper, the Israeli military controls nearly 70% of the Gaza Strip, up from roughly half at the outset along the demarcation line known as the yellow line. For Serbian diplomacy, which tends to withhold unilateral condemnations in multilateral bodies, it is a reminder that even the most solemnly signed agreement does not enforce itself.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since the truce took effect, with attacks recurring almost daily. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that the expanded military presence is not a violation of the deal but part of a step-by-step plan to encircle Hamas on all sides and force it to surrender. The Palestinian side describes the move as an open undermining of the agreement and an attempt to impose new facts on the ground by force.

A yellow line that keeps moving

At the heart of the dispute lies the interpretation of the demarcation line itself. When the ceasefire was concluded in October, Israeli forces pulled back to agreed positions that left them in control of roughly half the territory. In the months that followed, that line crept deeper into the Strip, so that today the Israeli military holds a substantially larger share, including buffer zones along the border and key transit routes. Netanyahu presents this expansion as a pressure measure, while Hamas and some of the mediators see in it a systematic erosion of the very foundation the deal rested on.

The political framework meant to overcome this logic of force is the plan put forward by US President Donald Trump. It envisions a gradual Israeli withdrawal, the establishment of a new, technocratic administration in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas. Nine months on, each of those three components is at a standstill. There has been no withdrawal, no new administration has been formed, and Hamas has not laid down its weapons. Instead, the Palestinian movement announced on July 6 that it would dissolve its civil administration, a step that pushes the pressure to fill the resulting vacuum back onto Israel and international actors.

For European chancelleries, which welcomed the plan as a rare diplomatic channel toward de-escalation, the deadlock is uncomfortable. The EU’s High Representative has repeatedly called for consistent implementation of the ceasefire, yet the bloc has no lever to compel the parties to withdraw. The transatlantic link shows its limits here: without decisive pressure from Washington, European appeals remain declarative.

What does the Gaza deadlock mean for European diplomacy?

A frozen conflict in which one side controls seven-tenths of the territory while the other dissolves its own administration is a geopolitical reality that Brussels can hardly ignore. The humanitarian situation in the Strip keeps deteriorating, and every new strike further complicates the prospects for reconstruction and for the return of the displaced. For Serbia, which builds its foreign policy on respect for territorial integrity and restraint from imposing solutions by force, developments in Gaza are not merely a distant story from the Middle East, but a test of the consistency of principles it invokes in its own neighborhood.

The question that remains open is whether there is the political will to carry out Trump’s plan, or whether it is a framework that exists only on paper while the line on the ground shifts. Do you think mediators can force both sides back to the October positions, or has the ceasefire in Gaza already become a permanent state without peace?