Media coverage
Neue Gesellschaft / Frankfurter Hefte · 2026-01-01
The article argues that Trump’s 20-point plan stopped the Gaza war but is so vague that it allows widely different interpretations, while ignoring core drivers of the conflict, especially the occupation and the volatile situation in the West Bank. It examines both the possibilities and the obstacles of Gaza’s reconstruction, including massive destruction, disputes over postwar governance and security, and resistance to Hamas’s disarmament without a rights-based political horizon. The piece concludes that the plan may have stopped the bleeding, but it does not cure the underlying disease, and Gaza’s future will also depend on Palestinian initiative.
The article argues that Trump’s 20-point plan stopped the Gaza war but is so vague that it allows widely different interpretations, while ignoring core drivers of the conflict, especially the occupation and the volatile situation in the West Bank. It examines both the possibilities and the obstacle…
picture alliance / Anadolu | Saeed M. M. T. Jaras
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the English version of this article
Trump’s 20-point plan is formulated so vaguely that it allows for interpretations in every direction. Critical voices consider it a colonial construct, especially since the Palestinian side, unlike the Israeli one, was not heard at all in the drafting process. The plan, which is focused on economic development, indeed has little in common with a genuine peace concept, at best with pacification. Others nevertheless point to the opportunities contained in the plan: for reconstruction in Gaza, all the way to a Palestinian statehood mentioned in point 19 as a possible long-term goal—provided that by then Gaza’s development has progressed sufficiently and a Palestinian reform process has succeeded.
## The Root Ills of the Conflict Are Ignored
The Arab states had pushed for a clear commitment to a two-state solution. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-right government was unwilling to accept more than the flowery intention noted by the United States to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue on a “political horizon for peaceful and flourishing coexistence.” One of the root ills of the conflict, the occupation, is therefore left entirely out of Trump’s “peace plan.” The explosive situation in the West Bank, where radical settlers, backed by the extremists in the Israeli cabinet, terrorize Palestinian villages almost daily, is simply ignored.
The “dawn” over the Middle East quickly faded.
In the absence of enforceable alternatives, the international community overlooked this. Its applause was for Trump, without whose word of power the devastating war in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023, would presumably have continued unchecked. Thanks to him, the release of the last 20 living hostages still in Hamas tunnels was achieved in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. In fact, the hostage deal—the core element of phase one of the ceasefire agreement—went remarkably smoothly. Trump, self-satisfied, already saw a “historic dawn over a new Middle East” emerging. That, however, quickly faded.
Even the return of the bodies that remained in Hamas’s hands at the end of the war proceeded haltingly. Meanwhile Palestinian radical Islamists, who are actually supposed to surrender their weapons, brazenly presented themselves and their Kalashnikovs as the de facto power amid Gaza’s ruins. Clashes were inevitable, especially along the inadequately marked “Yellow Line,” running in a longitudinal curve, behind which Israel’s army was initially supposed to withdraw, but by doing so still occupies 53 percent of the Palestinian coastal strip. The military responded with heavy firepower and sporadic airstrikes, encouraged by Netanyahu’s ultra-right coalition partners. In the first seven weeks after the ceasefire took effect alone, there were more than 350 Palestinian fatalities.
Trump dismissed all this as “skirmishes” that changed nothing about the continuation of his “peace plan.” His highest envoys—from Vice President JD Vance to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and son-in-law Jared Kushner—soon made clear in Jerusalem that the United States intends to direct the process. Admiral Brad Cooper, supreme commander of US forces, personally inspected the specially established US command center in Kiryat Gat near Gaza. According to the Washington Post, it is supposed to control aid deliveries to Gaza—instead of the Israeli military authority COGAT. Israel would be consulted, it was said, but the final decision would rest with the United States.
## Devastation and Reconstruction
How far this will accelerate reconstruction remains to be seen. After the roughly 50-day Gaza war in 2014, Israel had placed numerous materials such as pipes, steel girders, and cement on a “dual-use list,” since they could serve Hamas for tunnel construction. Every delivery had to go through lengthy approval procedures; much of it never entered at all. Trump is likely to be interested in rapid progress. Reconstruction in Gaza promises, not least, to be a huge business. For Egypt, for the Saudis, the Gulf emirates, as well as international corporations.
The devastation of Gaza after two years of the most intense bombardment is immense. UN agencies assume that more than 80 percent of the buildings are completely or partially destroyed, and cities such as Rafah as well as entire neighborhoods of Gaza City even by more than 90 percent. The World Bank estimates reconstruction costs at around 70 billion US dollars. It could take decades before the war rubble—estimated at 55 million tons and partly contaminated—is removed. There is also a lack of sustainable solutions for where to put the mountains of debris. One idea is to use them to fortify the coast and build port facilities.
