The proposed solution looks good on paper, but relies on the political will of both Israel and Hamas to work
Two years have passed since October 7, 2023, when Palestinian armed groups launched an attack from the Gaza Strip on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.
Israel responded with large-scale airstrikes and a ground operation, dividing Gaza into three notional sectors and methodically destroying Hamas’s underground tunnel network. By mid-2024 the army had established control over the northern enclave, yet the intensity of fighting remained high. A 42-day truce attempt in January-March 2025 collapsed because both sides failed to meet key conditions on exchanging hostage lists and halting fire, and despite mediation by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, every subsequent pause ended with a resumption of hostilities.
At the same time, Israel employed a strategy of “targeted strikes” against Hamas’s leadership. On July 31, 2024, the head of the movement’s political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. In October 2024, the head of the political bureau Yahya Sinwar was eliminated, and in September 2025 two senior commanders of Hamas’s military wing were also killed. In parallel, the IDF expanded strikes on Iranian territory in Operation ‘Days of Atonement’, hitting more than 100 targets, including uranium-enrichment centers, with F-35 aircraft; in the summer of 2025 over a thousand pieces of nuclear infrastructure were destroyed, and nuclear scientists, as well as senior political and military figures were eliminated.
Civilian casualties among Palestinians reached catastrophic levels – more than 60,000 dead, including 18,500 children and 9,700 women – with 70-75% of all losses falling on vulnerable groups, which the UN deems a systemic violation of international humanitarian law. According to the UN, for the first time in the history of the conflict, full-scale famine was officially confirmed in August 2025: more than half a million people face acute food shortages, and over 1.14 million are on the brink of a food crisis – what the UN Secretary-General called a “moral indictment” of the international community.
Diplomatic efforts have regularly failed due to mutual distrust and the lack of reliable enforcement mechanisms. Hamas has not provided full hostage lists or ceased rocket fire, while Israel has resumed strikes under the pretext of combating terrorism. In the autumn of 2025, at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, dozens of Israel’s Western partners – the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Malta, Luxembourg, and others – formally recognized the State of Palestine, citing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the stagnation of the peace process. This “parade of recognitions” reflects a cooling in Israel’s relations with traditional allies and complicates coordination of international pressure on both sides.
After a series of meetings between Donald Trump and leaders of Muslim and Arab states on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly in New York, the US president presented a new plan for the Gaza Strip, intended to account for the failures of previous initiatives and secure the backing of regional partners. During these talks, Trump met with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Türkiye, Indonesia, and Pakistan, discussing the possible withdrawal of Israeli troops, tighter control over Gaza, and the sector’s economic revival with participation from the Gulf states and Türkiye.
Under a key provision of the agreement, a total ceasefire is to be announced upon signature of the document. Hamas must release all living Israeli hostages (about 20 people) and hand over the bodies of the dead within 72 hours, after which Israel will free roughly 250 Palestinians serving life sentences and 1,700 Gaza residents detained during the hostilities.
The plan calls for the complete dismantling of Hamas’s rule in Gaza, in place since 2007, replacing it with a “technocratic, non-political Palestinian committee.” For the transitional period, an international oversight body – the “Peace Council” chaired by Trump and supported by Tony Blair – would be established to supervise the enclave’s demilitarization. Hamas members willing to lay down their arms would receive amnesty, and those wishing to leave Gaza would be granted safe passage.
Israel would then pull its forces back to the positions recorded during the temporary truce from January to March 2025 and, following the formation of an Arab-Muslim contingent, fully withdraw from the Strip. These forces would include service members from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Türkiye, and Indonesia. Their primary task would be to train a new Palestinian police force, which would gradually assume responsibility for law and order and the protection of civilians, ensuring long-term stability within the enclave.
The reactions from both sides have been encouraging. On October 4, Hamas announced its readiness to implement the plan’s core provisions – release the hostages and transfer governance to an independent committee – although it did not formally confirm disarmament. Israel, for its part, at the direction of Prime Minister Netanyahu, is prepared to begin implementing the first phase and scale back its activities to defensive operations. International leaders welcomed these steps and called for a swift resumption of negotiations and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
At the Valdai Club plenary session in Sochi last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia is ready to support US President Donald Trump’s plan to resolve the conflict in the Gaza Strip. “As for President Trump’s proposals on Gaza – this may be unexpected for you, but on the whole Russia is ready to support them,” Mr. Putin said at the Valdai Club meeting. Putin stated that the conflict can be resolved only after the creation of two states – Israel and a Palestinian one. At the same time, the Russian side would prefer to place Gaza under the control of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He noted that, to resolve the conflict, it is necessary to understand how Palestine itself views the settlement.
The new peace plan developed by the Trump administration has significant strengths in that it combines firm security guarantees for Israel with regional responsibility by Arab states for stabilizing the Gaza Strip. The idea of an immediate ceasefire and the release of hostages within 72 hours allows the agreement’s impact to be demonstrated quickly, while the mutual prisoner exchange gives both sides a clear incentive to honor their commitments. Including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Türkiye, and Indonesia in a multinational security force enhances the mission’s legitimacy and reduces the risk of accusations of a one-sided diktat, since regional partners themselves would assume the key functions of training and maintaining public order.
