By Dr Majid Khan (Melbourne):
U.S. President Donald Trump’s twenty-point proposal to end the Gaza war attempts an ambitious trade: a rapid ceasefire and full hostage release in exchange for Hamas’s demobilization, a phased Israeli withdrawal, and an interim governance arrangement led by Palestinian technocrats under international oversight.
The plan also sketches a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood and envisions an International Stabilization Force (ISF), with a “Board of Peace” chaired by Trump and featuring former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Israel has signaled conditional support; Hamas has issued its first official response indicating readiness to release all captives within 72 hours under an exchange formula, while pointedly omitting a commitment to disarm. With Arab capitals welcoming the framework in principle, the document has jolted a stalemated conflict into a new, uncertain diplomatic phase.
What the Plan Promises at Its Best
At its most constructive, the plan offers Palestinians four immediate gains:
Front-loaded humanitarian relief through the UN and Red Crescent could move the strip from famine conditions to stabilized aid flows. Egyptian officials describe this as essential but overdue; Cairo’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty calls it viable only if “loopholes” that obstruct aid and governance are closed.
By sequencing the hostages’ release within 72 hours and committing Israel to significant prisoner releases, the framework squarely addresses the most combustible negotiating file.
Hamas has long indicated willingness to relinquish day-to-day governance to a nonpartisan Palestinian technocratic committee. If genuinely empowered, such a body could restore essential services and begin reconstruction with fewer political vetoes.
The text’s reference to a “credible pathway” to self-determination creates leverage for external guarantors to demand concrete steps toward statehood, budget support, and West Bank–Gaza institutional reconnection.
As Gedaliah Afterman (Reichman University; former Australian diplomat) notes, the plan has “shifted the regional equation,” aligning an unusually wide set of states behind a single diplomatic track and linking ceasefire, hostages, reconstruction, and a political process. That alignment, he argues, is itself an opportunity: outside sponsors could anchor reconstruction finance and keep spoilers in check, if the security and governance design is made workable.
Where Experts and Practitioners See The Holes
A cross-section of journalists, diplomats, and scholars converge on several structural flaws:
Multiple contributors flag a core imbalance: Hamas faces clear, front-loaded, and verifiable obligations (hostage release; demobilization), while Israel’s withdrawals and easing measures are contingent on vague “security standards” and “milestones” often defined by Israel itself.
Historian Michael Reimer warns that with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already rejecting full withdrawal and statehood, implementation could “stall, sooner rather than later,” even if rhetorically accepted.
The plan’s maps reportedly allow continued Israeli “security perimeters” inside Gaza and along the Philadelphi corridor until international forces meet criteria set by Washington and Jerusalem.
Iranian-born journalist Kourosh Ziabari calls this the difference between peace “as press conference language” and peace “with enforceable terms.” The document’s silence on West Bank annexation trends invites “soft annexation” to proceed, undermining any credible two-state horizon.
Several analysts including Ola El-Taliawi and Sean Lee argue the “Board of Peace” model risks reviving a trusteeship ethos, evoking colonial supervision rather than accountable interim rule. Tony Blair’s prospective role is particularly contentious given Iraq-era baggage. Ramzy Baroud underscores that decisions over Gaza’s future “lie beyond the mandate of any single Palestinian group,” insisting broad Palestinian representation is essential to legitimacy.
Demobilization programs typically take years, not weeks, and require credible political inclusion to work. Ibrahim Awad warns the scheme effectively “puts implementation in Israel’s hands,” enabling indefinite delay: if demilitarization lags, withdrawals can pause while the ISF risks becoming a fig leaf for prolonged occupation.
Clauses conditioning aid deliveries on Hamas’s acceptance or on territory handed to the ISF create, in critics’ words, a coercive “aid for acquiescence” bargain. For Reimer, this is precisely why third-party monitoring and guaranteed corridors—immune from political stop-go—are non-negotiable for any sustainable relief regime.
El-Taliawi highlights a troubling provision: while the plan promises no forced displacement, it invites those who “wish” to leave to do so. Under blockade and devastation, consent is murky; the language risks normalizing coerced flight and eroding the right to remain.
Multiple accounts say no Palestinian faction was consulted in the plan’s formation; Hamas’s Mahmoud Mardawi called it an American-Israeli text later shown to Arab partners. Richard Silverstein adds that Netanyahu reportedly revised the draft extensively before its release—further tilting it toward Israeli prerogatives and embittering regional interlocutors who had backed earlier versions.
Arab capitals—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Türkiye, and Indonesia—have generally welcomed the plan’s principles: no annexation of Gaza, no displacement, a ceasefire, hostages-for-prisoners exchange, reconstruction, and a governance transition away from Hamas rule. Their endorsement lends the proposal money, manpower, and diplomatic heft. Yet even supportive officials, like Egypt’s Abdelatty, caution that “many loopholes” must be closed—especially on who decides when Gaza is “secure,” who controls borders, and how the PA’s role is revived.
On the Israeli side, Netanyahu has framed acceptance in deterrent terms: if Hamas “accepts and then counters,” Israel reserves the right to “finish the job.” Trump’s own rhetoric mirrors that duality—holding out a ceasefire while promising full backing for renewed war if the deal collapses. For Gaza’s public, Omar Shaban (PalThink) stresses a grim calculus: many Gazans may support the plan not out of trust, but to end “the horrible war,” even if the political horizon remains clouded.
Grace Wermenbol, a former U.S. State Department Mideast specialist, distills the core requirement: precision, sequence, and enforcement. Without shared, verifiable benchmarks and third-party guarantors with leverage over both sides; the choreography collapses.
The Plan’s Best-Case Trajectory
Best case (low-to-moderate probability)
Hamas formally accepts core provisions on hostages and governance transfer (without explicit disarmament language), Arab guarantors and Washington codify enforcement at the UNSC, and Israel begins visible withdrawals tied to specific DDR milestones overseen by an independent mission.
Humanitarian flows normalize, the ISF deploys in phases, and a revitalized PA—with agreed reforms—assumes civilian administration. Within 12–18 months, donors convene a reconstruction compact linked to a sequenced political process (settlement freeze; mobility; revenue transfers), keeping a two-state horizon faintly alive.
Frozen-conflict scenario (moderate probability)
Talks drag over disarmament definitions and border control. Israel retains “temporary” security corridors; the ISF’s mandate blurs; aid expands unevenly and is used as leverage. Sporadic violence and targeted strikes resume under claims of “non-compliance.” Reconstruction limps; Gazans see little daily improvement, eroding the interim authority’s legitimacy.
Breakdown (non-trivial probability)
Spoilers attack—either factional holdouts in Gaza or far-right actors in Israel—triggering rapid escalation. With enforcement asymmetric and timelines vague, parties revert to maximalist positions; hostage releases stall; aid re-politicizes; the plan collapses amid mutual recriminations.
Conclusion
Trump’s framework surfaces a narrow window in which violence could stop, captives return, aid surge, and a Palestinian technocratic authority begin restoring a shattered strip—all under an unprecedented regional coalition. Yet the plan’s loopholes—asymmetric obligations, elastic timelines, trusteeship optics, conditional aid, and exclusion of Palestinian authorship—could easily convert opportunity into a managed stalemate.
Whether this document becomes a bridge to a political process or an umbrella for indefinite control will depend on three tests in the coming weeks: credible enforcement, local legitimacy, and tangible daily improvements for Palestinians. Without all three, the Gaza war may pause, but the conflict will not.
