With President Donald Trump back from his most triumphant day in the Middle East, having declared an end to the two-year war in Gaza and secured the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the U.S. leader is charting the next steps of a historic deal for Gaza and the Middle East.
But there remains uncertainty over the application of key parts of the 20-point proposal released two weeks ago by the White House and now being put into action. The points concern the disarmament of Hamas, the deployment of an "International Stabilization Force" and the establishment of a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee" to temporarily govern Gaza under the chairmanship of Trump himself.
These issues were central to discussions in Sharm El-Sheikh overseen Monday by Trump and Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and attended by more than 30 leaders and representatives from the region and beyond. Among them was Palestinian National Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, whose West Bank-based government is hoped by Arab powers to ultimately reassume control of Gaza after nearly two decades of Hamas rule.
Yet as Palestinians celebrate the cessation of hostilities and the release of their own prisoners by Israel as part of the U.S. deal, optimism is curbed by uncertainty over what comes next.
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and an activist hailing from Gaza, argued U.S. engagement, including continued pressure exerted by Trump on all sides, would be necessary to allow the landmark ceasefire to graduate into a broader peace process that could truly pave a new path for Palestinians.
What that would take, he said, is "U.S. involvement," including "U.S. pressure on the Israeli government to roll back some of the aggressive occupation-oriented policies in the West Bank, and then Hamas to really slow down from the violent rhetoric that's coming out towards the clans, towards the Gazan people and their feeling that they just got legitimized by the United States because Trump said, 'Oh, we're giving them time and space to do what they want.'"
Gaza At A Glance
Since the initial eruption of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1948, Gaza has changed hands several times, having fallen under Egyptian control at the end of the first Arab-Israeli war that year, followed by Israeli occupation beginning after the second war fought in 1967 and then being handed over to the PA after the Israeli military's disengagement in 2005.
By this time, however, Hamas had already begun to eclipse secular rivals in popularity and Palestinian elections held in 2006 led to a victory for the Islamist militant group, sparking clashes with the PA's leading Fatah faction and Hamas' eventual takeover of the territory the following year. Hamas has governed Gaza and its roughly two million inhabitants ever since - and also used it as a launchpad for attacks in its long term war to destroy Israel.
And while the group has been by far the largest and most powerful organization there, other factions have retained varying degrees of influence, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its various splinters.
Beyond these ideologically motivated movements that have largely aligned with Hamas throughout the war, there also exist a variety of clan-based militias that have clashed with Hamas and its allies, including the Popular Forces headed by Yasser Abu Shabab and the Doghmush clan. Both of these groups have a history of engaging in criminal activity and working with radical organizations across the border in Egypt, particularly the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
This landscape has left little room for alternative civil leadership to emerge, compounding the challenge faced by the next phases of the Trump administration's agreement.
Alkhatib argued that a battle-hardened Hamas, despite its losses throughout the conflict, would remain poised to fill any power vacuum that could emerge in post-war Gaza once the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pull back.
"And it's not just the physicality of the Israeli withdrawal that's creating the vacuum, but it is the multi-layered absence, if you will, of state and societal institutions," Alkhatib told Newsweek, "when you don't have schools, when you don't have local councils, when you don't have jobs, when you don't have security services, when you don't have the police, when you don't have judges, when you don't have courts that are functional, when you don't have a broad political context that Gaza is part of."
"That sense of physical, political, societal and philosophical vacuum is just exacerbated and certainly worsened by the sense of just the hellish landscape that you have in Gaza," he added. "And so, the totality of the aforementioned is what causes the vacuum."
Already, he said, there were signs that Hamas was taking the opportunity to regroup and settle scores with rivals as the current situation "gives Hamas time, without a military solution or a political solution, to reestablish itself, and kind of reemerge as the only viable entity that can facilitate life in Gaza."
Empowering the PA
And then there is the PA. The institution established during the 1990s Oslo Accords as the first Palestinian entity to adopt formal governing duties has faced a number of internal issues since losing control of Gaza to Hamas, including discontent over a lack of elections since the vote that put Abbas in power two decades ago, accusations of corruption and an inability to roll back the growing Israeli settler presence in the West Bank, which has also sparked violent Israeli-Palestinian confrontations.
