{"id":2010,"date":"2025-11-28T14:11:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T03:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/?p=2010"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:11:08","slug":"after-trumps-peace-plan-three-problems-facing-israel-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/after-trumps-peace-plan-three-problems-facing-israel-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"After Trump\u2019s Peace Plan: Three Problems Facing Israel in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The announcement of Donald Trump\u2019s proposed 20-point peace plan<\/a> in October 2025 at first seemed to offer the tangible prospect of an end to the ongoing destruction in Gaza, with Hamas signing the agreement on October 9<\/a>. Complying with the terms of the first phase of the agreement, Hamas returned all of the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages<\/a> shortly thereafter, which seemed to indicate a path towards the recovery of the remaining deceased hostages, and the commencement of a political process to bring this phase of the war to an end. In contrast to the ceasefires of late 2023 and early 2025, one of the strongest indicators of this new ceasefire\u2019s prospects was President Trump\u2019s assertive influence on its orchestration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reminded the public that \u201cIsrael is a sovereign state<\/a>,\u201d that \u201cour security policy is in our own hands<\/a>\u201d and that the country\u2019s relationship with the United States is \u201ca partnership<\/a>.\u201d But one might venture that Israel\u2019s September 9 strike on Qatar<\/a> (unsuccessful in assassinating senior Hamas figures gathered there) showed Trump that Israel was beginning to pursue its campaign against Hamas too readily outside coordination with the United States – especially given the airstrike struck America\u2019s \u201cgreat ally<\/a>\u201d in the region, and host of the largest US military base in the Middle East<\/a>. It seems reasonable to suggest that the Doha airstrike, which \u201cbroke regional taboos<\/a>\u201d prompted Trump to intervene authoritatively, restoring American primacy in Israel\u2019s management of the war. But while the ceasefire may be America\u2019s to own, the war remains Israel\u2019s to fight, and its consequences remain Israel\u2019s to bear. This is especially evident in three enduring problems facing Israel, which Trump\u2019s peace plan is unlikely to resolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, as the ceasefire\u2019s prospects dimmed over the course of October, Israel was quick to charge Hamas with bad faith<\/a>, due to the delayed return of deceased hostages from Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has resumed heavy strikes in Gaza<\/a> in response to new attacks by militants whom Hamas has stated<\/a> are not its members. But whether or not Hamas\u2019 statements about the difficulty of locating deceased hostages are true or are attempts to buy time<\/a>, the real problem for Israel is that Hamas continues to act as an effective negotiating party. Shortly after Hamas\u2019 2023 attack, Netanyahu stated<\/a> that \u201cCalls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.\u201d But having agreed now for the third time to enter into a negotiated ceasefire with an organisation Israel repeatedly vows to eliminate<\/a>, Israel now faces the problem of how to deal effectively with an adversary which it has not been able to overcome by force. The American president\u2019s more prominent involvement in the latest ceasefire may indicate Trump\u2019s impatience and his desire to claim an effective role in securing Israel\u2019s victory, but it does not provide Israel with new techniques for managing Hamas. At the same time, by resuming disproportionate strikes<\/a> resulting in yet more civilian deaths, Israel has both discredited its criticism of Hamas\u2019 bad faith, and continued its track record of acting with impunity in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, Hamas\u2019 military intransigence post ceasefire is consistent with the organisation\u2019s long-term aversion to disarmament under American pressure and without real prospects of Palestinian statehood. When Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal states<\/a> that Hamas will not disarm unless there are \u201chorizons and hope for statehood,\u201d his position is consistent with that held by Hamas after winning the 2006 Palestinian elections, when its leadership refused to accept the demands<\/a> of the US-led Middle East Quartet<\/a> to commit to non-violence, recognise Israel, and accept unspecified \u201cprevious agreements.\u201d Refusing to disarm at that time resulted in the cessation of international funds to the new Hamas government (rendering it inoperable) and, after clashes between Hamas and Fatah which may have been fomented by Washington<\/a>, ultimately led to Hamas abandoning government in Ramallah and seizing power in Gaza in 2007. As Nathalie Tocci observed at the time<\/a>, other than the conditionality on violence, the demands made by the Middle East Quartet in 2006 were legally dubious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More to the point, the subsequent acceptance of those conditions by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has been followed in the next two decades only by reduced prospects of Palestinian statehood, and a decreasingly credible Palestinian Authority. Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank has proceeded practically toward annexation<\/a>, regardless of the status as defined by Israeli legislation<\/a>. Whether correlated to the ongoing settler violence<\/a> against Palestinians in the West Bank, or considered in scholarly terms as an overall \u201cone state reality<\/a>,\u201d the diminution of Palestinian political prospects has been ongoing since the Palestinian Authority agreed to the terms and conditions rejected by Hamas in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given Hamas\u2019 refusal to disarm under international pressure in 2006 \u2013 when it had demonstrated its electoral legitimacy and was unwilling to accede to the external management of Palestinian politics \u2013 it is difficult to see what incentive Hamas has to disarm today, when Israel\u2019s determination to militarily eliminate the movement is absolute. This determination stands alongside Netanyahu\u2019s Greater Israel<\/a> vision, and his commitment that \u201cThere will be no Palestinian state<\/a>.\u201d Israel may have substantially reduced Hamas\u2019 military capabilities during the past two years of war, but there is no obvious reason why Hamas would complete the process of disarmament voluntarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, there are the consequences of Hamas\u2019 confinement in Gaza since 2007, which cannot be undone. Rather than the \u201ceffective containment\u201d by Israel, which Tareq Baconi<\/a> considered to have been achieved five years before the attack of 2023, the consequences of apparent containment in Gaza must now be said to include the following: a) Hamas\u2019 ability to prepare for the most concerted challenge to Israel\u2019s state and society in the nation\u2019s history<\/a>; b) Hamas\u2019 consolidation of the distinctive operational modes which scholars have observed for several decades, from its pragmatic political pluralism<\/a>, to its combination of \u201ccontrolled violence\u201d and \u201ccalculated participation<\/a>,\u201d to \u201cengaging the world<\/a>\u201d in a multi-directional foreign policy<\/a>; and, c) Hamas\u2019 construction of what John Spencer has suggested<\/a> (based on recent Israeli estimates) may be up to 700 miles of underground tunnels. The depth and extent of the Gaza tunnel network has come to complement the regional \u201cstrategic depth<\/a>\u201d cultivated by Hamas\u2019 practice of decentralised leadership<\/a> (located in Gaza and elsewhere). Both depths have increased over the decades of surface-level containment. Consequently, Hamas remains both obdurately present as a resistance movement in Gaza, and effectively elusive as a political organisation outside Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These three dimensions of difficulty facing Israel do not mean that, after two years at war, Hamas is without problems of its own. But all three dimensions mentioned here will need to be overcome by Israel if Hamas is to be eliminated as a proximate threat, and rendered insignificant as a dispersed but coherent organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American president\u2019s peace plan may have been effective in instigating the current ceasefire, but Israel\u2019s continued and disproportionate airstrikes<\/a> after the ceasefire commenced underscore the difficulty faced by Israel in coming to terms with the challenges posed by Hamas, as an organisation that remains active both in Gaza and abroad. However, whether in the form of Hamas or another organisation, it is ultimately not Palestinian resistance movements themselves that constitute Israel\u2019s most fundamental challenge. Israel today stands accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity<\/a>, and its prime minister and former defence minister are wanted by the International Criminal Court<\/a>. Its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem has perhaps never faced greater international scrutiny, while 2025 has seen a wave of countries newly recognising<\/a> Palestinian statehood, and new diplomatic efforts<\/a> to advance a vision for a peaceful settlement of the Israeli\u2013Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This critical international attention does not change the fact that American military and diplomatic support for Israel has remained assured and decisive under both the Biden and Trump administrations. But this American support continues in a regional environment which also has its own continuing dynamics, including Iran\u2019s as-yet unknown long-term response<\/a> to US-Israeli strikes on its nuclear facilities in June, and the prospect of Hezbollah rebuilding its capabilities<\/a>, after having been severely weakened by Israel in 2024. In this regional environment, diminishing the capacity of Hamas may reduce an immediate security threat to Israel, but it will not address the larger questions surrounding Israel\u2019s policies and legitimacy, that have gained such high international prominence since October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image by Hosny Salah from Pixabay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The views expressed in the Near East Policy Forum are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Near East Policy Forum or any of its partner organisations.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The announcement of Donald Trump\u2019s proposed 20-point peace plan in October 2025 at first seemed to offer the tangible prospect of an end to the ongoing destruction in Gaza, with Hamas signing the agreement on October 9. Complying with the terms of the first phase of the agreement, Hamas returned all of the 20 remaining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265946,28],"tags":[274526,274529,274498,274499],"class_list":["post-2010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-politics","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepf.org.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}