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President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have announced a plan to transition the Gaza Strip out from under Hamas control and toward a more peaceful future. The proposal is highly ambitious but also fraught with complexity.
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What to do with the Palestinian territory has become an increasingly important focus for the Trump administration. Trump faces escalating pressure from Arab and European allies to produce a plan for Gaza’s future once Israel’s military action ends.
HAMAS SUFFERED LOSSES BUT GAINED GLOBAL SUPPORT FOR ITS CAUSE
Israel is engaged in limited combat operations against Hamas in areas of Gaza that it had not entered until recently, out of fear of endangering the hostages. But with Palestinian civilian casualties mounting and Saudi Arabia insisting it will not join Trump’s Abraham Accords peace agreement with Israel until the war ends, Trump is losing patience with the war’s continuation.
One key element of the plan entails the disarmament of Hamas and other terrorist groups, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israel would suspend major military action and begin pulling back its forces following Hamas’s acceptance of the agreement. The deal states that “within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.” Also, 1,950 Palestinians, including 250 serving life sentences in Israeli prisons, will be released. Aid flows into Gaza will also be bolstered. The agreement encourages Palestinians in Gaza to remain where they are, a departure from Trump’s comments earlier this year that he wanted to see Palestinians relocated.
A temporary governing council that includes former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and is supported by an international security force will then endeavor to provide governance and security in Gaza. The United States will also facilitate Gaza’s economic development. The text provides the possibility for developing a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” If Hamas rejects the agreement, Israel will receive U.S. support for escalated military action against the group.
All this sounds positive on paper.
The Oct. 7 attacks mean Israel cannot be expected to allow Hamas to survive in any functional political or military form, at least not on Palestinian territory. But by providing a pathway for a post-Hamas Gaza in which more peaceful and prosperous Palestinian interests find extensive international support, this plan could show Palestinians in Gaza that peace is a far better servant to their interests than Hamas-led violence.
Still, the devil is in the details, and it’s going to be very difficult to get this plan running, let alone progressing toward full implementation.
For a start, Hamas will balk at having to disarm and at its fighters having to choose between relocating abroad or accepting amnesty in return for renouncing terrorism. The group’s joined theological-Palestinian nationalist raison d’être is to eliminate Israel and replace it with an Islamic state. It is hard to persuade fanatics who believe they are on a mission from God to surrender that ambition for more secular pursuits.
In turn, this agreement will hinge significantly on how many Hamas fighters truly accept it. Some will, of course, but the key question is whether their number will constitute enough of a critical mass to see Hamas’s functional power eradicated? That’s very much an open question. The risk is that, alongside growing international pressure on Israel and the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and other U.S. allies, Hamas will believe it can wait out this deal to get a better offer a month or so down the road. Hamas may also accept this agreement and then fail to disarm or live up to its other stipulations. Trump will have to emphasize that he won’t tolerate Hamas’s use of time-wasting games of the kind that Russian President Vladimir Putin has adopted in relation to negotiations over the war in Ukraine.
Also, Netanyahu’s support for this agreement is far from certain.
While praising Trump and thanking him for his leadership, the prime minister was more cautious than Trump in his rhetoric on Monday. He spoke of “modest” withdrawals of Israeli forces in the early stages of any implemented agreement while emphasizing Trump’s support for renewed military action if Hamas rejects the deal. But Netanyahu’s concern goes far beyond Hamas’s compliance. He must also grapple with coalition partners who continue to insist on the full military destruction of Hamas as the prerequisite for any end to the war. If these coalition partners leave Netanyahu’s government, the prime minister’s days in office will be numbered. Opinion polls strongly suggest a new coalition government led by Naftali Bennett would then enter power. Netanyahu may soon face a choice between staying in power and losing Trump’s support.
What happens next depends heavily on how Hamas responds to this proposal.
That said, even if Hamas does agree to these conditions, both it and Israel will attempt to maximize their maneuver room within the deal. They will test the edges of what they can get away with. And when that happens, everything will depend on who Trump decides to blame for any obstruction. Although Trump says he will support an Israeli military response to Hamas obstinacy, it is clear that he wants a peace deal to add to his repertoire of diplomatic agreements. Someone is going to get blamed if progress toward peace remains absent.
DECONSTRUCT THE DEEP STATE, DON’T BECOME IT
What is perhaps most important is that Trump has now outlined specific proposals for postwar Gaza that have earned wide regional and international support.
There is a foundation here for future diplomacy and perhaps even a viable agreement that holds firm. But by staking personal political capital on this accord, Trump is banking that both Netanyahu, in fear of alienating Israel’s indispensable ally, and Hamas, in fear of suffering greater military destruction and losing support from key patron Qatar, will swallow any doubts they have and do their best to get on board.