Who will govern Gaza? This has always been the most difficult question that must be answered to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas and see the return of the hostages taken on October 7, 2023. At a March 4 summit in Cairo, Arab leaders endorsed an Egyptian plan, which is more detailed than any previous Arab plan for Gaza, that aims to answer this important question. While Israel will not accept some key elements and the Trump administration immediately criticized it, Egypt’s proposal is useful as the basis for further negotiations that will lead to a plan that Israel, Palestinians, and other governments—including the United States and Arab partners—could make work. The Trump administration should take the lead and build on what the Egyptians have proposed in order to move negotiations forward.
The Egyptian plan fulfills two central requirements: it excludes Hamas from governing Gaza and it takes off the table any thought that Gaza’s residents could be relocated. Instead, Gaza would be governed for six months by a technocratic council of Palestinians under the auspices, but presumably not the control, of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. United Nations (UN) peacekeepers would be invited in by the PA to both Gaza and the West Bank. An international contact group would oversee the effort. Arab governments would contribute to Gaza’s physical reconstruction.
There are many reasons why Israel will not accept this plan in its present form. Israel has reason to be wary of putting unnamed Palestinians in charge of Gaza—though Arab capitals and Jerusalem could reach an agreement in secret negotiations over who would be on the council.
Israel will also never accept UN peacekeepers, given the UN’s disastrous experience in Lebanon and the risk that Israel’s security could be jeopardized by big-power gridlock or pro-Palestinian sentiment at the UN. Even apart from the UN’s debacle in Lebanon in failing to enforce Security Council resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, UN peacekeeping has a spotty record of success. The Trump administration and many Democrats will back up Israel’s refusal to entrust its security to a UN force.
There are other ways to square this circle. The United States has more experience than any other country in the world in organizing effective military coalitions. This includes the effort to liberate Kuwait in 1991, in which many Arab states participated, as well as peacekeeping coalitions in Bosnia and elsewhere. In the case of Gaza, this could take the form of US involvement that does not entail US boots on the ground, at no net financial cost to the United States. That means the United States could provide logistical support, airlift, intelligence, and command and staff functions to a force of Arab and European units, funded by financial contributions from Arab countries or others. (For example, seizing frozen Iranian assets to reimburse the United States and its allies for rebuilding Gaza would be appealing to US President Donald Trump.) Trump hinted at openness to some US role in his February 4 press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as the White House closed the door the next day by saying Trump had not committed to putting US boots on the ground in Gaza. There are indications that a plan that threads this needle exists in a safe somewhere in the Pentagon. Trump political appointees at the Department of Defense probably abhor the idea, but if this is the only way to secure a lasting Israeli peace with Gaza and Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize, there is a way to organize a peacekeeping force for Gaza without involving the UN.
But the central problem for the Netanyahu government is that it is not willing to commit to turning Gaza over to the PA and to setting up a Palestinian state. This gap can be bridged, but it will be the first serious test of the second Trump administration’s Middle East diplomacy and of the leaders in Arab capitals and Israel. Israel’s concerns over “de-radicalization” should not be dismissed. Egypt and other Arab states harbor their own grave concerns about Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood roots. Talk of Palestinian unity cannot overlook the problem of Israeli concerns over the prospect of empowering Hamas and other advocates of a “one-state” Muslim Brotherhood solution, which makes Israelis do everything in their power to block a two-state solution.
Moreover, PA “reform” seems necessary but elusive. Israelis should not be asked to gamble their security on a reformed PA when Arab states have not been successful, so far, in forcing much-needed reforms on Ramallah. These are all serious problems, but the pressing need to begin Gaza’s physical and social reconstruction cannot wait for all these problems to be solved. An internationally led interim governance authority in charge of both security and reconstruction that brings in non-Hamas Palestinians is the only way to start this process.
The Egyptian proposal, like other proposals, is not going to be accepted immediately. But after years of Hamas’s disastrous rule, the Egyptian proposal could form the starting point for negotiations over a workable plan for postwar Gaza that will end both the security threat to Israel and the suffering of the people of Gaza.
Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. He previously served in the US Department of State on Middle East and international justice issues.
Further reading
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Image: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi speaks with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as Egypt hosts an emergency Arab summit to discuss Palestinian developments, at Egypt's New Administrative Capital in Cairo on March 4, 2025. Egyptian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS.