Measuring Defiance in 2025: How Palestinian Sumud Challenged the Israeli War and the West’s Complicity

By Ramzy Baroud

The year concludes with some somber numbers, but also much hope and the legendary sumud among ordinary Palestinians.

2025 started and finished with two declared ceasefires in Gaza, both instantly and brutally shattered by Israel, operating with absolute, unquestioned impunity.

The operational definition of a ceasefire, from an Israeli perspective, is a de facto one-sided campaign where the opposing party — be it the Palestinians or the Lebanese — is forcibly stripped of the right to fight back or defend itself.

For Israel, its relentless war machine is always framed as an act of self-defense, even as the primary victims of these campaigns, as clearly evidenced by the two-year Gaza genocide, are women and children. By the end of 2025, over 70,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, more than 170,000 wounded, and thousands more remained missing beneath the rubble.

The year, however, did not begin with such a gloomy outlook. Many had desperately hoped that the January 19 ceasefire would bring the Palestinian agony to a decisive end. The agreement briefly halted the genocide to allow prisoner exchanges and limited aid entry amid a rapidly spreading famine.

The brief respite among Palestinians proved tragically temporary, as Israel began violating the ceasefire almost immediately upon its implementation. By early March, Israel had suspended humanitarian aid, triggering acute food shortages and a crippling medical crisis. Even during the purported halt, Palestinians perished in massive numbers from engineered starvation and disease.

On March 17, Israel officially re-engaged the conflict, commencing with intense military strikes and expanded ground operations. Palestinians mounted fierce resistance across the Gaza Strip, although. Hundreds of thousands who returned to northern Gaza during the ceasefire were displaced once again, and thousands were killed.

Israel’s deadly wrath did not spare the occupied West Bank in 2025, yet the region’s tragedy went largely unreported due to the catastrophic scale of killing in Gaza. The occupied region, nonetheless, endured a tremendously high casualty toll, witnessing the expulsion of entire communities in the northern West Bank and the razing of whole refugee camps.

Indeed, the West Bank simultaneously endured a parallel campaign of calculated collective punishment and aggressive territorial seizure. Starting in January, the refugee camps of Jenin, Balata, Ain Shams, among other areas, were subjected to repeated, large-scale military incursions, leaving critical infrastructure pulverized and hundreds dead. In other areas, like Ein Shibli and in the southern Hebron Hills, entire Bedouin communities were violently expelled, their homes deliberately demolished, effectively formalizing the annexation process under the guise of ‘security’ operations.

The year saw extreme Israeli violence and a record number of newly approved settlement units. Despite international condemnations and firm rejections of Israel’s obvious attempts at colonizing and annexing large parts of the West Bank, the Israeli onslaught remained utterly undeterred.

The war’s scope in Gaza also grew rapidly, reaching every last part of the Strip, where forced displacements returned with the same, and, at times, even higher, ferocity than in the first year of the genocide.

In May and again in July, the Israeli cabinet approved Operations Gideon’s Chariots I and II, following the first iteration launched in May, both aimed at fully occupying northern Gaza, a mission Israel had repeatedly failed to achieve since the war began.

The protracted, calculated Israeli siege eventually culminated in August in the formal declaration of famine, extending its grip not only over Gaza City but across the entire northern Gaza Strip. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), among others, confirmed that famine conditions had been met. Yet no meaningful pressure was applied on Israel to break the siege. Despite this international alarm, no forceful, substantive pressure was placed on Israel to break its deadly siege.

The relentless slaughter in Gaza and the West Bank rendered hollow the wave of Palestinian state recognition by Western capitals. France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, among others, officially recognized the State of Palestine between September 21 and 25.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scathingly dismissed the recognition as a “grave mistake”. “You are giving a huge reward to terrorism,” he said. Following the announcements, he and his extremist ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, vowed to accelerate the annexation of Area C in the West Bank and pass legislation establishing sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas clutched at the recognition, attempting to utilize it as a means of reviving its increasingly marginal role in Palestinian politics, while other Palestinian political factions saw the recognition as a necessary, albeit late, acknowledgement of the agency and fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.

International solidarity, meanwhile, escalated dramatically. In Italy, which is governed by a pro-Israeli right-wing government, several general strikes were declared across the country. The first major strike, on September 22, was called by grassroots trade unions — USB, CUB, and others. The strike directly targeted the government’s complicity with Israel through the continued authorization of arms flow to the Israeli army.

Later that same month, on September 29, what became known as the ‘Trump Gaza Plan’ was unveiled and was presented as a comprehensive peace framework divided into three phases.

While intense talks mediated by the US and several Arab and Middle Eastern countries continued, global protests erupted on October 4 and 5. Millions demonstrated across Europe demanding an end to the war and an immediate arms embargo on Israel.

The ceasefire was finally declared on October 10. It was followed by the release of all Israeli captives and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Some prisoners stayed in the West Bank, while others were deported outside Palestine or returned to Gaza.

On October 13, an international summit convened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, chaired by US President Donald Trump and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The summit endorsed the newly declared ceasefire, established a roadmap for the reconstruction in Gaza, and controversially established an ‘International Stabilization Force’.

Eventually, UNSC Resolution 2803 was approved on November 17, despite early protests from China and Russia. The resolution confirmed the ceasefire and called for the establishment of a Board of Peace in Gaza, a governing body to be led by Trump himself. Though desperate to end the war that had claimed the lives of countless civilians, Palestinians rejected any return to mandate-style governance, insisting Gaza would be ruled by its own people.

These diplomatic overtures did not quell international solidarity. Spain declared a general strike on October 15, insisting on the demands of holding Israel accountable. More protests followed on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, as millions rallied in the streets of many capitals and cities across the world, marking a decisive global paradigm shift against Israel and in solidarity with Palestine.

The year concludes with some somber numbers, but also much hope and the legendary sumud among ordinary Palestinians.

On November 25, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report that warned that Gaza’s GDP had collapsed by an “unprecedented and catastrophic” rate of 80 percent since 2023.

On November 25, researchers from the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and the Spain-based Centre for Demographic Studies found that life expectancy in Gaza in 2024 fell by 47 percent compared with what it would have been without the war. This sharp drop reflects catastrophic increases in mortality.

Yet, despite the overwhelming destruction, on November 29, refugees in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza organized a football match. Played amid pulverized concrete and upturned earth, the game marked the defiant return of football in Gaza. Before kickoff, players and excited fans observed a moment of silence to commemorate the 320 athletes and sports personnel killed throughout the genocide.

While Israel measures its success and failures in wars based solely on the body count of its enemies, Palestinians employ a different type of measurement: the indomitable spirit of a people that refuses to die despite the total and utter destruction resulting from Israeli wars.

The last few years have brought some of the most painful experiences in Palestinian collective memory. We hope that the coming year will be that of a lasting just peace, that Israel will be compelled by global force to respect the ceasefire, and that the profound sacrifices of the Palestinian people will finally usher in a long-awaited age of justice and accountability.

– Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His forthcoming book, ‘Before the Flood,’ will be published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include ‘Our Vision for Liberation’, ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net