There is a profound conceptual gap between the plan announced by US President Donald Trump on Gaza and the Arab and Islamic understanding of the general framework agreed upon in New York.
For regional and international actors, the priorities are relatively clear: end the war, exchange hostages and prisoners, initiate reconstruction, halt displacement schemes, and ensure that the Palestinian Authority (PA), or at least Palestinian technocrats, are integrated into all “day-after” arrangements.
These measures are intended to form the foundation for a broader political process that could eventually lead towards the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Yet, the details of Trump’s plan diverge sharply from these expectations. Rather than building a consensus-oriented framework, the proposal is riddled with political landmines.
There is, therefore, tremendous uncertainty about the arrangements for the next day in Gaza and how the provisions of the Trump plan could be implemented. Crucial questions remain unanswered, while the legal and political foundations, as well as historical precedents, are vague, opening the door for challenges to the plan in its essence.
At its core, the Trump plan delegates the mission of confronting Hamas and overseeing its disarmament to Arab and Islamic powers.
“The New York meeting was largely informal. The notion of Arab-Islamic forces confronting Hamas and disarming it, along with other Palestinian factions, was neither agreed upon nor endorsed. Presenting it as a settled agenda item, as if consensus existed, is therefore misleading,” stated an Arab diplomat based in London familiar with the New York discussions to Al-Ahram Weekly.
There is also considerable ambiguity surrounding the proposed “temporary international stabilisation force.” Where would such a force come from? What exactly would it be expected to do? No one knows which countries might agree to contribute troops or which would be acceptable to all parties.
Simultaneously, the proposal sidelines Palestinians from meaningful roles in governing Gaza, instead placing the Strip under international trusteeship for five years through the so-called “International Transitional Authority for Gaza” (ITAG).
Former British prime minister Tony Blair is envisioned to lead this body, a choice that is widely controversial.
Blair’s political legacy in the region is defined less by peace-making and more by his unwavering support for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. That war, justified under false claims about weapons of mass destruction, devastated Iraq, destabilised the broader Middle East, and continues to reverberate today.
For Palestinians and regional actors, Blair’s role in Iraq renders him a deeply compromised figure.
Critics fear that the plan is not merely a technocratic solution; it is a political project whose likely effects would be to displace Palestinian agency, legitimise the demographic and territorial engineering already underway, and entrench new forms of external control that resemble classical mandates or colonial administrations only dressed in 21st-century language.
While its proponents may present the plan as “humanitarian,” in practice it represents a high-stakes political reboot of sovereignty in which Palestinians are objects rather than authors of their own fate.
The proposed ITAG would consist of a majority of non-Palestinian figures tasked with managing Gaza’s most crucial functions. These include reconstruction, security arrangements, and the Strip’s legal and political frameworks.
Palestinians, under this arrangement, would be relegated to peripheral or secondary responsibilities, stripped of the ability to make binding decisions regarding their future.
This exclusion has far-reaching consequences. Life-and-death decisions ranging from reconstruction priorities and the distribution of aid to political governance would be made by outsiders. Many of these decision-makers may never have set foot in Gaza or may hold conflicting interests that compromise their impartiality.
By separating Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, the plan also entrenches political and geographic fragmentation within the Palestinian national movement.
This fragmentation directly contradicts the principle of Palestinian national cohesion enshrined in the Oslo Accords and risks cementing a “two-entity model” in which Gaza and the West Bank are administratively and politically divorced. Far from fostering stability, such fragmentation could deepen divisions and erode prospects for sovereignty.
The elephant in the room is the question of Palestinian statehood. In most regional blueprints, a future Palestinian state is framed as the endgame and a long-term aspiration, however challenging. But in the Trump plan, that vision recedes like a mirage, seemingly never within reach.
At a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Trump dismissed the recent international recognition of Palestinian statehood, suggesting that the US allies had done so merely out of exhaustion with the conflict.
Netanyahu, for his part, left no ambiguity. Speaking later in a video shared on his Telegram channel, he flatly rejected the notion of a Palestinian state. “No, not at all. It’s not in the agreement, and we’ve made it very clear that we strongly oppose a Palestinian state,” he said.
Yet, when sovereignty is removed or outsourced, resistance and political identity rarely disappear; they are merely displaced into other channels such as underground networks, expatriate politics, or radicalised opposition movements.
In other words, an externally imposed authority could temporarily suppress Hamas as a governing force, but it would not resolve the underlying politics that gave rise to Hamas or Palestinian national claims.
