Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan Explained

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President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, dated September 29, 2025, sets out 20 points for ending the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Its first step was carried out. Hamas, a Palestinian Sunni Islamist group, led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which people were killed and Hamas and other groups took hostages. On October 13, 2025, the Red Cross returned 20 hostages to Israeli authorities and 1,808 Palestinian detainees to Gaza and the West Bank.

Much of what was supposed to follow has not happened. A United Nations report dated September 24, 2026, said the international stabilization force had not yet deployed and the Palestinian committee named to administer Gaza had not been able to enter it. The disarmament, complete Israeli withdrawal, reconstruction and political settlement the plan promises remain unfinished.

A 20-point framework, not a final settlement

The plan says Gaza will be a “deradicalized terror-free zone” that threatens no neighbor and will be redeveloped for the benefit of its people. The United Nations Security Council later welcomed the plan in Resolution 2803 (2025) and attached it as an annex. That action gave international authority to transitional bodies, but it did not turn each promise into an accomplished fact.

How the first agreement took shape

On October 3, 2025, the United Nations Secretary-General said Hamas had announced readiness to release hostages and engage with the U.S. proposal. On October 5, the foreign ministers of Qatar and seven partner countries said Hamas had taken steps on the proposal and that talks would begin on the implementation mechanisms. Neither statement said the plan’s long-term terms were settled.

On October 13, 2025, the International Committee of the Red Cross transferred 20 hostages and 1,808 Palestinian detainees, and it also transferred the remains of four deceased hostages to Israeli authorities. The Red Cross said 1,968 detainees in all were released that day. The Red Cross footnote corrects an administrative error from 1,809 to 1,808 and says the overall figures were adjusted accordingly. The UN later reported 250 prisoners, mostly serving life or long-term sentences, and 1,718 Gazans detained without charges or trial since October 7, 2023, released that day. The Board of Peace, the international transitional body the plan created, later reported that the last deceased hostage was returned on January 26, 2026. The exchanges did not settle who would control weapons, territory or government in Gaza.

A roadmap built as a stop-and-go process

Netanyahu publicly backed the plan on September 29, 2025; the ceasefire took effect on October 10. The original plan said military operations would stop, Israeli forces would move to an agreed line and all hostages would be returned within 72 hours after Israel publicly accepted the agreement. It paired that return with the release of 250 life-sentence prisoners and 1,700 Gazans detained after October 7, 2023.

On July 30, 2026, the Board of Peace issued a follow-up document, A Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza. The Board says Hamas and all the Palestinian factions confirm the plan and Resolution 2803 as the agreed and guiding framework, which includes full demilitarization, deradicalization and the transfer of all civilian and security authority in Gaza to a Palestinian committee, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

The roadmap links weapons decommissioning to a phased Israeli withdrawal. An independent committee must confirm each step before the next is taken. That structure tries to replace trust with proof: neither side has to take its next step on the other’s promise alone.

In an August 16, 2026 joint statement, the foreign ministers of Türkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates condemned Israel’s declared rejection of that roadmap and of Palestinian statehood.

Who checks compliance

Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and the United States are the ceasefire’s four guarantors. The checking falls to the independent committee: if a party misses a step, the following step does not occur.

A United Nations briefing in August 2026 thanked Nickolay Mladenov, the Board’s High Representative for Gaza, for recent discussions with the parties on the 15-point roadmap. Resolution 2803 also requires the Board of Peace to report to the Security Council every six months.

This is a negotiated enforcement system, not a court judgment. Its leverage comes from withholding the next reciprocal step and from the political weight of the guarantors.

Disarmament and withdrawal remain linked

The original plan bars Hamas and other factions from governing Gaza and requires the destruction of tunnels, weapons facilities and other military infrastructure. It offers amnesty for members who disarm and safe passage for members who leave Gaza.

The July roadmap is more specific about sequence. A committee is to monitor and verify the process, with support from an international force. Implementation still depends on whether the parties will accept the order, timing and proof required for disarmament and Israeli withdrawal.

The force is the temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF), which the Security Council authorized the Board and participating states to establish. Its mandate includes securing border areas, demilitarizing Gaza, protecting civilians and humanitarian operations, and training vetted Palestinian police. The resolution permits it to use “all necessary measures” consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.

The Board’s implementation report says the force is under unified U.S. command through Major General Jasper Jeffers, in consultation and cooperation with Egypt and Israel. Resolution 2803 places the force under the Board’s strategic guidance.

UNSCO, the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, reported on September 24, 2026, that ISF personnel had not yet deployed on the ground.

A Palestinian committee under outside oversight

The plan assigns daily public services to a technocratic Palestinian committee, meaning specialists rather than party politicians, under the Board of Peace. The White House announced on January 16, 2026 that Ali Sha’ath would lead that committee and oversee public services and civil institutions.

