Israel wary of Trump’s Gaza plan despite optimism

While some Israeli circles have expressed enthusiasm for President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza, warnings have also emerged that claim the proposal, if implemented, would effectively turn the current Gaza campaign into “another round of fighting” between the occupation and Hamas, because the movement would not be defeated and the plan would not eliminate it as a military organization, but would only continue to apply pressure to end threats rather than address them.

Omer Dostri, a former spokesman for the prime minister and an expert in military strategy and national security, said Trump’s 21-point plan “contradicts almost completely the principles of ending the war and the objectives set by the government, except for the return of the hostages, which is itself a vital goal but only one of three objectives of the war.”

He wrote in an article published by Maariv that “if the plan is implemented, Israel would in effect be prepared to end the campaign as a ‘round’ while Hamas remains in Gaza, with no guarantees of its disarmament, the army withdrawing from most of the strip, and agreeing to the possibility of the Palestinian Authority returning to administer it, pumping hundreds of billions into its reconstruction, and encouraging its residents to stay rather than a plan for voluntary migration.”

Dostri, a researcher at the Masgav Institute for National Security and Strategy, said “if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts the plan as a mere diplomatic manoeuvre, knowing that Hamas will likely reject it, that step is welcome, because there is only one significant advantage to Israel accepting and Hamas rejecting the plan: it would bolster the legitimacy of continuing the war to defeat it in the eyes of the Trump administration. Nevertheless, if the movement ultimately accepts the plan and it is implemented, that would be a violation of Israeli national security and an Israeli surrender in the war.”
He listed several reasons for this conclusion, saying that “Israel would be prepared to allow Hamas to remain in Gaza, which means it is neither defeated nor exiled. This could mirror the Lebanon–Hezbollah model, where a powerful organization controls the territory while a government that is supposed to be technocratic and independent is weak and manages its own affairs. Israel would be prepared to rely on a Palestinian technocratic government, foreign forces and a civil council to guarantee the disarmament of the strip, prevent the growth of Hamas’s influence, destroy hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and stop any attacks against it.”

The writer stressed that “under the plan, UN organisations would be responsible for distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza, and in the absence of an Israeli presence Hamas could regain control over that aid. As part of the plan the army is supposed to withdraw from most of the strip to a narrow perimeter of only a few hundred metres. This, of course, is a concession on a basic principle demanded by Israel: security control of the strip, including a wide perimeter. That reality does not guarantee sufficient strategic depth against Hamas’s tunnels and operations.”

He noted that “Israel would be forced to rely on foreign forces and an independent Palestinian government to prevent the smuggling of components needed for military industries, just as it relies on UNIFIL in Lebanon to confront the growing strength of Hezbollah.”

Dostri added that “if the plan is implemented it will turn the current Gaza campaign into another round of military fighting between Israel and Hamas; the movement will therefore not be defeated or eliminated as a military organisation in Gaza, but will continue to obstruct the ending of threats rather than address them. It will force Israel to return to fight in Gaza after a few years with ground forces, after it has withdrawn all its forces from the strip, when the Israeli public has accepted the presence of Hamas, grown weary of wars and lacks international legitimacy, because the plan does not allow the occupation to return to fight in Gaza.”

These striking Israeli lines reveal a genuine concern about Trump’s plan, arguing that it brings the Palestinian issue back to the forefront and cements Hamas’s presence in Gaza, which will remain standing proudly as a monument to its actions — even though clear Israeli security control in the strip, together with freedom for the army to operate on the ground, could ensure the movement’s disarmament and guarantee that Gaza would not pose a threat to the occupation, a feature that is not clearly present in the plan.