A Peace Plan That Isn’t: How Netanyahu’s Gaza Proposal Ensures Hamas Can’t Accept — or Reject — It

By Elijah J. Magnier –

When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled their “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” in a joint press conference, they billed it as a historic roadmap to peace. Twenty points, they promised, would end the war, rebuild Gaza, release hostages, and usher in a new era of prosperity and coexistence. It was framed as pragmatic and humanitarian — a plan that no rational actor could oppose.

But a close reading of the text tells a very different story. The 20 points are not a peace plan in the conventional sense. They are a blueprint for conditional surrender, a managerial framework to control Gaza indefinitely under the guise of reconstruction and “stabilisation.” Their language is vague where it matters most, specific only when it imposes obligations on the Palestinian side, and structured in a way that makes it nearly impossible for Hamas to either accept or reject without sealing its own political fate.

Most Israelis, exhausted by years of conflict, support the so-called peace plan — with the notable exception of the far-right religious-nationalist factions who reject any notion of compromise. For them, this war is not about security or deterrence but about achieving maximalist ideological goals: the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population, the complete destruction of its infrastructure, the forced displacement of its people into Egypt or elsewhere, and the eventual construction of Jewish settlements on the cleared land. These aims go far beyond any defensive rationale. They represent a long-standing settler-colonial project now cloaked in the language of “security imperatives.”

For Benjamin Netanyahu, however, the plan serves a different, more calculated agenda. It aligns precisely with the four strategic objectives he set when launching the war in October 2023: ending Hamas rule once and for all; creating a permanent buffer zone inside Gaza to neutralise any future armed resistance; securing the release of all Israeli hostages and recovering the bodies of the dead; and outsourcing Gaza’s administration to an international body that would spare Israel the enormous political, legal, and military costs of direct occupation. Israel’s repeated delays of a final assault on Gaza City — widely reported as deliberate pauses to allow space for diplomatic manoeuvring — underline this calculation. Even the chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, openly expressed his concern about the prospect of occupying Gaza with its 2.3 million inhabitants, knowing such an occupation would mean years of insurgency and unending Israeli casualties.

The plan is also politically convenient for Netanyahu. His fingerprints are visible throughout the text, from its vague security clauses to its carefully chosen omissions. By publicly presenting it as “Trump’s plan,” he aims to restore the international legitimacy that has eroded over two years of mounting allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The rebranding is tactical: it allows Netanyahu to reframe Israel not as a rogue entity under global censure, but as a partner in a US-led peace initiative. In his view, the plan could reverse Israel’s diplomatic isolation and secure renewed support from Western capitals and regional partners that have increasingly distanced themselves from his government.