Trump chairs the Board of Peace, and the White House named a founding Executive Board of Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga and Robert Gabriel. The Board also has member states: its implementation report lists 28 heads of state, including those of Egypt, Israel, Qatar and the United States.

Mladenov is the on-the-ground link between the Board and the Palestinian committee and coordinates civilian and security work. Resolution 2803 authorizes the Board and its member states to set up operating bodies that supervise and support the Palestinian committee, organize reconstruction and economic recovery, and coordinate public services and humanitarian assistance. Those bodies work under the Board’s oversight and are to be funded through voluntary contributions from donors, governments and the Board’s funding vehicles.

Under the resolution, the Board is a transitional administration that will set the framework for Gaza’s redevelopment until the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza.

UNSCO’s September 24, 2026 report said the committee had not yet been able to enter Gaza to govern and its liaison with the Palestinian Authority was not fully operational. The Palestinian Authority was created for limited Palestinian self-rule; Hamas’s 2007 takeover of Gaza left it administering parts of the West Bank.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offers a different source of legitimacy. In September 2025, he said Gaza was an integral part of the State of Palestine, that the Authority was ready to govern it and that Hamas should surrender its weapons to the Palestinian national authority. He also called for a permanent end to the war, humanitarian aid, release of hostages and prisoners, complete Israeli withdrawal and no displacement.

The governance dispute concerns who authorizes the transition, when outside supervision ends and how Gaza reconnects to Palestinian national institutions.

Aid is still relief, not recovery

The plan promised immediate full aid, including support for water, electricity, sewage, hospitals and bakeries. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that from August 31 through September 6, 2026, United Nations teams and partners successfully offloaded 77 percent of the aid truckloads authorized each day at the Kerem Shalom crossing. Its September 11 report called conditions dire, citing continuing attacks, displacement, medical shortages and precarious water and sanitation.

Trucks can enter while a household still lacks reliable water, a secure home and ordinary public services.

The April 2026 Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, issued jointly by the European Union, United Nations and World Bank, estimated $71.4 billion in recovery and reconstruction needs over a decade. Resolution 2803 calls for financial institutions and donors to support a donor-governed trust fund.

The resolution identifies possible payers, but voluntary financing and security conditions still stand between an estimate and rebuilt homes.

Statehood remains conditional

The plan does not promise Palestinian statehood on a fixed timetable. It says that after Palestinian Authority reform and progress on redevelopment, conditions may support a credible pathway to statehood, followed by U.S.-led dialogue on a political horizon.

The plan postpones permanent-status decisions and makes progress depend on conditions that the parties contest.

The case for the plan, and the objections

The Trump administration describes its plan as a 20-point roadmap for lasting peace, reconstruction and prosperity. Its strongest evidence is practical: the Board of Peace reports that the last hostages, living and deceased, were returned and that Israel made the agreed prisoner and detainee releases, and a Palestinian administrative committee has been named.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, in remarks on February 19, 2026, at Trump’s Board of Peace Summit in Washington, said the plan addresses what Israel sees as the root problem: disarming Hamas and Islamic Jihad, demilitarizing Gaza and what he calls deradicalization. The Islamic Jihad named here is Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose militant wing is the Al-Quds Brigades. Sa’ar supports the plan’s security terms, while eight foreign ministers said in August 2026 that Israel had rejected the July roadmap and Palestinian statehood.

In July 2026, Mladenov said he would travel to Morocco to sign Morocco’s contribution to the stabilization force, a sign of supporters trying to turn the plan on paper into personnel on the ground. The eight foreign ministers also called on all parties to support the Board’s efforts to implement the roadmap and advance the plan’s second phase.

In that view, reciprocal and verified steps are slower than a single grand settlement, but more realistic when neither party trusts the other.

The Board’s statement that Hamas and the other Palestinian factions confirmed the framework strengthens that argument, though the roadmap also links disarmament to a phased Israeli withdrawal and the dispute over sequence remains.

Critics start from a different question: who has the right to decide Gaza’s future. The Palestinian Authority’s case is that Gaza belongs under legitimate Palestinian institutions, not Hamas rule or indefinite foreign administration. United Nations human-rights experts press the legitimacy objection further: they argue that Palestinian self-determination cannot depend on vague outside conditions, and that Palestinians should control decisions about their reconstruction and future.

These objections do not deny that hostage release and a ceasefire matter. They ask whether a transition can produce durable peace if the people governed by it do not control its final political terms.

A fragile ceasefire and disputed implementation

By August 26, 2026, United Nations officials said talks were continuing, the ceasefire was fragile and Israeli strikes persisted.

The Security Council authorized the Board of Peace and the international civil and security presence through December 31, 2027, unless it acts again.

To follow the process, read the official July 30 roadmap alongside the Board’s six-month reports to the Security Council and newer United Nations briefings. Watch for verified weapons decommissioning, Israeli withdrawal, entry of the Palestinian committee, deployment of the international force and sustained humanitarian access.