BEIRUT — When President Trump presented his 20-point peace plan for the Gaza Strip, he deployed his trademark hyperbolic speaking style to trumpet it as a “big, big day, a beautiful day, potentially one of the great days ever in civilization,” which would end the war and deliver “eternal peace in the Middle East.”
Yet many of the plan’s details are unknown, and though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he “supports” it and a bevy of Arab and Muslim nations welcomed it as a sign of U.S. commitment to ending the war, observers — both supporters and critics — warn that Trump’s optimism is unwarranted in a deal where so much remains ambiguous.
“It’s so vague that a million things still need to be negotiated,” said Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Qatar-based Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies.
“And for both Israel and Hamas, accepting terms and implementing them are different things,” he said.
The proposal, which Hamas negotiators received late night on Monday and are still studying, would immediately end the war and allow aid to flood Gaza, where Israel’s months-long blockade has triggered famine.
The U.N., rights and aid groups and governments, including Western allies of the U.S. and Israel, accuse Israel of committing genocide in the enclave. Israel denies the charge.
Even as Trump said on Tuesday he was “waiting for Hamas” for its response, the Israeli military continued pummeling Gaza, with at least 42 Palestinians killed and 190 injured in Israeli attacks across the Strip in the past 24 hours, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Some 66,097 Palestinians have been killed and a further 168,536 wounded in the two years since Israel began its campaign on Gaza after Hamas’ attacks nearly two years ago.
Under the plan, Hamas would surrender, release all hostages, disarm and relinquish any future role in Gaza’s governance — all points Netanyahu has insisted on throughout many rounds of fruitless Qatari-brokered negotiations with Hamas.
Also in Netanyahu’s favor: The Palestinian Authority — which welcomed the initiative — would have no control over Gaza until after it fulfills a “reform program” and the mention of Palestinian statehood was so notional it amounted to little more than a recognition that Palestinian self-determination and statehood were “the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”
Yet although Netanyahu said the plan fulfilled “our war aims,” he did not leave the White House on Monday completely pleased.
Crucially, the agreement stipulates Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza, nor will its residents be forced to leave, conditions that frustrate Netanyahu’s right-wing allies. On Tuesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a coalition partner of Netanyahu and an ardent supporter of Israel conquering the enclave, dismissed celebrations of the proposal as “premature,” writing on X it was “a resounding diplomatic failure” that will “end in tears.”
Israel would begin a staged withdrawal conditioned “on standards, milestones, and time frames linked to demilitarization,” leading to an eventual full withdrawal, save for a temporary “security perimeter” until Gaza is “properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.”
Yet those standards, milestones and time frames remain undefined, along with much else in the initiative, which for the moment serves more as a blueprint for a wider agreement, one requiring days, if not weeks, of negotiations to flesh out.
And in a seeming contradiction of the terms outlined, Netanyahu released a video address on Tuesday saying the Israeli military “will remain in most of the Gaza Strip.” As for a withdrawal, “no way, that’s not happening.”
For the Palestinians, other misgivings abound.
“There are plenty of guarantees to the Israelis, but not a single guarantee given to Palestinians — nothing,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team. As it stands, the plan allows Israel to resume fighting at any moment, choose not to withdraw and block humanitarian aid at will.
It also imposes a transitional authority — composed of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee without Hamas or the Palestinian Authority — to rule over Gaza and overseen by a “Board of Peace” involving Trump and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
After the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority completes reforms, according to the document, “conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
In effect, Buttu said, “Palestinian agency has been completely removed.” And the reforms called for in the plan include the Palestinian Authority dropping its case for genocide in the International Criminal Court — a deeply unpopular move likely to further tank the authority’s image with Palestinians.
“The sum total,” Buttu said, ”is we have no Hamas, no Palestinian Authority, and just Israel.”
Another concern is that the proposal transfers the onus of making Hamas comply from Israel to regional governments, especially those supposed to provide training and support, if not troops, for the stabilization force. Deploying their soldiers into a chaotic post-war enclave would open them up to accusations of collaborating with Israel.
Still, Buttu and others said that, for many regional governments, they have little choice but to go along with Trump’s plan as the least-bad option.
“If you compare it to what Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials were threatening to do to Gaza, the plan is good,” said Oraib al-Rantawi, who heads the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies, adding that most Arab governments were unconcerned with the fate of Hamas’ arsenal and had little interest in helping it secure a victory in negotiations.
“Their central issue is there be no annexation and that the people of Gaza not be forcibly displaced,” al-Rantawi said.
An earlier draft of the proposal — according to diplomatic figures who received it but spoke on background because they were not allowed to comment publicly — said Israel would not occupy or annex the West Bank as well as Gaza; the published version only mentions the enclave. In recent days, Trump has said Israel will not be allowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel occupies and which Palestinians want as part of a future state.
The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants blitzed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 others. Hamas and other groups still hold 48 people; 20 are still alive.
Trump touted his plan as a path to bring other Arab nations into the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements he brokered during his first term between Israel and some Arab countries.
Trump has long angled for Saudi Arabia to join the accords, but the kingdom has refused without a credible path to Palestinian statehood. The plan is unlikely to change that, said Ali Shihabi, a Saudi commentator who is close to the country’s monarchy.
“Saudi Arabia won’t be normalizing based on this agreement,” Shihabi said. “If concrete steps are taken on the ground and a Palestinian state happens, then it’s there.”
Still, the hope is that Arab nations backing Trump’s peace plan can influence him to steer events, said Amer Al Sabaileh, a Jordanian political analyst.
“You’re now talking about a peace in which these countries are involved,” he said. “They want to contain the danger of a unilateral Israeli vision.”
For now, al-Rantawi said, the plan could bring a close to the “open wound” that was Gaza, but little else.
“Let’s not make this greater than it is. We’re still in the beginning of a long road, but we know it can help Gaza,” he said. As for the initiative leading to Trump’s “eternal peace,” he added, there was little horizon for that, and many observers expect it would flounder like other attempts to forge a comprehensive agreement in the Middle East.
“We’ve all seen this movie before.”
Nabih Bulos
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