Whatever fragile political system existed in the Gaza Strip has collapsed, along with the institutions that once defined the structure of public life. Hamas, weakened militarily and decapitated by the assassinations of its leaders, faces isolation abroad and a shrinking mandate at home. The Palestinian Authority, long discredited in the West Bank, is absent from the Gaza Strip. Left factions survive as symbols, not as real organizations. Independent political actors are scattered or silenced. After two years of war, there is no functioning political body left in the Gaza Strip with the authority and legitimacy to shape the future.
President Donald Trump's Gaza plan is being touted as the answer. The twenty-point program announced by Trump at the White House in late September with the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises to end the war, resume aid and create a transitional authority to govern the Gaza Strip. He creates a “temporary international stabilization force,” an apolitical, technocratic Palestinian committee within a new international “Peace Council” headed by Trump himself. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will help oversee the transition process. This body will seek to manage Gaza's reconstruction through modern, “efficient” governance in order to attract foreign investment. Points of the plan include an exchange of hostages for prisoners and detainees, amnesty for Hamas members who disarm, safe passage for members who choose to leave, increased humanitarian supplies and a multi-phase IDF withdrawal tied to “security benchmarks” including Hamas' demilitarization and border control agreements, all verified by independent observers. The document also notes that civilians will be allowed to leave Gaza, but “no one will be forced out” of Gaza, a departure from Netanyahu's previous talk of “voluntary” emigration and Trump's “Riviera” proposal to “restore and revitalize the Gaza Strip.”
Remove the frame and the design becomes clear. Gaza will be governed from the outside, without a locally elected government. The PA is ordered to undertake reforms – anti-corruption and financial transparency measures, increased judicial independence, a path to elections – before it can even be considered for a role in governing Gaza. Hamas is excluded from political life by decree. Key issues – borders, sovereignty, refugees – are put on hold. In this architecture, the Gaza Strip becomes a security-first regime, where relief, reconstruction, and “transition” are subject to Israeli security metrics under the control of the United States and its partners. Palestinians are being offered governance without authority. The lesson is dressed in management language. The danger is that this “temporary” system will become permanent, supported by donors, observers and memoranda.
As of this writing, the first phase of the deal has already moved forward. Hamas released the remaining living hostages, and Israel released about two thousand Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The number of aid convoys is increasing and Israel said it had partially withdrawn troops from parts of the Gaza Strip. What remains unclear are enforcement mechanisms and timing. Who commands the proposed “stabilization forces” and under what rules of engagement will they operate? Where will IDF units be located during the transition? What mandatory guarantees – if any – protect Palestinians from indefinite military return? Negotiators say the issues are still being discussed point by point. A parallel diplomatic path also opens. On Monday, Trump co-chaired the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, a gathering in Egypt focused on post-war governance, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. PA President Mahmoud Abbas attended the event. Benjamin Netanyahu was not. The meeting was aimed at gaining wider support for the plan and clarifying its operational details.
Hamas had little room to maneuver in the latest round of negotiations. Many Arab governments endorsed Trump's Gaza plan before the organization even received an official copy, putting the group on the defensive. Netanyahu, meanwhile, took the moment to reiterate his opposition to a Palestinian state.
Still, ending the war always required Hamas to agree to a deal—an ugly one, perhaps, an imperfect one, but one that would end the killing. There have been times during the war before when a deal could have opened up space for tough negotiations that could have brought real benefits to Gazans. Instead, Gaza's leadership began to refuse and delay a decision, without any coherent strategy. Each refusal narrowed the horizon until what Gazans now faced became a comprehensive package of measures imposed from outside. This is the price of political failure. Leaders viewed negotiations as a phase of achieving factional gain rather than a matter of national survival. The choice is now extremely narrow: partial occupation on terms that people can still contest, or broader occupation that involves larger population transfers. The Palestinian negotiators had to develop some kind of plan in front of the people. It was necessary to ensure the flow of help and save lives. Anyone who risked that blood for a symbolic triumph would bear the cost.
The plan now offers a window of opportunity – if the Palestinians can turn its vague text into leverage. On paper, he promises an IDF withdrawal and outlines a “credible path” to self-determination and, ultimately, statehood. Much of the mechanism is still undefined, but this uncertainty can be translated into demands: a public US commitment to statehood, a dated and achievable timetable for complete troop withdrawal, a UN Security Council resolution that strengthens safeguards with penalties for violations, and third-party monitoring. Whatever form the final agreement takes, it will serve as the basis for a new political order in the Gaza Strip. Now that the bombing has stopped, a political vacuum has emerged in the territory. The question is, what will rush to fill it?
There has never been a genuine internal reckoning for Palestinian political failures. The Oslo Accords – brokered by the US and signed in the mid-nineties after secret negotiations – were presented as the last great compromise. In practice, they created the Palestinian Authority as the temporary administrator of Palestine and postponed the resolution of the main issues of the conflict until a later date, which has not yet arrived. The Palestinians were transferred from leading the liberation project to managing the enclaves, while Israel retained control over their land, movement and the map itself. Before Oslo, the first intifada gave impetus to international recognition of Palestinian statehood. Oslo undermined this momentum. It was supposed to be a bridge to peace, but it became the final blow. It provided no way to implement UN Resolution 194 on the right of return for expelled or displaced Palestinians and created no method of ensuring equality for the estimated two million Palestinians inside Israel whose struggle was written off as an internal matter. Every inch of Palestinian land remains under Israeli military control in one form or another. The labels have changed, but the structure has not.
Hamas won elections in the Gaza Strip in 2006. This was followed by boycotts and sanctions by the international community; a power struggle with Fatah, the party that controls the PA, which escalated into a street war in 2007; and, ultimately, geographical divorce. Hamas remained in control of the Gaza Strip, while the PA limited itself to the West Bank. Israel then tightened its land, sea and air blockade of the territory, making normal governance impossible and turning every budget item into a permit request. Hamas never allowed further elections. Over subsequent wars and years of siege, Hamas's authority grew until it became something of a bunker state: an exiled political bureau abroad, a Gaza command increasingly dominated by the organization's military wing, and a public living under conditions of limited movement, rationed food, and a constant state of emergency.
