As attention returns to Gaza, the 2025 plan spearheaded by Donald J. Trump — widely billed as a sweeping attempt to end the war, rebuild Gaza, and produce a durable peace — is facing early tests. What was on paper promised as a fresh chapter of stability and reconstruction now confronts a chaotic reality on the ground, fraught with political, humanitarian and legal challenges.

📝 What the Plan Was Supposed to Achieve

A 20-point “Comprehensive” Peace Framework

In late September 2025, Trump unveiled what became known as the Gaza peace plan — a 20-point roadmap meant to end the war between Hamas and Israel, rebuild devastated Gaza, and lay a foundation for long-term peace. I

Core objectives included:

• A full ceasefire: all military operations suspended, fighting halted, battle lines frozen.

• Release of hostages and a large-scale prisoner exchange — with living Israeli hostages freed in return for Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

• Disarmament of Hamas: weapons surrendered or destroyed, turning Gaza into a “weapons-free” zone.

• Withdrawal of Israeli troops — replaced by an international stabilization force (ISF), supervised under international authority.

• Transitional governance: Gaza to be administered by a technocratic Palestinian body under supervision of a new international “Board of Peace” — reportedly chaired by Trump, with involvement from global figures including former UK prime minister Tony Blair.

• Reconstruction and humanitarian aid — rebuilding Gaza’s destroyed infrastructure, clearing debris and unexploded ordnance, restoring utilities, easing the humanitarian crisis.

• A proposed pathway toward broader Palestinian self-determination and potential recognition of Palestinian statehood, contingent on future reforms and political developments.

Proponents argued the plan was a realistic, if ambitious, framework for resolving the Gaza crisis — offering a credible route to end fighting, protect civilians, rebuild the Strip, and perhaps reignite a political process toward lasting peace.

✅ What Has Actually Happened — Early Gains and Partial Success

• Ceasefire and hostage release: The first phase has seen living hostages released in exchange for Palestinian detainees.

• International endorsement: On 17 November 2025, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution endorsing the plan, including the deployment of a multinational stabilization force in Gaza.

• Humanitarian access and aid — tentative movement: The agreement has opened the door for increased international aid and, potentially, reconstruction efforts under international supervision.

• Political recalibration: Many Arab and Muslim-majority states reportedly welcomed the plan, offering regional legitimacy to what had seemed, just months earlier, a far-fetched US-led initiative.

Indeed, for the first time since the war erupted, there is a tangible — if fragile — pathway to at least a temporary halt in hostilities and the beginnings of reconstruction.

⚠️ The Crack in the Blueprint: What’s Undone — And What’s Unraveling

Despite early momentum, serious obstacles have emerged. Analysts and observers remain deeply skeptical about whether the plan can deliver lasting peace.

Lack of clarity and unresolved details

• The international “Board of Peace” is described in official texts as “chaotic” — its membership, mandate and chain of authority remain murky.

• The planned International Stabilization Force has no clear composition or timeline — critical details like which countries will contribute troops, under what rules of engagement, and for how long remain in flux.

• The governance transition in Gaza — from Hamas to technocrat administrators — hinges on political will, social acceptance, and security — all of which are deeply uncertain.

Fundamental incompatibilities and opposition

• HAMAS has publicly resisted full disarmament. While some factions reportedly considered “freezing or storing” weapons, core commitments remain unachievable without forcing surrender — anathema to Hamas’s founding covenant and ideology.

• Benjamin Netanyahu and many in the Israeli government have signalled reluctance to abandon long-term security control over Gaza — undermining core elements of the plan (international force, Palestinian/technocrat governance, demilitarization).

• Many in Gaza and the wider Palestinian diaspora fear displacement — whether via rhetoric about rebuilding or implicit support for population movement, especially recalling earlier 2025 proposals by the Trump administration suggesting U.S. “takeover” of Gaza and relocation of Palestinians.

Legal and human-rights concerns

Critics and human rights organisations argue the plan, especially if implemented under its broadest terms, effectively legitimizes prolonged Israeli — or even foreign, non-Palestinian — control over Palestinian territory, undermining international law and the long-standing aspiration for Palestinian self-determination.

More ominously, the lack of guarantees around return, resettlement, and representation means that implementation could lead to de facto displacement — a result many warn would echo past injustices.

🧭 Why the Gap Between Promise and Reality?

At its core, the plan tries to do too many things at once — a ceasefire, transformation of governance, demilitarisation, international intervention, reconstruction, and a political settlement — in a region where decades of history, trauma and mistrust make each of those objectives deeply contentious.

Moreover, the key actors have profoundly different, and often opposing, goals:

• Hamas rejects disarmament.

• Israel is skeptical about relinquishing security.

• International actors are uncertain about how to commit troops, define mandates, or supervise Gaza.

• Palestinians fear being displaced or disenfranchised under an external governing regime.

As one expert put it, the plan may reflect “hard realities” — but the leap from wartime ceasefire to lasting peace is enormous.

🔮 The Road Ahead — Fragile Peace or False Dawn?

For now, the truce and hostage releases offer a glimmer of hope. But the bigger test — phasing out armed conflict while ensuring rights, representation, and stability — is only beginning.

What the world must watch for in coming weeks/months:

• Whether the international stabilization force is actually deployed, and under what terms: who commands it, how it operates, and whether it truly replaces Israeli presence.

• Whether a legitimate, representative Palestinian technocratic administration emerges — or whether the governance vacuum is exploited by factions or outside interests.

• Whether war-torn civilians in Gaza are allowed to return home, participate in governance, and receive real reconstruction — or whether displacement, population reshuffling, and marginalisation become baked in.

• Whether the plan evolves into a genuine political process toward Palestinian self-determination — or becomes a de facto reconfiguration of control under new guises.

Even its most ardent supporters acknowledge that the plan is only a beginning — not an end. As one think-tank author observed: “The world is a fair distance from having a viable settlement for Gaza.”

📰 What’s Next — What to Watch

• A ministers-level meeting in Washington later this month between Netanyahu and Trump — expected to shape the second (and far more controversial) phase of the plan: disarmament, troop withdrawal, and international force deployment.

• Deployment negotiations for the multinational stabilization force.

• Humanitarian and reconstruction aid flows — and whether they reach civilians in Gaza in a safe, sustained, and equitable way.

• Palestinian and Arab world responses — including concerns about sovereignty, displacement, representation, and long-term consequences.

Bottom line: The Gaza peace plan under Trump is an audacious, far-reaching blueprint that aims to end war, restore Gaza and chart a path to lasting peace. But the gap between aspiration and feasibility is wide. The early ceasefire and hostage releases matter — they save lives. Yet the harder, longer, and more dangerous work of rebuilding trust, institutions, and justice remains ahead.

Whether this plan becomes a new beginning for Gaza — or another tragic epilogue — depends not only on words and signatures, but on what the international community, Israelis, Palestinians and Gaza’s civilians are willing to build together.