The Government of Israel has rejected the fifteen-point plan established by Donald Trump for Gaza that Hamas had accepted and which involved the disarmament of this group that has governed the Strip since 2006. Benjamin Netanyahu had expressed his disagreement with the plan in recent days. He has now formalized it and postponed its implementation, and the partial withdrawal of the Israeli army from part of the strip, until the complete disarmament of Hamas. In reality, Netanyahu will not make a move until elections are held in Israel in October.
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After three years of images of massive bombings, victims rescued from a sea of rubble, and hunger have shaped the world’s image of Gaza. But social networks—the main crack through which to observe the streets of the strip, where international reporters do not have free access—show a somewhat kinder reality. In one video, two volunteers prepare chocolate sweets for children; in another, a soccer team returns to training amid the sea of ruins. A glimpse of normal life while the great world powers design, from outside, a plan for the future of the enclave.
Netanyahu’s rejection of the plan paralyzes the Gaza political machinery, which had been set in motion. Both the Islamist group that has governed the enclave since 2006 and the more radical factions of the Islamic Jihad had signed their commitment to disarm. “For now the decision only exists on paper, but it still represents the greatest advance in negotiations since the ceasefire last October,” explains to La Vanguardia the director of the Israel-Palestine area of Crisis Group, Max Rodenbeck.
The analyst, in an interview conducted hours before Netanyahu’s public rejection, warned that the delivery of weapons is not an easy matter. “The most obvious obstacle is that Israel gives its consent.” And that, he indicated, could require more U.S. and international pressure on the country.
Once Israel gives its approval to the plan, the real mechanics of the weapons delivery, according to the 15-point plan, will be long and complex. An international verification body must be established, and the CNAG (National Committee for the Administration of Gaza) will have to deploy in Gaza and develop the personnel and resources necessary to manage that delivery, a process that “could take months.”
There will also be a need for a place to store all the weapons securely, which implies deploying a new Palestinian police force that does not yet exist, or obtaining Israeli consent for the Palestinian Authority to provide security forces, “something that will be difficult.” “Ultimately, the whole process will require time and a lot of trust-building,” concludes Rodenbeck, who warns of the possibility that Israel refuses to withdraw its troops, resumes attacks, or that some Palestinian faction tries to sabotage the agreement.
Precisely that same technocratic committee that should manage disarmament continues to govern Gaza remotely, from Cairo. For it to actually deploy on the ground, Rodenbeck explains, “first, Israeli commitment will be needed to allow the free movement of its members inside and outside Gaza,” as well as creating basic infrastructure—housing, communications—guaranteeing the security of its personnel, and having sufficient funding. Hamas, for its part, “has been assuring for months that it is willing to hand over all governing tools as soon as the CNAG enters Gaza.”
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While disarmament and administrative deployment remain, for now, just on paper, the reconstruction of the enclave is also delayed. The Peace Board of Donald Trump, created in January to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, has just issued its first construction contract in the devastated territory: not a hospital, nor housing, but a rudimentary military post intended to house a first contingent of Moroccan troops, according to The Guardian, citing a source familiar with the matter. The contract, still not finalized, has been awarded to Arkel International, a U.S. company that had previously worked in countries like Iraq.
This first project raises doubts about who will finance the reconstruction. “It is still unclear who has committed to pay what,” says Rodenbeck, although the general expectation is that Israel will contribute nothing, the United States will put in minimal sums, and Arab countries and Europe will assume most of it.
Doubts about financing
“Israel will contribute nothing, the United States will put in minimal sums, and Arab countries and Europe will assume most of it.”
But “all funders are cautious, and rightly so,” he warns: the war with Iran has left Gulf countries with less liquidity, and many traditional donors distrust “because they have seen Israel repeatedly destroy donated infrastructure—the European hospital, the Indonesian hospital, the EU desalination plant, the American school.” Added to this is that all reconstruction capacity depends on Israel allowing the entry of materials, “and so far almost nothing has been allowed except food, medicine, and a minimum of fuel.”
The Peace Board is chaired by Trump himself and led by a team that includes his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his friend Steve Witkoff. “The fundamental thing Trump brings is the ability to pressure Israel, something no one else has,” says Rodenbeck. However, Israel has generated so many crises in the region that “even the great Trump is forced to choose which demands to make and when,” he nuances.
“Part of the tragedy of Gaza is that its 2.1 million inhabitants are repeatedly relegated to the end of the line, behind Iran, Lebanon, or the West Bank,” laments the analyst, for whom “this process only holds because Trump is behind it.”
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