Next Phase of Trump’s Gaza Plan Raises Concerns about Gaza’s Partition, Palestinian Freedom
IMEU Policy Project Memo #24
EVALUATING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN’S FIRST PHASE
On September 29, President Donald Trump announced a 20-point plan for Gaza, and on October 10, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel went into effect, beginning the implementation of the first phase of this plan. In addition to a suspension of “all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment”, this first phase also called for reciprocal releases of living Palestinian and Israeli detainees, and the return of the remains of deceased detainees. The first phase of the deal also required Israel to redeploy forces to a “yellow line”, allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid to be delivered to Gaza daily, and to reopen the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
One month into the implementation of the first phase of this plan, it is clear that Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire by killing 245 Palestinians and injuring 623 as of November 11. This total includes 104 Palestinians–of whom 66 were children and women–who were killed by massive Israeli air attacks on October 29–a clear violation of the ceasefire clause prohibiting such attacks.
Hamas released all 20 living Israeli detainees and Israel released 1,950 living Palestinian detainees. As of November 11, Hamas has also returned the remains of 24 out of 28 deceased Israeli detainees–the remaining four bodies presumably remain unaccounted for or are trapped under rubble and not accessible. Israel has released 15 deceased Palestinian detainees for each deceased Israeli detainee released.
Both living and deceased Palestinian detainees released by Israel have provided additional evidence of the systematic abuse and torture experienced by Palestinians in Israeli detention. On November 10, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights released a report with harrowing testimonies of recently released Palestinian detainees documenting an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture, including rape, forced stripping, forced filming, sexual assault using objects and dogs, in addition to deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely.”
At least 135 mutilated bodies of deceased Palestinians detainees were returned by Israel from the notorious Sde Teiman facility, which the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem labeled as one part of a “network of torture camps”. Medical examinations of the bodies showed that Israel “carried out acts of murder, summary executions and systematic torture against many” of these detainees, including “clear signs of direct gunfire at point-blank range and bodies crushed beneath Israeli tank tracks”.
Israel has also reneged on its commitments to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza. As of November 6, Israel had allowed just 4,453 trucks to enter Gaza out of what should have been 15,600 trucks–or just 28% of the 600 trucks per day stipulated in the Trump plan. The World Food Programme (WFP) noted on November 4 that Israel only allowed aid through two crossings, which “severely limits the quantity of aid that WFP and other agencies can bring in to stabilize the markets and address people’s needs.” Israel reportedly opened a third crossing–Zikim–on November 12. However, the pedestrian crossing at Rafah between Gaza and Egypt remains closed by Israel in violation of the terms of the Trump plan.
SOLIDIFYING ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION WITHIN GAZA
Israel’s ongoing violations of its commitments under the first phase of the Trump plan–violations which have led to no consequences–-are not the only disconcerting development. Even though the US has failed to date to gain international support for phase two of the Trump plan, details which have emerged from these negotiations paint a disturbing picture of solidifying Israeli military occupation within Gaza, the marginalization of Palestinians and their national institutions from the governance of Gaza, and potential conflicts of interest with the president’s family members poised to profit from Gaza’s reconstruction.
Israel redeployed its forces within Gaza to the “yellow line” as stipulated in the first phase of the Trump plan, leaving Israel in military control of over 53% of the territory. Almost the entirety of Gaza’s displaced population is now forced to reside in less than half of the territory. Even before Israel’s genocide began, Gaza was one of the most densely populated areas on earth–Israel’s concentration of the Palestinian population in less than half of the territory, including its exclusion of Palestinians from nearly all of Gaza’s former agricultural land, considerably exacerbates this situation and raises serious concerns about the sustainability of life there.
Meanwhile, Israel has demarcated the “yellow line” with cement blocks, and as progress on the second phase of the Trump plan stalls, European officials are expressing concern that the supposedly temporary nature of the “yellow line” will result in a de facto partition line, permanently alienating most Palestinians from more than half of Gaza and further isolating and fragmenting them from other Palestinians under indefinite Israeli blockade.
Another indication of the potentially permanent nature of the “yellow line” is a reported US plan to build so-called “Alternate Safe Communities” for Palestinians behind this line, which would be under Israeli military control. The plan recalls failed colonial counter-insurgency campaigns by the British in Kenya and by the US in South Vietnam to forcibly relocate indigenous populations into concentrated areas and then deprive them of their freedom of movement.
A leaked draft of a US-written UN Security Council resolution to authorize the establishment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) contains no actual timetable for Israel’s further redeployments to the second and third lines stipulated in the Trump plan. Instead, further redeployments would be contingent on Israeli and US agreement, further heightening concern that the “yellow line” could become a permanent de facto partition line.
