BREAKING: Israel, Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump’s Gaza Plan; However, Plan Perpetuates Israeli Occupation, Denies Palestinians Self-Determination
IMEU Policy Project Memo #22
BREAKING: Last night, Israel and Hamas agreed upon the first phase of President Trump’s Gaza plan, which includes a ceasefire, a partial Israeli redeployment within Gaza, the release of all 48 living and deceased Israeli captives and 1,950 Palestinian captives, and the resumption of aid into Gaza at levels agreed to in the last ceasefire of January 2025, which Israel unilaterally broke in March 2025.
While the ceasefire, exchange of captives, and resumption of aid are all welcome steps, it should be emphasized that future phases of Trump’s plan, as originally published by the White House, include significant problematic aspects to it, including leaving Israeli military occupation forces within Gaza for the indefinite future and denying Palestinian freedom and self-determination.
And while the US reportedly gave guarantees that Israel would not resume its genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza after phase one of the agreement, Israel unilaterally violated the January 2025 ceasefire which was supposed to have resulted in a permanent cessation of violence and did not face any consequences for doing so. On the contrary, Trump subsequently approved the delivery of $12.5 billion in weapons to Israel and is currently pursuing Congressional approval for an additional $6.5 billion in weapons to Israel.
BACKGROUND
On September 29, Trump announced a 20-point plan for Gaza at the White House while speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Trump’s plan is not a framework for a just and lasting Palestinian-Israeli peace. Instead, it is a blueprint for Israel’s perpetual military occupation of Palestinian land in Gaza, and for the ongoing denial of Palestinian self-determination for the foreseeable future as Gaza would be governed by outsiders rather than by Palestinians.
In addition, Trump made clear that if Palestinians do not accept this diktat then Israel has a green light to “finish the job”–an ominous phrase which, after two years of US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, could culminate in Trump and Netanyahu’s frequently expressed plan to ethnically cleanse more than two million Palestinians from their homeland.
Following Trump’s announcement of the plan, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel would “remain in most of” Gaza indefinitely with Trump’s concurrence and that the establishment of a Palestinian state was “absolutely not” part of Trump’s plan.
Hamas, which had reportedly signaled a willingness to free all Israeli civilian captives as early as October 9, 2023 in exchange for Israel not invading Gaza, agreed to the portion of Trump’s plan to release all remaining Israeli captives in one batch.
Despite Trump’s demand that Israel stop bombing Gaza after Hamas indicated its willingness to free all Israeli captives, Israel continued its genocidal violence, forced displacement, and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
TOPLINES
Trump’s plan would not necessarily end Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The first phase of the plan would exchange all living and deceased Israeli captives in Gaza for Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons. Once this exchange is concluded, there would be nothing to prevent Israel from reneging on the terms of the plan just as it did previously when it unilaterally broke the terms of a January 2025 three-stage Trump- brokered agreement, which was supposed to have resulted in a permanent ceasefire. Should Palestinians not accept even a minor point in Trump’s diktat, Israel could seize upon this as a pretext for Trump’s green light to “finish the job”.
Trump’s plan solidifies Israeli military occupation within Gaza. Even under the most optimistic scenario of Trump’s plan, the Israeli military would indefinitely occupy substantial portions of Gaza, exercising permanent control over a “buffer zone” which would shrink Palestinians’ access to land in Gaza in the north, east, and south with Israel presumably maintaining its naval blockade of Gaza’s coast to the west. Moreover, Israel would remain in the Philadelphi Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt, maintaining Israeli control over border crossings for people and humanitarian aid and leaving in place the means for Israel to continue imposing its siege on Gaza, which has resulted in famine.
Trump’s plan turns over the governance of Gaza to outsiders rather than Palestinians. Oversight of an unelected and unaccountable Palestinian body would be conducted by an international board of directors, chaired by Trump, and including others such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose disastrous record on Middle East policy includes full-throated support for President George W. Bush’s illegal war against Iraq in 2003 and his failed mission as Quartet Representative between 2007 and 2015, during which time he presided over a sham negotiating process between Palestinians and Israelis that only deepened Israel’s colonization and military rule over Palestinians. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority (PA) would be excluded from governance in Gaza as long as it pursues accountability for Israel’s genocide and the continuation of Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestinian land.
Trump’s plan places Palestinians’ long-denied right to self-determination even further out of reach. The right to self-determination is a cornerstone of the post-World War II international political system; this right is not conditioned on others’ acceptance or made subject to others’ timetables. Israel has denied Palestinians their right to self-determination for more than 75 years of settler-colonial, apartheid rule; Israel’s denial of Palestinian self-determination must end immediately. Instead, Trump’s plan conditions Palestinian self-determination on Palestinian acquiescence to a Trump-led economic redevelopment scheme for Gaza that would be designed to personally enrich himself and his other real estate cronies, not for the benefit of the Palestinian people; in addition, Trump’s plan conditions Palestinians’ self-determination on ending efforts to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. If these conditions are met, then the Trump plan only admits that “conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination”–a word salad with so many caveats and loopholes as to render it meaningless.
Trump’s plan does not advance a just and lasting peace but perpetuates an unjust status quo. Rather than addressing and resolving the outstanding core issues at the heart of the dispute between the Palestinian people and Israel–ending Israeli military rule and Israel’s illegal colonization of Palestinian land, the status of Jerusalem, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes from which Israel dispossessed them in 1948 during the Nakba–Trump’s plan indefinitely delays their consideration. Instead, the Trump plan relies on indeterminate interim plans for “conflict management” rather than “conflict resolution” to reinforce the prevailing settler-colonial, apartheid reality of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people, recalling the sham nature of the so-called Oslo process in the 1990s.
MAP 1: TRUMP PLAN MAP SHOWING PERMANENT ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION IN GAZA
TRUMP PLAN MAP SHOWING PERMANENT ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION IN GAZA
Cover Photo: noamgalai, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 1816986680