“A solid roof over one’s head will for an unforeseeable period remain a luxury.”
But that is still a thing of the future. First and foremost, the priority is emergency shelters, on which around 90 percent of Gaza’s two-million population depends, including 21,000 children maimed by war. A solid roof over one’s head will for an unforeseeable period remain a luxury in the 40-kilometer-long coastal strip. The entire infrastructure must be restored: hospitals, schools, water connections, sewage treatment plants, as well as a basic road system. “All of that which is fundamentally important in order to enable people to return,” says the political economist Omar Shaban, founder of the Gaza NGO “Pal-Think.”
The donor conference originally targeted by Egypt in cooperation with the German government for the end of November, meanwhile, was delayed — as was the start of phase two of the US plan. Its core elements include an interim administration of technocrats with no political ties to Fatah or Hamas, as well as a multinational force to pacify Gaza, called the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), supplemented by a specially trained Palestinian police unit. Supervision is to be provided by a “Peace Board” chaired by Trump, with Tony Blair serving alongside him.
The US did manage to secure the necessary UN mandate in the Security Council, after adding to its draft resolution — in similarly vague terms as in Trump’s 20-point plan — a passage on a “credible path” toward a Palestinian state. A commitment welcomed by the moderate Palestinian leadership under President Mahmoud Abbas, but one that met with sharp rejection from Israel’s government. Hamas, by contrast, is strictly opposed to the entire concept.
The most delicate point in the two-year mandate is thus the task assigned to the international stabilisation force of “decommissioning” the weapons of the radical Islamists and other groups. Neither Arab nor European states showed any willingness to send forces to Gaza in order to confront militants there. Disarmament, a spokesperson for the newly self-confident Hamas in Gaza declared, must be linked to the end of the occupation and is at present “premature.” Even if its popularity has declined, Hamas still enjoys the aura of a resistance organisation among the people. Not least explaining why a solid Palestinian majority — 52 percent in Gaza, 78 percent in the West Bank — spoke out against its disarmament in surveys by Khalil Shikaki’s research institute. But which donor state wants to risk its dollars if, in the end, a new outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas renders any reconstruction futile?
The idea of building new housing projects only in the Israeli-controlled part of the Gaza Strip east of the “Yellow Line” may seem obvious at first glance, but it is highly problematic politically. This could create “a kind of anti-Hamas bubble in Gaza,” hopes Ohad Merlin of the security institute MIND Israel. Over time, according to this calculation, more and more people would realise that life there is better. But conditions for Gaza’s residents, who for the most part are living amid the rubble on the western side, that is, the “Hamas side,” would remain as miserable as before — a breeding ground for radicalisation.
## A New Variant of External Domination?
In practice, the said “Yellow Line” — originally conceived as a provisional withdrawal line for the army — would divide the Palestinian coastal strip: into an Israeli-occupied “green zone,” where reconstruction is planned but where so far only mafioso family clans have settled, clans that cooperated with Israel during the war, and a “red zone” on the western side, dominated by Hamas and densely populated, which would receive nothing. And in the Middle East, provisional arrangements have a way of becoming permanent. The dream of a State of Palestine would thus become even harder to realise.
Many Palestinians therefore see in the post-war scenario à la Trump nothing more than a new variant of external domination. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — as powerless as it is unloved, the internationally legitimised counterweight to the Hamas Islamists — has little to oppose to this. Once again, it proves to be a major deficiency that there is no united Palestinian leadership shaping the process with determination.
Gaza’s future will also depend on Palestinian initiative.
“We cannot simply wait for donations from outside,” the journalist Samer Sinijlawi, a Fatah man, urged his compatriots. “It is up to us to mobilise the resources and expertise of Palestinians all over the world. Our civil society, too, must become active.” The people of Gaza need not be asked to do so. Classes in tents, materials for students, the clearing of important transport routes, even a film festival have already been organised through self-help, supported by NGOs. “We must teach our children,” Sinijlawi said, “that honour is not demonstrated through revenge, but rather in the ability to build a new life despite all the pain.”
This is no substitute for a workable political perspective based on rights rather than the law of the strongest. Yet such a perspective would benefit Israel’s security in the long term. Pollster Shikaki puts it succinctly: “The Trump plan has stopped the bleeding, but it does not heal the underlying disease.”
Text © Neue Gesellschaft / Frankfurter Hefte — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source