Global Voices Clash Over Gaza’s ‘Victory’ and Devastation
Gaza after ceasefire (Image X.com)
While Hamas prepares to hand over hostages across Gaza, reactions from analysts and witnesses paint a fractured picture.
By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk
New Delhi, October 13, 2025 — As Gaza braces for another fraught morning, reports from journalist Ariel Oseran suggest that Hamas has informed the Red Cross that a new phase of hostage handovers will begin after 8 AM, unfolding across three locations — Gaza City in the north, the central refugee camps, and Khan Younis in the south.
Yet, even as the exchange logistics take shape, a war of narratives rages online — as fierce as the one fought in Gaza’s skies and streets.
For commentator Lake Daniel, Israel’s long campaign has already ended in political defeat. “Netanyahu lost the war in Gaza,” he posted, adding: “Kept it going two years. Huge PR defeat. No long-term security wins — just another round with huge negative effects.”
But defence strategist Edward N. Luttwak countered with a hardline rejoinder: “Alternative? Hamas had to be broken — and it was. Same for Hezbollah, Assad, and Iran, now a deflated balloon of empty boasts. Better to win than be praised for self-destructive restraint.”
Between triumphalism and despair lies the shattered reality on the ground. Ramy Abdu, founder of Euro-Med Monitor, quoted a Swiss journalist who broke down at the scale of destruction: “Humanity was destroyed here.” Abdu renewed calls for international media access to what he called “the genocidal state’s war zone.”
On the ground, Al Jazeera correspondents report that Palestinians returning north “have no means to rebuild amid indescribable destruction,” as scarce aid trickles into an enclave turned to rubble.
As the hostages’ release proceeds, the competing global narratives — of justice, vengeance, and survival — underline a grim truth: even when the shooting pauses, the war over meaning never ends.
US President Donald Trump takes credit for silencing guns in Gaza in the 10th month of his presidency. From October 7, 2023 when the Hamas launched an audacious attack on Israel, the world saw in disbelief destructions and killings in Gaza. Claims of rules-based world order were burnt down.
Over the months, Israel decapitated the Axis of Resistance, nourished by Iran. Israel also extended frontiers, geographically. Trump claims that he has overseen the writing of a script for a long-term peace in the Middle east.
But the war-ravaged region has been boiling with conflicts for decades, even centuries, as the world powers move pawns on the geostrategic chessboard.
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