A Peace For Who?

Illustration by Connor JL Moore

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On October 3rd, 2025, the Islamic Resistance Movement, more commonly known as Hamas, agreed to release all 48 remaining living and deceased Israeli hostages in exchange for a durable, lasting ceasefire in Gaza. Soon after, the United States brokered a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, theoretically ending what has been described as a genocide by most human rights organizations and genocide scholars. Under a 20 Point Plan published by the White House, a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace” would reign over Gaza and the Levant. 

In reality, Israel has continued killing Gazans unabated, as two children, aged 10 and 12, labeled as terrorists by Israel, were killed on November 29th, 2025. This incident occurred exactly 30 days after the signing of the peace plan that “ended the war”.  There have been 16 well-documented violations of the Gaza peace plan by Israel as of the writing of this article, calling into question the effectiveness of the US-backed agreement. While the introduction of the Gaza peace plan was little more than a cover for Israel to continue fighting, it is important to understand what the Gaza peace plan, as proposed by the Trump Administration, would do to Gaza. This article will break down the Gaza peace plan by all 20 points. 

The Gaza peace plan can be broken down into three phases, the initial phase of Immediate Ceasefire & Hostage Framework (Points 1-8), followed by the Stabilization & Interim Governance phase (Points 9-14), before concluding with the Reconstruction & “Peace Horizon” (Points 15–20) phase. These three phases are ultimately part of a greater plan that systematically excludes the Palestinian people as political actors, seeking to divorce Gaza from the idea of ‘Palestine’, that being a sovereign state existing within the 1967 borders. Instead, the objective appears to center on stabilizing the region through external control and technocratic autocracy. The fundamental issue of the Gaza peace plan is that it does not seek ‘peace’, it seeks to skirt around the issue of Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination, instead constructing an artificial framework of security and technocracy that will only serve to enrich Western actors while depriving Palestinians of their rights. 

One of the self-professed, fundamental principles of the Gaza peace plan seeks to separate Gaza from Palestine. It states that Gaza (devoid of any mention of Palestine) will be a “deradicalised” zone devoid of terrorism. Who, though, decides what constitutes deradicalization? Would a new Gazan education system seek to build a distinct narrative for Palestine, justifying the actions of Israel both in 1948 and 2025? Violence in Gaza does not occur arbitrarily; it is intentional, directed violence aimed at resolving the Palestinian question and forcing a new political end through force. Any attempt at resolving violence in Palestine must come through the frame of addressing the root cause - that being the denial of Palestinian statehood and self-determination.  

Another core thrust of the peace plan is the removal of Hamas from power. Since the October 7th attacks,

support for Hamas has declined significantly in Gaza. Removing Hamas would undoubtedly improve the possibility of true peace between Palestine and Israel. However, the question then becomes, who or what will replace Hamas? Unless Israel is willing to release Marwan Barghouti, who has sworn non-violence and peace, there will not be a unifying figure for Palestinians, much less Gazans. It is unlikely that Gazans would accept the dreadfully unpopular Mahmoud Abbas, current President of the Palestinian Authority, who polls at 29% in Gaza, as compared to Hamas, which sat at 51% in October 2024. As such, the Gaza peace plan goes a step further and proposes a “Board of Peace,” with Donald J. Trump serving as Chairman. Notably, the Gaza peace plan does not denote any concrete guidelines identifying when Trump would step down as Chairman of the “Board of Peace”. Critics may argue that the Gaza peace plan gives him an indefinite term in this role, making him the arbiter of any peace between Israel and Palestine beyond the end of his presidential term. 

Fundamentally, the Gaza peace plan as authored by President Trump does not succeed in providing a strong likelihood of long term peace in the Middle East. Instead, it creates a shaky framework of stability without sovereignty, governance without representation, and reconstruction without autonomy. Palestinians were excluded from more than just the drafting of the Gaza peace plan, they were excluded from the very concept of peace that the plan seeks to promulgate. Yet again, the international community objectifies Palestinians as objects of political policy and a means of producing wealth, rather than as architects of their destiny and arbiters of their security.

Conor Farrell is a Middle Eastern Human Rights Advocate with a M.A. in International Studies from the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs.

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