Bi-Weekly Brief: October 20, 2025
Can a fragile truce translate into a meaningful ‘peace plan’ in Gaza?
October 13 was a momentous day in Israel. After all 20 of the living Israeli hostages were released in Gaza and some 1,900 Palestinian captives began to be freed, President Trump received a blast of adulation when he spoke at the Knesset for getting Israel and Hamas to agree to a deal that would, in his words, usher in “a new dawn in the Middle East.”
Then, escorted by Egyptian jets, he flew to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to address the 28 foreign leaders mainly from the Arab world, Europe and key organizations who had been hastily assembled and had spent several hours awaiting his belated arrival.
Declaration of peace as photo op
Palestinians were represented at the summit by Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas, a long-term foe of Hamas who had been denied a US visa to attend the UN General Assembly just weeks before. Netanyahu, who had been issued a last minute invitation to attend the gathering by Trump, absented himself after Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan threatened to pull out if the Israeli prime minister was there.
Trump, Erdogan, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, and Tamin bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar then inscribed their signatures on the ceasefire document entitled “The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity” that welcomed “the truly historic commitment and implementation by all parties to the Trump Peace Agreement, ending more than two years of profound suffering and loss — opening a new chapter for the region defined by hope, security, and a shared vision for peace and prosperity.” No details were given in the document.
Trump’s intervention to bring about the ceasefire after US taxpayers subsidized Israel’s aggression against Gaza to the tune of $21.7 billion came too late to crown him with the Nobel Peace Prize he had been vigorously lobbying for. That went instead to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corida Machado, who said the prize really belonged to Trump even as the US attempted unseat President Maduro through drone strikes on alleged ‘drug boats’ and CIA plots. However, Trump did receive the highest Egyptian honor, a solid gold collar called the Order of the Nile, for his “peace efforts.”
According to Steve Witkoff, one reason Trump pressured Netanyahu to accept the proclamation that the war was over was Israel’s Sept. 9th failed attempt to kill Hamas leaders meeting in Qatar, which in July 2025 had presented him with the gift of a jumbo jet and which is reportedly building its own air force base in Idaho. Will the fact that Trump’s name is associated so prominently with a ‘peace plan’ that appears to be largely unformed following the concrete language on hostage exchanges be enough to keep the president engaged in a process that will require preventing Netanyahu from carrying out his proclaimed need to “finish the war as speedily as possible”?
‘Peace plan’ already on shaky ground
Israel does not have a good record of adhering to ceasefire agreements. On March 18, 2025 it broke the ceasefire with Hamas that began on Jan. 19, rather than move on to its Phase II. And it has repeatedly bombarded Lebanon since the Nov. 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah.
In the eight days after Oct.10, when the ceasefire formally took effect after the Israeli cabinet agreed to the plan that had already been signed by Hamas, as many as 38 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces. Among them were 11 members of the Abu Shabaan family, seven of them children, who were killed by tank fire on Oct. 17 when they were driving to Gaza City to see what was left of their home. They automatically became ‘suspects’ when they neared the invisible ‘yellow line’ that the army has pulled back to, and that has left Israel in total control of 53 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Israel accused Hamas of failing to return all 28 of the dead hostages within 72 hours as stipulated in Phase 1. Hamas has handed over a dozen bodies but said it could not find more without having heavy machinery to shift some of the 70 million tons of rubble caused by Israeli bombardments. While the US said it would reward residents who locate bodies with cash payments and an international team is helping with the search, Israel is punishing Hamas by refusing to open the Rafah crossing with Egypt which would enable wounded Palestinians to receive urgently needed medical care. The World Health Organization said it could open on Oct. 20 when Vice President Vance, negotiator Witkoff and property deal-maker Jared Kushner will be visiting Israel. Israel is also not allowing in the 600 trucks per day of aid called for by the agreement.
