New Delhi, Oct. 23 -- Gaza City - The "pause" staggered into another day that felt less like a ceasefire and more like a timetable written in pencil. Families in Gaza tried to read a routine into the noise, while officials in Israel edited lists of the dead and the missing. Washington and its closest partners spoke again of discipline and progress, even as the machinery they defend kept turning on civilians. As one humanitarian put it, the only proof that matters now is whether gates open when promised and whether aid moves without being held hostage to politics that punish the wrong people. Early signs have not inspired confidence, despite an aid pipeline restart framed as progress under allied pressure.

What the public hears as diploma...