The text places the Islamist party-militia between a rock and a hard place, demanding its surrender and the immediate handing over all hostages, with no compensation other than the end of the massacre and the renunciation of ethnic cleansing
The 20-point plan presented Monday by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu contains only one deadline: the 72 hours that what little remains of Hamas has to surrender its only bargaining chip (the 48 hostages remaining in the Strip, less than half of whom are still alive), after Israel formally accepts the proposal. Everything else lacks dates, guarantees, and, above all, agreement from the other side: the Islamist movement, which claimed not to have received the text even before the White House distributed it to journalists. It is basically an ultimatum for Hamas to accept its unconditional surrender.
The plan places Hamas between a rock and a hard place. On one side, it faces threats if it doesn’t comply: from Netanyahu (“we’ll finish the job on our own”) and Trump (“Israel would have my full backing to finish the job of destroying the threat of Hamas.”) And the suffering of a population exhausted after nearly two years of death, hunger, and endless forced displacement. On the other, the leap into the void of submitting to the ambush, immediately handing over the hostages, and accepting some sort of foreign government supervised by Trump himself, with no guarantee other than a document like the one Netanyahu signed last January and tore up two months later, with the full blessing of the U.S. president. All, of course, without a Palestinian state anywhere on the horizon.
Hamas’ only victory would be the abandonment, on paper, of the ethnic cleansing proposed by Trump last February and enthusiastically embraced by Netanyahu and his most extremist ministers, with the support of the majority of Israeli society. The U.S. president has changed tack several times, but at the time he stated that Palestinians who left an unlivable Gaza after nearly two years of devastation would not be able to return. Point 12 of the plan, however, states that “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return.” “We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza,” the text continues.
Burial of a Palestinian killed by Israeli fire next to Al Shifa Hospital, September 30. Ebrahim Hajjaj (REUTERS)
It also puts an end to the dream of Netanyahu’s most extremist allies of annexing and recolonizing Gaza, something they were already rubbing their hands at the prospect of, imagining real estate projects or a residential neighborhood for Israeli police on the Strip’s coast.
The plan released by the White House is reminiscent of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that Washington and France negotiated in Lebanon last year, after more than two months of war in which the militia was severely decimated and decapitated. Since then, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have continued to bombard Lebanese territory almost daily (just this Monday, two more Hezbollah members were killed) and are pressuring its weak government to disarm the group. When Israeli troops were supposed to withdraw across the border, they broke the agreement at the last minute, leaving five military positions in the south.
In this case, the “process of demilitarization of Gaza” will be supervised by “independent monitors” and “will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning.” “A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbours or its people,” the document states.
An example of the challenges posed by a path forward without clear dates, concocted between one side (Israel) and its main ally (the U.S.), without the other’s involvement, is the difference in interpretation of the meaning of “end of the war.” The text reads: “If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end.” Netanyahu, however, spoke at the White House press conference Monday of an initial “modest withdrawal,” followed by the release of the hostages and the establishment of the international body to disarm Hamas. “If this international body succeeds, we will have permanently ended the war,” he emphasized.
Protest in Tel Aviv calling for the return of Israeli hostages in Gaza, this Monday. Amir Levy (Getty Images)
The text reserves for the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which legally should regain control of Gaza according to the agreements signed with Israel since the 1990s — a long-term role with so many conditions that it sounds like a desideratum. In a first phase — of course without a date — the international body will “set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform programme” and “can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza.” The exact timeframe, in practice, remains in Israel’s hands.
The plan treats the ruins of the Palestinian enclave primarily as an investment opportunity. It envisions the creation of “a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza [...] by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” This is very much in line with the artificial intelligence-generated video the U.S. president released in February, imagining the Gaza of the future as a kind of Dubai, with smiling people, bills flying through the air and Elon Musk on vacation. It also mentions “thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas” developed by “well-meaning international groups” and the establishment of “a special economic zone [...] with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.”
Point 6 even includes a puerile mention of the amnesty that Hamas members will receive if they surrender their weapons and “commit to peaceful co-existence.” And Point 18, “an interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.”
Incomplete withdrawal
Israel, in any case, will not fully withdraw its troops, but will maintain (a priori permanently) control of what it calls a “security perimeter.” This was something it had made clear from the start of the invasion. In fact, IDF troops have been demolishing all buildings within the perimeter, which will continue to isolate the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
As Amir Tibon, a diplomatic affairs commentator for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, recalled on Monday, the agreement will be a “disastrous failure” if Trump doesn’t convince the Islamist group — through mediators — and the international community that, this time, he will control Netanyahu. Hamas has every reason to be suspicious because, so far, the Israeli prime minister has done the opposite of what has been said.
A military vehicle on the Israeli side of the Gaza border last Tuesday. Amir Cohen (REUTERS)
First, with the aforementioned ceasefire last January, in the final days of Joe Biden’s presidency, Netanyahu basically accepted the same text he had been rejecting for months, as a welcome gift to the Republican president, who was about to return to the White House.
The pact contained three phases. In the first, Israel recovered 33 hostages in exchange for a halt to almost all bombing, the release of approximately 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry into the Strip of more humanitarian aid. The final phase was a permanent ceasefire. Netanyahu refused to negotiate a move to the second phase, cut off all food, water, and electricity to Gaza, and unexpectedly broke the truce with a brutal overnight bombardment that left more than 400 people dead. Netanyahu had signed the agreement with the intention of fulfilling only the first phase, according to his own finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. Trump blessed the demise of his own creation and blamed Hamas, despite the Islamist movement having respected the terms of the pact more than the Israeli prime minister.
It was March 2025. Two months later, Hamas released Edan Alexander without compensation. He is an American-Israeli who was born in Tel Aviv, spent almost his entire life in the U.S., and upon returning to his homeland, enlisted in the army. He was captured during the Hamas attack of October 2023, at the military base where he was guarding the border. It is the only release that Washington negotiated directly with an organization, Hamas, which it defines as terrorist. It was, essentially, a gesture of “good faith” toward Trump (as he himself defined it) that changed nothing once the former hostage received a warm welcome in New Jersey.
Beyond apologizing to Qatar on Monday, under duress from Trump, Netanyahu also paid no price for trying to assassinate Hamas leaders on foreign soil in Doha. They were meeting to analyze a draft of the plan that they ended up seeing on television on Monday as a bitter pill to swallow.
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[SRC] https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-30/trump-and-netanyahus-gaza-plan-an-ambush-for-hamas-with-no-deadlines-or-guarantees.html
