Was the ceasefire ever truly a ceasefire for Israel, or merely a calculated pause—a chance to rearm and recalibrate before launching an even deadlier assault?

From the outset, Israel's commitment to a truce appeared reluctant and unconvincing. Even during the brief lull, Israeli forces continued their aggression, killing over 100 Palestinians in Gaza. Then, in a chilling signal of its true intentions, Israel tightened its stranglehold—cutting off food, water, and electricity for 17 days—before resuming full-scale attacks on March 18, 2025. In just hours, Israeli attacks claimed over 450 lives. The ceasefire didn’t collapse; it was dismantled.

Perhaps the nearly 50-day ceasefire was never an act of restraint, but a carefully orchestrated manoeuvre, an opportunity to regroup, rest its soldiers and gather intelligence, as some reports suggest. Drone surveillance has mapped Gaza’s geography in extraordinary detail, while espionage devices planted during military incursions now provide real-time intelligence on Palestinian movements. Towering cranes along the border are now outfitted with thermal cameras, granting Israeli forces an unchallenged ability to track and eliminate targets.

Most critically, Israel rearmed itself with cutting-edge weaponry from the United States, leading to a more lethal phase of the war—one not only larger in scale but marked by a technological transformation. Before the ceasefire, Gaza had already endured relentless airstrikes and ground incursions. Entire neighbourhoods flattened. Hospitals, schools, and shelters lay in ruins. Yet, post-ceasefire, Israel’s military strategy shifted dramatically, with the battlefield becoming a live laboratory for high-tech warfare.

Fuelled by US aid, powered by impunity

The shift in strategy did not happen in a vacuum. In January 2025, Washington approved a $20 billion arms deal with Israel, including advanced missiles, artillery, and bombs. This was swiftly followed by a $4 billion emergency assistance package, bypassing normal congressional review.

In a Fox News interview, Morgan Ortagus, the US deputy special envoy to the Middle East admitted that during the Biden administration, Israel had been “fighting with one hand tied behind its back”  because it lacked sufficient arms, forcing it to rely on 30- and 40-year-old munitions. The implication was clear: Washington had not only tolerated Israel’s mass killing but believed it should be done with even greater efficiency.

“We have unleashed Israel,” Ortagus declared, confirming that the US has flooded Israel with weapons, removing any pretence of limitations.

With the “hand” now untied, what followed was a catastrophic escalation: over 700 Palestinians were killed within the first 72 hours of resumed attacks—most of them civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities in Gaza.

While Israeli officials tout the precision of these weapons, the evidence on the ground in Gaza tells a different story. Strikes on medical facilities, residential buildings, and humanitarian convoys have continued unabated. A recent Israeli airstrike on a hospital killed five people, including a senior Hamas figure—an attack demonstrating how surgical weapons can still deliver indiscriminate suffering. 

A new kind of war, worse human toll

This transformation isn’t just technological—it’s ideological. Israel’s embrace of high-tech warfare in Gaza is a projection of dominance, not just over territory, but over the very narrative of war itself. The AI-enhanced Merkava Mark V, the guided mortar shells, and the smart targeting systems suggest a future where decisions about life and death are increasingly made by machines—or at least heavily influenced by them.

From a strategic standpoint, this shift also suggests that Israel is preparing for prolonged conflict. The heavy investment in next-generation weapons indicates that military planners foresee continued offensive in Gaza, with advanced tools giving them a decisive edge in urban warfare.

The ceasefire was not a step toward peace. It was a pivotal point. Israel used the lull to reload and reprogram, not to de-escalate. Its military has moved from conventional brutality to digitally optimised devastation—refining not just how war is waged but how it is justified. 

For Palestinians in Gaza, the result is the same—only more terrifying. The bombs may be smarter, the tanks more sophisticated, the strikes more surgical – but the bodies still pile up, the homes still vanish, and the suffering continues to deepen.