Displaced Palestinians women carry a jerrycan after accumulating water from a distribution level at a tent camp in Muwasi, an space that Israel has designated as a protected zone, in Khan Younis southern Gaza Strip on Sept. 29, 2025.
Jehad Alshrafi/AP
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Jehad Alshrafi/AP
TEL AVIV — The leaders of the U.S. and Israel say they’ve agreed to a broad plan that might finish Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
However substantial uncertainties stay about when Israeli navy forces would withdraw from many of the Gaza Strip, precisely how a transitional physique would govern and police the enclave, and now, most critically, whether or not Hamas will acquiesce to its factors.
Listed below are 5 takeaways from the plan and what may occur subsequent.
The plan requires a direct finish to the conflict and the return of hostages.
Based on the plan, inside 72 hours of settlement from all sides, Hamas would launch 48 residing and deceased hostages to Israel. In alternate, Israel would launch 250 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel who’re serving life sentences, in addition to 1,700 Gazan residents who’ve been detained for the reason that conflict started.
Extra meals and medical support would then be let into famine-stricken Gaza and can be distributed by the United Nations companies and the Pink Crescent. The plan’s language suggests there could also be no position for the controversial Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Basis.
Hamas must conform to “decommissioning” its weapons and dismantling its navy infrastructure and tunnels, and it will don’t have any position in Gaza anymore.
The plan encourages Palestinians to remain in Gaza, opposite to earlier statements from Trump about displacing the practically two million Palestinians from the enclave. It proposes a transitional physique led by “qualified Palestinians and international experts” headed by the previous British prime minister Tony Blair to supervise Gaza’s reconstruction.
However governance may very well be ultimately handed over to the Palestinian Authority, which already oversees elements of the West Financial institution, one other Palestinian territory which Israel occupies, offered it a broad sequence of reforms.
That is essentially the most critical effort but to finish the Gaza conflict, with broad Arab backing.
There have been a number of proposals on how one can finish the conflict, together with a French-Saudi one endorsed by the United Nations earlier this month, however this proposal has the broadest international assist by far. Most crucially, Arab international locations together with Qatar and Egypt, that are near Hamas, have endorsed Trump’s plan.
Israel says it is signed on with the U.S., the UK’s prime minister referred to as the proposal “profoundly welcome” and the European Fee’s president inspired “all parties to seize the opportunity.”
Plus, the present U.S. proposal accommodates essentially the most detailed define up to now for a direct finish of conflict tied to hostage releases in addition to a extra particular imaginative and prescient for rebuilding a postwar-Gaza.
Netanyahu is promoting the plan as an Israeli safety win, leaving troops in Gaza indefinitely.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promoting this proposed deal to his folks as an achievement of Israel’s conflict targets: liberating hostages, and dismantling Hamas’ navy capabilities and rule of Gaza. Israel would get what it desires essentially the most – the hostages – inside 72 hours.
In a video message, Netanyahu framed the proposal as an Israeli safety victory: Israel would hold troops inside most of Gaza even after the hostages are freed, with out a time-bound dedication for additional withdrawal.
The toughest a part of the proposal for Netanyahu and his authorities to swallow is the language about “conditions…for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” Within the video Netanyahu launched, he denied that Israel agreed to a Palestinian state. “Not at all, and it’s also not written in the deal,” Netanyahu mentioned. The proposal presents solely conditional, obscure language with no time-bound dedication for a Palestinian state.
Hamas will discover it troublesome to just accept the deal’s situations, however can pay a heavy price if it rejects.
Hamas will discover it troublesome to just accept some situations of the deal, particularly the discharge of all its hostages up entrance whereas solely getting a partial Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza. It considers itself a freedom-fighting resistance group and has adamantly rejected giving up its proper to weapons.
Hamas has not issued a proper reply but. Preliminary response from Hamas officers has been damaging. Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi mentioned the plan’s provisions are near Israel’s imaginative and prescient, however mentioned Hamas would assessment the proposal. Then he printed an outdated video of a Hamas chief disparaging Trump.
However Hamas finds itself beneath excessive stress from its principal lifeline, Arab allies Qatar and Egypt, and would threat shedding their assist if it mentioned no. The language within the proposal about Hamas decommissioning its weapons may very well be obscure sufficient for it to work round. A Hamas official beforehand advised NPR it may very well be keen to relinquish a symbolic quantity of weapons. It additionally could draw inspiration from the case of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia primarily based in Lebanon that signed a ceasefire take care of Israel final November to disarm in its stronghold, in Lebanon’s south, however has up to now held out in opposition to orders to demilitarize throughout your entire nation.
Hamas’ principal objective is to finish the conflict and survive, and if the deal succeeds in a hostage-prisoner alternate and an finish of the conflict, Hamas could possibly promote it as a victory, leaving the query of Gaza’s demilitarization a problem to take care of later as Hamas calculates its subsequent steps. However Hamas might also not see a lot on this plan that will assure its survival: the plan calls to disarm the group and supply its leaders amnesty and passage out of Gaza.
The plan may nonetheless collapse.
Trump mentioned if Hamas didn’t settle for the proposal, he would assist Israel’s continued conflict in Gaza. Netanyahu took that one step additional, saying Israel would press on with the conflict if Hamas leaders “supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it.” Israel broke a ceasefire earlier this 12 months, accusing Hamas of scuttling it.
The plan additionally faces challenges from Netanyahu’s far-right governing companions, whom he relies on for his political survival. In a tweet, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich criticized a number of elements of the plan, and raised the query whether or not Hamas would refuse the deal so Israel may return to conflict with broader worldwide backing.
With a view to forestall Smotrich and different far-right politicians from quitting in protest and toppling the federal government, Netanyahu won’t deliver Trump’s plan for a vote in his cupboard, an individual briefed by an Israeli official advised NPR.
One other chance is that there’s a hostage-prisoner alternate and finish of conflict, with no actual progress on the remainder of Trump’s imaginative and prescient for postwar Gaza.
