Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Israel has resumed its aerial bombardment of Gaza. The latest ceasefire, which lasted two months and led to the release of 33 Israeli hostages and 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, never made it out of its first stage. The Israeli government has now adopted a strategy of inflicting overwhelming violence until Hamas capitulates by releasing the remaining hostages.

Ukraine and Russia have accepted a limited ceasefire. Both sides have agreed to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure, but neither has actually adhered to this condition. Donald Trump, who coaxed both sides toward this ceasefire, is reportedly furious. This week, Moscow and Kyiv agreed to extend this partial ceasefire to the Black Sea, though here, too, they don’t seem in a rush to stop their attacks. No serious analysts, including those in Russia, expect this ceasefire to hold.

A UN-brokered truce in Yemen lasted nearly six months in 2024 before fighting in the country between the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government started up again in the fall. The Trump administration has recently escalated air strikes against the Houthis in response to their revived efforts to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea.

Last year, a ceasefire in Syria came to an end when rebels, with the go-ahead from Turkey, caught government troops by surprise when they seized Aleppo and kept going. A little more than a week later, they were in control of the capital of Damascus and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was on his way to Moscow.

Ceasefires have come and gone in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last week, the DRC and Rwanda called for a ceasefire in the eastern part of the country. An astonishing 700,000 people have been displaced by fighting just since January. The record of truces in this war-torn country does not give much hope for this latest initiative.

In other countries, the mutual hostility between the warring parties has been so intense that ceasefires don’t even get a chance to take hold. Sudan, split in two by government forces and the rebel Rapid Support Forces, has so far resisted international calls for immediate humanitarian pauses in the violence.

Ceasefires don’t........

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