On the other hand, a serious weakness of the plan is its reliance on the political will and operational readiness of both Israel and Hamas. While Netanyahu promises only “minimal defensive operations,” and Hamas itself avoids a clear commitment to disarmament, the implementation of demilitarization remains highly uncertain. The new technocratic structure intended to replace Hamas’s rule risks being perceived as externally imposed and may encounter resistance from local elites and a population accustomed to Gaza’s clan-based system of governance.
The plan’s economic component, which envisions a special zone with preferential terms and the delivery of thousands of tons of humanitarian aid, promises a significant improvement in daily life in Gaza. Nonetheless, the scale of infrastructure destruction is such that reconstruction will require far more time and resources than the plan anticipates. Moreover, the absence of clear mechanisms for financial oversight and anti-corruption safeguards creates risks of waste and inefficient use of international assistance.
Furthermore, the involvement of a ‘Peace Council’ chaired by Trump and supported by Blair provides high political visibility and ties the process to strong leaders, but at the same time calls into question the independence of the oversight body. If the international committee fails to prove objective and nonpolitical, it could undermine the trust of both Palestinians and Israelis and lead to new breakdowns of ceasefires and escalations of the conflict.
Implementing Trump’s plan for Gaza is inevitably bound up with Israel’s domestic politics, which today constitute the main line of risk for its realization. After nearly two years of war, public frustration and fatigue are compounded by economic losses and a deterioration of Israel’s image in Europe. This creates a vulnerable landscape for Netanyahu and turns any move toward a peace framework into a factor of coalition turbulence. Early reactions already reveal a split: the prime minister’s office announced readiness to proceed with the first phase of the “Trump plan” – a hostage exchange and a shift of the IDF to a defensive posture – while avoiding a public commitment to immediately halt strikes on Gaza. According to Israeli and international media, Netanyahu was surprised by Washington’s tone and interpreted Hamas’s response as a de facto refusal, reflecting his desire not to appear to be making concessions under external pressure.
At the same time, the far-right coalition partners – Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – are already using the “Trump plan” as leverage over the prime minister. Ben-Gvir has openly threatened to pull his party, the far-right Otzma Yehudit, out of the government if, after the hostages are released, Hamas remains intact as an organization. Smotrich has called the move toward halting the operation a “mistake” and previously tore into the very framework of the deal as “madness” and a “missed historic opportunity.” For Netanyahu, this means the risk of losing his parliamentary majority just as the foreign-policy link with the White House is critical for a swap and a humanitarian pause.
On the other side is the opposition. Yair Lapid has publicly backed the opening created by US involvement, saying that “there has never been such an opportunity to free the hostages and end the war,” and told the American side he is ready to give Netanyahu a political “cushion” for the deal; Benny Gantz and other centrists have struck a similar note – “better late than never” – nudging the cabinet toward adopting the framework. If Netanyahu proceeds with the initial steps (the exchange and a ceasefire), he would, for the first time, have a chance to lean on support from outside his coalition – but the price is the threat of splitting his right-wing base and accelerating elections, during which there will be a full postmortem and a search for culprits “for all the sins.”
Foreign policy only intensifies the domestic pressure. Trump has publicly demanded that Israel “immediately stop the bombings,” while mediators – Qatar, Egypt, Türkiye – are moving talks around a narrow window for the exchange. Despite the IDF’s declared defensive posture, strikes have continued, eroding trust in the pause and giving ammunition both to “hawks” in Israel and to critics of the deal in Gaza. Any failure in the first 72 hours of the exchange will fuel the right-wing leaders inside Israel and at the same time strengthen the opposition’s argument that it is the prime minister’s political maneuvering that is prolonging the war’s endgame.
From this flow three likely domestic trajectories. First, controlled de-escalation and “technical” implementation of the plan’s opening steps while tactically preserving the coalition: Netanyahu downplays the deal’s political dimension (Hamas disarmament, technocratic governance in Gaza) and sells the exchange as a “military victory,” holding Ben-Gvir and Smotrich with promises to revert to force if conditions are breached. Second, a coalition crisis: the ultraright exits the government, opening the way either to early elections or to ad-hoc votes with opposition support – a scenario Netanyahu has historically avoided. Third, an “external shift of the agenda”: under fire from the right, Netanyahu tries to regain initiative abroad – interpreting the deal’s “security carve-outs” more aggressively, expanding operations against pro-Iranian networks, or raising the temperature with Iran directly – objectively increasing the risk of derailing the Gaza understandings.
Any of these paths rest not only on the Knesset’s arithmetic but also on public sentiment. The long war, tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, and mounting international pressure (including from European allies) have narrowed the space for the “old” strategy, while the window for a hostage exchange is seen by much of Israeli society as a moral imperative.
The new Trump plan for Gaza, even as it absorbs lessons from past missteps, is hardly free of weak points. It asks both sides for painful concessions and a sober admission that there will be no “perfect victory” for political or military elites. Yet peace – even if it does not serve those who thrive on crisis – is a lifeline for Israelis and Palestinians alike, because only peace restores security, lets the economy breathe, and gives a future to children on both sides of the border. A realistic and final settlement is conceivable only within the logic of “two states for two peoples,” grounded in mutual respect, security guarantees, and responsible leadership that values human life over short-term political gain.
