If injustices are not addressed, the conflict not only simmers, but will threaten to boil over again, maybe in years or in a generation, but with greater force and consequences.
Displacement of Palestinian residents in the Gaza Strip. / Photo: [link]Jaber Jehad Badwan [/link], Wikimedia Commons.
The World Evangelical Alliance’s Peace & Reconciliation Network (PRN) has teams of church members and leaders, practitioners, and theologians throughout the world who envision Christians becoming God’s reconciling presence in a fractured world.
By inspiring, equipping, and connecting, PRN enables churches, communities and societies to live in God’s peace, reconciliation, and justice.
The October 2025 Gaza agreement, brokered by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, has been welcomed internationally as a long-awaited breakthrough. It promises a temporary ceasefire, a phased exchange of hostages and prisoners, a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops, and a surge in humanitarian aid.
After nearly two years of devastation, it offers a rare pause in the violence. Yet for Palestinians, it is a pause in suffering — not yet a promise of Salaam/Shalom, the peace at the heart of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God.
Salaam/Shalom, or true peace, is not just the absence of violence, but encompasses themes of justice, well-being, and wholeness.
Gaza today is a landscape of ruin. Entire neighborhoods have been erased, hospitals and universities reduced to rubble, and over two million people displaced.
The United Nations has called the humanitarian situation “beyond catastrophic.” The ceasefire may stop the bombs and artillery, but it does not rebuild homes, restore dignity, or return sovereignty.
[destacate]Salaam or Shalom, or true peace, is not just the absence of violence, but encompasses themes of justice, well-being, and wholeness [/destacate]This agreement, though temporarily lifesaving, treats Palestinians primarily as objects of relief — not human subjects. It frames the crisis in objective physical needs, while sidestepping its political, psychological, and emotional roots: occupation, blockade, and dispossession.For Palestinians, the lasting question is not when aid will arrive, but whether they will ever be able to rebuild their lives on their own terms.
If the root causes of a conflict are not addressed, as soon as possible, a ceasefire may turn into a sum negative action. If a path toward a stable solution is not developed, a ceasefire too often allows us to look past or ignore that systematic injustices that created the conflict in the first place.
If injustices are not addressed, the conflict not only simmers, but will threaten to boil over again, maybe in years or in a generation, but it will return with greater force and consequences for the region and the world. This is not a threat, but a historical reality.
The ceasefire’s immediate benefits are clear. Every truck that enters Gaza brings food, medicine, and hope to those who have endured the unendurable.
Families of hostages and prisoners finally glimpse the faces of their loved ones, and the dead can be buried with respect.
[destacate]For Palestinians, the lasting question is not when aid will arrive, but whether they will ever be able to rebuild their lives on their own terms [/destacate]Yet these gestures, however humane, cannot substitute for the deeper transformation Palestinians need — an end to the structures and systems that perpetuate their dependency and vulnerability.
The agreement says nothing about the lifting of the 18-year blockade, nothing about Palestinian governance of reconstruction, and nothing about the broader occupation that continues in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It also contains no mechanism for accountability for the massive civilian toll of the war — no investigation, no recognition of the trauma inflicted on an entire people.
In this silence, the deal mirrors the logic of past ceasefires: short-term calm in exchange for long-term injustice. What it appears to do is to allow the people and nations in power to further profit, financially and politically, on the backs of the Palestinian people.
Humanitarian access is essential, but it must not become another instrument of domination.
[destacate]The world continues to speak about Palestinians, not with them. If reconstruction is to mean more than rebuilding ruins, Palestinians must govern their own recovery [/destacate]Under current arrangements, Israel retains the authority to approve what enters Gaza, where aid is distributed, and when borders open or close. This control turns aid into a tool of political leverage, not liberation.
Palestinian civil society, local institutions, and community leaders — those who have kept life going amid destruction — remain largely excluded from decision-making.
Their exclusion reflects a deeper problem: the world continues to speak about Palestinians, not with them. If reconstruction is to mean more than rebuilding ruins, Palestinians must govern their own recovery.
No ceasefire can endure without justice. The agreement’s silence on accountability for war crimes and civilian deaths risks normalizing impunity. Human rights groups have documented systematic violations — indiscriminate bombardment, collective punishment, and the targeting of civilian infrastructure.
The absence of an independent investigation sends a dangerous message: that Palestinian lives can be mourned but not defended.
Justice is not based on vengeance; it is the foundation of peace. Without it, the cycle of violence and vengeance will continue, and each new agreement will collapse under the weight of continued abuse, oppression and injustice.
John, on the island of Patmos, had a vision. He saw the collapse of earthly empires and the coming of the Kingdom of God. His vision is what we hope for in a just and peaceable Kingdom. He writes (Revelation 21:1-22:5):
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new”.
Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true". Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life….And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
In this vision, there are a plurality of peoples and nations. Each nation and people bring in its distinctiveness and beauty. There is no religion, as God is known and visible to all. There is nothing evil or corrupt, as there is justice and truth. And there is healing, not just for one nation, or one people, but for all.
The beauty of reconciliation and justice is that not one nation or people is favored over another. All have a peaceful and just future to look forward to for themselves and their children.
We are thankful to God that there is a break in the violence, but this is just the beginning. A ceasefire is truly a good thing when it opens the door to justice, reconciliation, and salaam/shalom/peace.
If the injustices of the past are not addressed and repaired, as humanly and humanely as possible, the ceasefire will have been for naught, and the suffering of the people, families, and societies will truly have been meaningless. We pray for peace and commit to working for justice and reconciliation.
Salim Munayer (PRN MENA Regional Coordinator and founder of Musalaha in Jerusalem, Israel), Justin Meyers (Muscat, Oman).
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