The Israel-Hamas ceasefire is a significant achievement for President Trump, but he will remain undeserving of the Nobel Peace Prize even if it holds, says Herald columnist Mark McGeoghegan

In the two years since October 7th 2022, over 67,000 people have been killed, around 80% of whom have been civilians and a quarter of whom were children, in addition to the more than 1,000 Israelis murdered in the biggest act of violence against Jews since the Holocaust. Gaza is in rubble, and the Israel-Hamas war has been defined by a litany of war crimes and human rights violations committed by both sides.

For this reason alone, President Donald Trump deserves credit for having achieved a ceasefire between the two sides, as do the cast of supporting figures, from the President’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, to our own Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell. The surviving hostages have been freed, as have thousands of Palestinian prisoners, the majority of whom had been detained without trial, and a ceasefire is in place as phase one of the peace plan progresses. This is a significant achievement, even if the ceasefire doesn’t last.

The plan is not, of course, singularly of the Trump Administration’s making. It is very similar to the deal the Biden Administration had been working on, and the fingerprints of luminaries of the Northern Ireland peace process, like Mr Powell and his former boss,........

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