In addition to its political and security mandate, the ITAG is expected to launch an economic arm designed to attract foreign investment. The strategy is framed around public-private partnerships, with tailored incentives aimed at guaranteeing returns for international investors.
While this may seem like an ambitious attempt to revive Gaza’s shattered economy on paper, the absence of clear commitments to address urgent humanitarian needs renders the economic component hollow.
Gaza today is already a living catastrophe with a blockade, recurrent bombardments, displacement, destroyed infrastructure, and confirmed famine in parts of the Strip. Any “post-war” administration will inherit a demographic and humanitarian emergency, in which residents’ primary demands are food, shelter, and safety.
Placing an international transitional authority in charge risks bureaucratising life-saving functions while subordinating civil rights and land claims to a reconstruction agenda shaped by external funders and actors.
Moreover, Trump’s plan provides no timeline for a full cessation of the Israeli aggression, no commitment to Israeli military withdrawal, no assurances about the unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid, and no guarantees regarding the resumption of UN operations, particularly those of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, the agency most critical to Palestinians.
Concerns also exist that the proposed five-year international mandate could extend indefinitely. Such a scenario could facilitate the establishment of new facts on the ground, ultimately leading to the depopulation of Gaza through so-called “voluntary migration.”
This process is expected to be incentivised by financial offers of approximately $5,000 per person, echoing previous plans championed by Blair and Jared Kushner, the US former peace envoy. Such measures constitute a soft form of ethnic cleansing, incentivising displacement under the guise of personal choice.
The Weekly reached out to Blair for details regarding his prospective role, but his office declined to comment. A British diplomatic source told the Weekly that London supports a peace framework focused on achieving a ceasefire, securing the release of hostages, facilitating humanitarian aid, and enabling reconstruction, but stressed that the British government has no involvement in Blair’s anticipated role in Gaza.
Beyond the political shortcomings, Trump’s plan faces formidable legal and procedural obstacles. International trusteeships like that envisioned for Gaza typically require authorisation from the UN Security Council or, in some cases, the General Assembly.
While Washington may support such a proposal, other Permanent Members of the Security Council could veto it. Russia and China, for example, consistently emphasise the importance of sovereignty and self-determination. Even among US allies, there could be a reluctance to endorse a plan that infringes on Palestinian political rights.
Gaza’s legal status further complicates matters. It is internationally recognised as occupied territory and part of the broader Palestinian statehood project acknowledged by numerous countries. Imposing a new international authority without Palestinian consent could violate international law and provoke legal challenges at multiple levels.
Supporters of the ITAG cite precedents in Kosovo and East Timor, both of which were placed under international trusteeships with foreign forces tasked with stabilising the territories and laying the groundwork for governance and elections.
However, in both cases, the trusteeship was facilitated by clear conditions: that the occupying forces withdrew, that the UN be authorised to take charge; and that there be a defined political roadmap backed by local populations and regional powers.
In East Timor, the withdrawal of Indonesian forces allowed the UN to administer the territory. In Kosovo, Serbian forces withdrew under international pressure, enabling the UN to oversee a transitional authority. Crucially, both arrangements enjoyed significant local legitimacy and were reinforced by clear political goals and international commitments.
By contrast, Gaza’s situation differs dramatically. Israel remains an occupying power and has shown no willingness to withdraw. No mechanism exists to compel its forces to make way for a UN-led authority.
Unlike East Timor and Kosovo, Gaza lacks a consensual political roadmap. Instead, its political landscape is fractured between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, making any external imposition even less legitimate.
Taken together, these realities expose a fundamental paradox in Trump’s plan. It seeks to stabilise Gaza and rebuild governance, yet it does so by excluding Palestinians, weakening their institutions and agency, and empowering external actors. Far from resolving the crisis, this approach risks reproducing patterns of international administration that historically exacerbated instability rather than alleviating it.
Above all, the plan could provide Israel and its allies with new ways to avoid accountability for the genocidal war in Gaza.
The area could be described as under UN mandate rather than Israeli occupation or “cleared” following counter-terror operations, complicating legal and moral responsibility for both past and future crimes. Such dangerous ambiguity could make eventual negotiations over borders, refugees, and rights and accountability immeasurably harder.
Externally imposed frameworks often fail precisely because they lack local ownership. Thus, the appropriate sequence is not to design an external governance architecture that supplants Palestinian agency, but instead to insist on an immediate, verifiable ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access, credible accountability mechanisms, and full Palestinian participation in reconstruction along with legal guarantees for return, property rights, and political representation.
Anything less risks turning post-war Gaza into a managed territory where Palestinians are not only displaced but also stripped of their agency.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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