Trump’s plan: Hamas caught between a rock and a hard place

Author: Ashraf Al-Ajrami
U.S. President Donald Trump announced his plan to end the war in Gaza after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the day before yesterday. Trump spoke at length about the plan and other matters during the joint press conference with Netanyahu. The main elements of the plan call for an immediate ceasefire once an agreement is reached, the release of Israeli hostages within 72 hours, in exchange for Israel freeing 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences and 1,700 detainees from the Gaza Strip; the disarmament of factions in Gaza; a phased and complete Israeli withdrawal; reconstruction; the formation of a technocratic committee to administer the Strip with the participation of international experts; the establishment of an international supervisory body called the “Peace Council” chaired by President Trump and including international figures such as former British prime minister Tony Blair; the deployment of international forces and the training of a Palestinian police force; and the implementation of a Gaza development program. The plan ties the implementation of a “Palestinian Authority reform program” to a “credible path toward Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.
Trump’s plan presents several important positive elements, foremost among them ending the campaign of annihilation in Gaza, reconstruction, and putting the governance of the Strip in Palestinian hands with Arab and international support. It would effectively end the Israeli project of displacement — and even Trump’s own project for a depopulated “Riviera” — as well as the annexation project in the West Bank, and would restore Palestinian presence on the ground without Israeli occupation even if overall security responsibilities initially remain with Israel. But in the final analysis we have lost a great deal, not only in the dead and wounded — whose numbers have exceeded 200,000 — and the enormous destruction of buildings and infrastructure and everything we achieved over decades of economic and developmental foundations, including the social and psychological well‑being of the population, but also at the national level, where we now find ourselves under an international tutelage we did not need and could have avoided had we been closer to genuine national independence.
All national and Islamist components share responsibility for what the situation has become, especially the continuation of the split and fragmentation and the squandering of the chance to establish a state and realize the national dream. But the bitter truth is that since the emergence of Hamas the Palestinian situation began to deteriorate, particularly during the Second Intifada and the chaos that followed and the coup in the Gaza Strip against the Palestinian Authority, of which Hamas had been an integral and leading part. The great catastrophe was the October 7, 2023 attack and the subsequent campaign of annihilation launched by Israel under a racist, fascist right‑wing government that seized the opportunity to take revenge on Gaza and the resistance it has embodied since the 1950s, as well as to implement plans of displacement and annexation and to build a Greater Israel across historic Palestine and possibly parts of neighbouring Arab states.
By its reckless, ill‑calculated gamble, Hamas led us to this catastrophic situation. Worse still, after that major blunder Hamas did not take the interests of the people into account in its actions. It persisted in its stubbornness and delusion until we reached something greater than the Nakba. Had it remedied its mistake from the outset after misjudging the scale of the Israeli reaction to its operation on October 7, and had it conceded early and accepted the conditions being put to it — not only by Israel but by Arab and international actors — namely the release of detained Israelis, relinquishing authority, and handing over its weapons, it would have spared itself and the Palestinian people this devastating, irreparable loss. Instead Hamas thought only of its own position, miscalculated again, and bet that prolonging the war and the scale of Palestinian casualties would force the world to stop the war and keep it in Gaza in a manner similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon — that is, to remain armed individually and impose a shadow authority in Gaza.
It is now clear that the international conditions will be applied to Hamas in full, but only after a huge loss that could have been avoided. Hamas finds itself between a rock and a hard place: it cannot reject Trump’s plan that ends the war, a plan that has been accepted regionally and by Arab states, even by countries that have hosted and supported the movement, notably Qatar and Turkey, which signed the joint statement by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt welcoming President Donald Trump’s leading role and efforts to end the war on Gaza, and stressing the importance of partnership with the United States to end the war through a comprehensive agreement and to consolidate a path to a just peace based on a two‑state solution. At the same time, accepting the agreement is an admission of defeat and a severe, crippling blow to its image and popularity at home and abroad.
Hamas’s rejection of the plan would give Netanyahu every justification and secure U.S. and other support to continue the war of annihilation and destruction and to carry out Israel’s original plan to displace civilians; it would also ultimately lead to the total elimination of Hamas, in which case the loss would be comprehensive. Moreover, Trump would act personally against Hamas and could pressure the countries that host Hamas leaders to expel them, leaving Iran as the only refuge. Hamas must choose between bad and worse.