Online Reporter
By Mariel Ferragamo
Once both sides proceeded with a pause of the conflict, Hamas moved forward with the release of all of its living hostages. Israel, in turn, has begun releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump, addressing Israel’s Knesset after the hostage release, declared that the war had “ended,” though other White House officials and experts have noted the fragility of the ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal “opens the door to an historic expansion of peace in our region,” while Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said that the group would “determine its responses” for commitment to the ceasefire after the hostage-prisoner stage was complete.
More than 20 countries’ officials gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, yesterday to discuss paving the way for peace in Gaza, though neither Israel nor Hamas had a representative at the table.
The movement toward a truce comes after days of intense negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Egypt and European and Arab partners in Paris. It falls on the heels of the war’s two-year anniversary, which broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked southern Israel from Gaza. Around 1 200 people were killed by Hamas fighters and another 251 were taken hostage. Israel responded with a major military offensive that has killed more than 67 000 Palestinians, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
The warring sides have twice tried and failed to uphold a ceasefire, once in November 2023 and again in March 2025. Both efforts collapsed and experts warn that hurdles remain, but broad international support for the latest effort has led to greater optimism.
The new plan lays out “tough conditions for Hamas and Israel,” CFR Middle East expert Steven Cook wrote. Several points have long been contentious issues between the two. “Whether this leads to an end to the war remains an open question.”
What have Israel and Hamas agreed to so far?
A ceasefire. Israel and Hamas agreed to halt fighting. This initial ceasefire went into effect on Friday after Israel’s cabinet formally approved the agreement the day before. Trump’s peace plan sketches this out as “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen.”
Israel’s military action in Gaza had reportedly intensified until right up to the ceasefire deadline. Since the truce, Palestinians have been returning in droves to Gaza City after an Israeli military spokesperson declared it safe to head back to the enclave’s previously most populous city.
A military drawdown. The Israeli military, known as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), agreed to withdraw their troops up to a line that leaves it in control of 53 percent of the enclave. The White House released a map of the Gaza Strip that shows this would be the first of three stages of Israel’s withdrawal.
The White House plan indicates future withdrawals to around 40 percent and 15 percent of Gaza territory. The final stage keeps a security perimeter until Gaza is “secure” from any “resurgent terror threat.” On October 10, US envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed in a social media post that Israeli troops had finished the first phase of the withdrawal.
A hostage and prisoner release. The twenty hostages who are still living and were among those taken in October 2023 were released back to Israel on Monday morning. Hamas has not yet released the bodies of the 28 deceased hostages that remain in their possession. Hamas said it would give back four of the hostages’ bodies on Monday, but the timeline for their return remains unclear. Of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas, 147 were released or exchanged in prior deals. Eight of those released were dead, and the bodies of 41 others were previously recovered by Israel.
As part of the exchange, Israel has begun the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners who are serving life sentences in Israel, as well as 1 700 detainees from Gaza. The first buses of Palestinian prisoners arrived in the West Bank and Gaza on Monday. Israel will also give back 15 Palestinian bodies for the remains of each Israeli hostage it receives. Several high-profile political figures at the top of Hamas’s release list were not included in the deal.
Aid delivery increases. The White House’s plan says that “full aid” will be sent to Gaza “without interference,” which Trump has specified means 600 trucks carrying aid per day. This includes “rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.”
Aid groups have warned that the enclave has faced a growing humanitarian crisis as the conflict has continued. The World Health Organisation has said that Gaza hospitals are at a “breaking point”—94 percent are damaged or completely destroyed and supplies are falling short. The UN-backed global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, has said there is an “entirely man-made” famine in Gaza and emphasized the need for the resurgence of aid.
Israel has maintained that Hamas has undermined aid efforts and has forcefully denied the famine determination, which it says is based on Hamas data and a manipulated process.
The United Nations reported on Sunday that progress on aid was “well underway” in the strip. Supplies such as cooking oil flowed in for the first time in months, the UN humanitarian office reported. UN officials said that the aid is still falling short of what is needed to address a widespread humanitarian crisis.
Troop deployment. The Rafah crossing with Egypt has been opened for aid delivery, European officials have confirmed, while a small Israeli troop presence remains there. The United States is also sending two hundred troops to Israel to monitor the ceasefire and help with aid delivery. No US troops will be deployed directly inside Gaza, officials say.