In exchange for the hostage bodies that have been handed over by Hamas, Israel transferred 90 unnamed corpses, many of which were blindfolded and mutilated, with their hands and legs still shackled. Israel’s dehumanization of Palestinians was also visible in the emaciated bodies showing signs of torture of many of the 1,718 Palestinian captives who were released after being seized in the Gaza Strip and held without charges or trial, leaving 9,100 still imprisoned including at least 19 doctors (among them Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital, who refused to leave his patients when the hospital was under attack). As many as 154 prisoners who had been serving life sentences were immediately sent to Cairo and will then be moved to an unknown destination, without having a chance to see their families.
Resumption of war “with maximum force”?
According to the 20-point plan, once all the hostage bodies have been turned over, Hamas members are supposed to decommission their weapons and be either given an amnesty or provided with safe passage out of the Gaza Strip. But as Hamas openly patrols the streets, conducted internecine battles with the Doghmush clan, during which another journalist was killed, and threatened rival militias backed by Israel, it is difficult to imagine the organization stepping entirely aside for the so-called International Stabilization Force specified by the plan – which one official admits could take a few months to form.
Having initially approved of Hamas’ crackdown on ‘bad guys’ Trump soon changed his tune, writing on Truth Social on Oct. 16 that “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”
By Oct. 19, when Israeli forces at Rafah were reportedly fired on by armed Palestinians (Hamas denied doing so), the ceasefire seemed on the verge of early extinction as Israel carried out air strikes on Rafah, the center of the Gaza Strip and Jabaliya in the north killing scores of people. According to The Guardian, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that “the Rafah strikes were aimed at protecting members of the Yasser Abu Shabab militia – an Israeli-backed armed group accused by Palestinian sources of stealing humanitarian aid and attacking civilians during Israel’s two-year war on Gaza.”
National Security minister Ben-Gvir on Oct. 19 urged Netanyahu to “fully resume combat in the Gaza Strip with maximum force.”
But if the 'peace plan' totters on, what then?
Once Gaza has become “a deradicalized terror-free zone” (Point 1) and Hamas has been disarmed and its tunnel network destroyed, the plan foresees the entry and distribution of aid through the UN and its agencies as well as the Red Crescent and “Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” under the supervision of the “Board of Peace” headed by Trump himself (Point 9). The Board would include the former British prime minister Tony Blair (who had joined the US in its invasion of Iraq in 2003). It will oversee “a Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza” that will be “created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East” (Point 10).
The remaining points of the plan state that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza” but those who want to can leave and return; Hamas will not have any role in its governance; the International Stabilization Force “will be the long-term internal security solution” that prevents munitions from entering Gaza; “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza” but its army in conjunction with the International Stabilization Force and the US will decide on a timetable and milestones for its withdrawal “save for a security perimeter presence;” and way down the road at Point 19, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”
Almost as an afterthought, Point 20, reads: “The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”
Colonial public-private dealmaking cannot bring liberation
Palestinian input is absent from this plan. Palestinian aspirations are given remote lip service while foreign control and technocracy trump an end to occupation and meaningful sovereignty for the Palestinian people. And there is no mention of accountability for the genocide that has not stopped unfolding especially in the north of the Gaza Strip which still is largely deprived of food and water as diseases spread. Throughout September, Gaza City was being flattened by tanks and robots, and as the ceasefire went into effect, Israeli soldiers were committing widescale arson attacks on neighborhoods and the major Sheikh Ajlin Sewage Treatment Station in Gaza City.
Nevertheless, Middle East “developments” seem initially at any rate to have bought Netanyahu new space to maneuver both at home and in the international arena, and taken the immediate pressure off Israel in some quarters, judging from the decision of the Eurovision Song Contest board to cancel its November vote on Israel’s participation.
If human rights, international law and principles of justice are to mean anything at all in the future, we must intensify our pressure for Israel to be held accountable for genocide, ecocide, and the destruction of Gaza’s health and education system and its heritage, religious and cultural sites, in all of which the US has been complicit.
Nancy Murray, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
See our three-minute video ’Draining Palestine: Water, Power and Genocide’ here.
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