Yet Alkhatib said that the PA still maintained "very professional" security forces capable of overseeing Hamas' disarmament and the dismantling of militant infrastructure in Gaza—if it was sufficiently supported in doing so.
"I do believe the Palestinian Authority can take that on, if they're really given adequate support and the personnel and the mandate and the freedom to operate," Alkhatib said, "but building that capability and capacity is going to take time, and it has to be framed as part of institution and state-building, rather than Fatah is coming in and building."
And time is of the essence, he argued, as, "unfortunately, there's a diminishing opportunity for moderate Palestinians, not just the path for the PA, but even those who are truly independent, even under a technocratic committee."
Faisal Aranki, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, said that the PA and PLO—both of which are led by Abbas and count Fatah as their leading faction—could play important parts in the coming effort to reconfigure Gaza's political landscape.
"The PA is likely to be asked to play a role in administering post-conflict Gaza, but it lacks legitimacy and public support unless it undergoes serious reforms," Aranki said in comments shared with Newsweek. "The PLO, as the umbrella body, may be called upon to lead reconciliation efforts and possibly oversee a renewed push for elections and political unity."
As for the new committee set to lead Gaza in the interim, he said the so-called "Board of Peace" would have to "be inclusive of all Palestinian factions, be accountable to the Palestinian people, not just international donors," and "operate with a clear mandate rooted in national consensus, not imposed externally."
To some degree, he added, this would mean incorporating elements of Hamas, whose members that agree to lay down their arms are given the options of being granted amnesty or leaving Gaza as the territory becomes "a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors," according to the White House scheme.
"In any future political process, there will need to be a reckoning: either Hamas integrates into a broader national Palestinian political structure through elections and reconciliation, or remains isolated—a situation that guarantees ongoing instability," Aranki said.
He emphasized, however, that "any sustainable peace or political solution must include all major Palestinian factions, including Hamas, in some form—whether directly or through an agreed national unity framework."
'Legitimacy First'
The role envisioned for the PA under Trump's plan is summed up in the 19th point, which reads: "While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people."
But as Lianne Pollak-David, a former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office and Israel's National Security Council who also took part in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, said: "The PA has a lot of work to do in terms of reforms."
"It kick-started the process, not because it wanted to, but because it was forced to after many years of bad behavior: corruption, incitement," Pollak-David, now a strategic consultant and co-founder of the Israeli Coalition for Regional Security, told Newsweek. "The PA should stop focusing its efforts on going after Israel in the diplomatic arena, which bring zero accomplishments to the Palestinian people."
"The 'recognition first' is a failed approach. Instead: it should focus on 'legitimacy first,' become a legitimate partner," she added. "I believe the Trump plan is about that, and if so—the revitalized PA should play a significant role in Gaza, over time. But right now, it’s a regional and international play for the interim period."
She also felt external stakeholders, including former U.K. Prime Minister and slated "Board of Peace" member Tony Blair, at whose firm she previously consulted, would prove crucial in whether or not the Palestinian interim governance committee succeeds or fails.
Among those she viewed as potential candidates to serve on the committee is former PA Prime Minister and World Bank economist Salam Fayyad, though she said Israel should not have a direct say in who would be involved.
"Israel shouldn’t play a role in this committee, it should only oversee what regards its own security," Pollak-David said. "Israel’s innovation ecosystem could offer technologies that would support the capacity building of this committee, for example anti-money laundering platforms, to ensure reconstruction money doesn’t end up funding terrorism, like it did for so many years."
"Israel has the know-how, but shouldn’t be directly involved, just provide the knowledge," she added. "It is now the for the regional players to put their skin in the game. Gaza is no longer just an Israeli problem. President Trump made that very clear, and rightfully so."
Like Alkhatib, however, she felt time was already running out to find and implement an effective substitution for Hamas.
"The next immediate task is establishing the international/inter-Arab task force that will dismantle Hamas," Pollak-David said. "Ideally this should have been done before the IDF 50% withdrawal. We are already seeing now how Hamas is taking back some charge in areas where the IDF pulled out."
"Every day that this happens without there being an alternative force makes it harder to implement the plan later," she added. "So, this is very time-sensitive."