What happens next?
Trump joined officials from more than two dozen countries at a Gaza peace conference to work out more details in Egypt yesterday. Netanyahu didn’t attend because of a Jewish holiday, his office said.
Long term, Trump’s 20 plan stipulates that no Palestinians will be militarily forced to leave Gaza, and that Israel will agree not to occupy or annex the Gaza Strip. The enclave will “be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough,” the plan reads. At the same time, Gaza must be “a deradicalised terror-free zone” that “does not pose a threat to its neighbours.”
In the more immediate future, the plan encompasses a range of different efforts.
Stabilisation. The United States and Arab and other international partners will join forces to form an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza for security as it undergoes the transition from war to peaceful governance. The ISF will also train and support vetted Palestinian police forces. The plan aims for the IDF to progressively hand over the occupied Gazan territory to the ISF as the Israeli military withdraws its forces.
Governance. At the same time, Gaza will transition to “temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” which will operate under an international board headed by Trump. The only other member of the board who has been publicly announced so far is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will have a central, but still undefined, role. The “Board of Peace,” as Trump calls it, aims to set the framework and monitor funding for Gaza’s redevelopment. The Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing body of the West Bank, will simultaneously undergo a reform program to prepare for governance of the strip.
Demilitarisation. An independent monitor group will oversee the “demilitarisation” of Gaza, including placing weapons “permanently beyond use” and an internationally funded “buy-back” program. All “military, terror, and offensive infrastructure” will be destroyed, a condition that Hamas has previously refused and is expected to resist.
Economic reform. A panel of experts will convene and come out with an economic development plan to “rebuild and energize Gaza.” They also hope to establish a special economic zone with preferred tariff and access rates (to be negotiated with participating countries). The peace plan didn’t address the amounts or sources for funding for reconstruction of the battered enclave head-on, but the World Bank estimated earlier this year that it would cost more than $50 billion. The plan cites “thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas” to “create jobs, opportunity, and hope” for Gaza, without elaborating on what those are.
Negotiations over the next sets of details will continue as observers watch to see whether the first phase holds.
Over the longer term, the PA will eventually take over governing the Gaza Strip after it has been reformed, the White House plan says. It claims that “regional partners” will “guarantee” that Hamas and its factions will comply with the details of the plan and won’t pose a threat to the region, though it does not provide further details of how this will work. There will also be an “interfaith dialogue process” to “try and change the mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis,” who have long been at odds, on the “benefits of peace.”
The final point in the peace plan is for the United States to “establish a dialogue” between Israel and the Palestinian territories to agree on a political horizon “for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.”
“The first stage of this peace plan is the easy part,” CFR Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Elliott Abrams told CFR. “As world attention turns away when the fighting stops, these intractable issues will be no less difficult to solve than they have in the past decades.”
What is the outlook for peace in Gaza?
Hamas will not have a future role in governing, according to the plan, but its members will be offered amnesty if they agree to peaceful coexistence or are provided safe passage out of the area. The group, which has governed Gaza since 2007, has steadfastly opposed the proposals of laying down weapons for good or giving up power. Israel, meanwhile, has long demanded these terms. Hamas has previously said it would not disarm until Palestinian statehood is recognised. “Success depends in the long run on Hamas giving up its struggle to destroy Israel through what it calls ‘armed resistance’ and the United States calls terrorism,” Abrams said.
Importantly, the plan does not guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state, a longtime goal of the PA and the PLO, or Palestine Liberation Organisation. It does acknowledge the possibility, saying that only after reform to the PA and Gaza reconstruction will there be “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”
Israel has agreed to the plan in full, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted having the PA play a role in governing Gaza. Several of the hardline members in his cabinet are also likely to oppose some of the provisions in the later phases, experts believe, with some already condemning them.
“There is no appetite for a two-state solution among Israelis who have concluded after October 7 that Palestinians do not want to live side-by-side in peace with them,” Cook said. Indeed, the latest local polling shows that a growing majority of Israeli Jewish and Arab respondents oppose a two-state solution. At the same time, a majority of Israelis—66 percent, up 13 points from last year—believe it is time for the war to end. —RT
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