MARGINALIZATION OF PALESTINIANS FROM GAZA’S GOVERNANCE
This same leaked draft UN Security Council resolution also raises serious questions about the marginalization of Palestinians and their national institutions from the proposed bodies being established in phase two of the Trump plan. For example, the resolution envisions the Trump-led corporate-style “Board of Peace” (BOP) as the overarching “transitional governance administration with international legal personality” for all aspects of Gaza’s governance, including oversight of its technocratic Palestinian day-to-day administration, its economic redevelopment plans, and the ISF.
As it remains unclear who–other than President Trump, who designated himself chair of the board–will serve on the BOP, this arrangement raises concerning questions about the president exercising sovereign decision-making power over Palestinians in Gaza, an exceedingly dangerous scenario given that Trump provided Israel with billions of dollars of weapons to facilitate its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and repeatedly called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza from their homeland.
With unaccountable, appointed Palestinians relegated to playing only an “apolitical” role of delivering public services and running municipalities in Gaza under the supervision of the BOP, and with the Palestinian Authority (PA) shut out of any governance role in Gaza for the foreseeable future, the exercise of Palestinian self-determination is yet again being deferred and denied, in violation of the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) July 2024 advisory opinion requiring all States to cooperate with the UN for “the full realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.
Indeed, under Trump’s plan, the PA would not be considered eligible to play a role in the governance of Gaza until it implemented all of the so-called reforms demanded of it in Trump’s 2020 “Peace to Prosperity” plan. While some of these proposed reforms may be legitimate, the most troubling demand is for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the PA to dismiss all pending actions and refrain from all future actions against Israel and Israeli officials in international judicial fora such as the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC). In other words, the Trump plan attempts to blackmail Palestinians to foreclose their ability to hold Israel accountable for its actions in exchange for extending the possibility of eventual Palestinian governance of Gaza.
RECONSTRUCTING GAZA FOR THE BENEFIT OF FOREIGNERS, NOT PALESTINIANS
As mentioned previously, the BOP will also be responsible for overseeing Gaza’s economic redevelopment, estimated at a whopping $70 billion. Rather than press Israel for reparations for its wanton destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure, the Trump plan envisions calling for an international donors’ conference, which presumably would heavily rely on Gulf States’ contributions.
Given the centrality of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, in negotiating the implementation of the plan, the BOP-led reconstruction of Gaza raises serious conflict of interest concerns. Kushner’s investment firm–Affinity Partners–manages billions of dollars in assets of the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two countries expected to bear the brunt of the reconstruction costs. Kushner previously mused that “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable” and that he “would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up”. With the president’s penchant to profit from office as clear as day–running afoul of the emoluments clauses of the constitution–a Trump-controlled BOP in charge of economic reconstruction of Gaza is more likely to be geared toward earning profits for his family members and their clients rather than serving the economic needs of Palestinians in Gaza.
POLICING GAZA FOR ISRAEL’S BENEFIT, NOT FOR PALESTINIAN SAFETY
Lastly, the proposed ISF would be accountable to the BOP rather than function as a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping mission like the UN Emergency Force (UNEF), which was established to maintain the ceasefire between Egypt and Israel, and protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza from 1956 to 1967. This lack of UN control over the ISF raises troubling concerns about its mandate and in whose interest it will act.
According to the US-drafted UN Security Council resolution, the ISF would be constituted and operate “in close consultation and cooperation” with Israel. Israel has already demanded the exclusion of Turkey from the ISF, making it clear that it is Israel which is calling the shots on the ISF’s composition. It appears that the ISF will exist to bolster ongoing Israeli control over Gaza rather than serve as a much-needed international protection force to prevent future Israeli violence against Palestinians in Gaza.
CONCLUSION
The Trump administration has failed to impose any consequences on Israel for repeatedly violating the terms of the first phase of the plan through Israel’s ongoing violence against Palestinians and denial of adequate levels of humanitarian aid. While these first phase violations of the plan are worrisome enough, it is even more disconcerting that the implementation of the second phase of this plan may result in Israel’s permanent military control of more than half of Gaza, governance plans for Gaza which marginalize Palestinians and preclude self-determination, economic reconstruction plans which may benefit outsiders more than Palestinians, and security arrangements designed to reinforce Israeli occupation rather than truly protect Palestinians from Israel’s genocidal violence.
For additional analysis on the 20-point plan, please see: BREAKING: Israel, Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump’s Gaza Plan; However, Plan Perpetuates Israeli Occupation, Denies Palestinians Self-Determination | IMEU Policy Project Policy Memo #22.
Cover Photo: Ran Zisovitch, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 2426489231