Gaza – When Steve Witkoff announced “phase two” of the ceasefire, it sounded like the update everyone has been desperate for here in Gaza. Something in the way he said it – phase two – really made it sound like things might finally be turning the corner.

In less than 24 hours, another announcement followed. The White House named the members of a new “Board of Peace”, tasked with overseeing a technocratic committee that would manage the day-to-day governance of post-war Gaza. The committee will be led by Dr Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian official, who is presented as part of a forward-looking plan for reconstruction and stability.

On paper, it appears to be a movement. Like structure. Like planning for a future beyond war.

But on the ground in Gaza, there isn’t a sense of confidence. There is doubt – and a lot of it.

Many Palestinians here struggle to understand how a board meant to rebuild Gaza can include people who have openly supported Israel, especially when the destruction is still everywhere you look, and no one has been held accountable.

Buildings are still in ruins. Families are still grieving. Entire neighbourhoods are gone. Against that backdrop, talk of governance and reconstruction feels disconnected from reality.

For families who have lost their homes, their loved ones, and their sense of safety, the contradiction is hard to ignore. It’s difficult to be asked to trust a future designed by people who seem untouched by the present pain and untouched by responsibility for it.

For those whose daily life is characterised by the constant buzz of drones and sudden Israeli air attacks, nothing’s really shifted.

Parents still think hard about where their kids will sleep tonight. Aid workers still map their routes, not by where help is most needed, but by which roads might actually get them through alive. Families still hush up at night, straining to hear if the quiet will hold or if the fighting will break out again.

All these official statements? They feel miles away from what’s actually happening. Phase two might exist in some news release, but for most people, life still feels stuck right where it started.

You don’t feel a ceasefire in speeches or headlines. You feel it in what’s missing, the sudden silence, the easing in your chest, the nights that don’t end with a jolt. That’s what people are waiting for. Not the label, not the milestone. Just the change itself.

After months of loss and exhaustion, it’s normal to want to believe things really are getting better. Diplomats cling to the idea of progress. Governments need to say momentum’s building. But the people actually living this? They just want something steady. They want to know tomorrow won’t be worse than today, that they can wake up and not flinch.

But right now, that feeling isn’t there. Promises are uneven, timelines keep slipping, and too many commitments just fade into the background. For people living through it, this doesn’t feel like peace on the move; it feels like everything’s hanging by a thread, ready to snap at any minute. Just calling it “phase two” doesn’t make it feel any safer.

And then there’s that quieter hurt that comes from hope getting stretched too thin. When official words don’t match real life, people learn to lower their expectations. Hope turns into something fragile – something you hold close but don’t trust too much, because getting let down again just stings. Announcing progress before anyone can feel it doesn’t build trust. It erodes it.

This isn’t about throwing out diplomacy. It’s just about honesty. If “phase two” is going to mean anything, people need to feel it in their daily lives: Fewer funerals, hospitals that actually work, roads that don’t feel like traps, days where fear isn’t always there.

Real peace grows in those small, ordinary moments, walking down the street without bracing yourself, sleeping through the night without planning how to run if things go wrong.

Until those moments show up, “phase two” is mostly just a symbol. And symbols, no matter how hopeful, can’t keep anyone safe. Only real change does that.

For people living day to day, peace isn’t about the next announcement. It starts when they can get through a night and believe the ceasefire will still hold in the morning.