On 4 February 2025 President Trump floated a proposal out of nowhere that the USA would like to take over and ‘own’ the Gaza territory and turn it into ‘the Riviera of the Middle East’. When asked who would live there, he didn’t say and when asked how much it would cost America he said it wouldn’t. All he was clear about was that Palestinians would not ‘go back’ to Gaza (as though they were not there already!).The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, described the plan HERE as ‘a blueprint for a crime of historic proportions’. Analysis from the BBC was HERE and the Chinese foreign ministry commented: “Gaza is the Gaza of Palestinians, an integral part of the Palestinian territory, not a political bargaining chip, let alone the target of a law of the jungle,”
On 29 September 2025 came a comprehensive ceasefire plan (HERE). The US secured the support of several Middle East states but then made alterations to suit Israel before announcing it. There was plenty of criticism by campaigners including THIS from Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Negotiations continued and on 10 October 2025 an agreement was signed by Trump, Hamas and Israel (see HERE). On 13 October 2025 20 Israeli and almost 2,000 Palestinian hostages were released. A big international jamboree in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh later the same day made the formal announcement that the war is over. Palestinians meantime started flooding back to where their homes used to be and began to put their lives back together.
Trumps plan has been endorsed by the UN Security Council’s resolution 2803 (2025) passed on 17 November 2025 (13 in favour, just Russia and China abstaining). The resolution set up a ‘Board of Peace’ to be in charge of a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (headed up by one Nikolay Mladenov).. How this will be implemented has n ever been clear; with Israel refusing to let the National Committee into Gaza and hardly any countries signing up to provide soldiers for the ‘International Stabilisation Force’. A stalemate has persisted with the Israelis continuing to occupy mmore than half of Gaza and to keep shooting while the Palestinians of Gaza continue to starve.
At the end of July 2026 came the announcement of yet another 15-point plan, providing for Israeli withdrawal and Hamas disarmament. A familiar pattern could be observed, with Hamas immediately agreeing to it and Israel prevaricating. Mladenov said that disarmament and withdrawal must take place ‘in lockstep’, only to backtrack and say total disarmament must come first. Even this was not enough for Netanyahu who felt emboldened to announce he rejected the plan altogether.
On 17 August 2026 Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner visited first Hamas, then Israel. He emerged saying, predictably, that Israel has a right to defend itself and Hamas must disarm entirely as a first step. There is talk of a 60 to 90 day deadline, which conveniently ends the other side of elections in both Israel and the US (in which Trump wishes to claim achieving peace while Netanyahu has to continue to claim achieving war).
The Palestine ambassador Dr Husam Zomlot, in a February 2026 speech to the Oxford Union put it like this:1. We reject feeding Palestinians without freeing them, rebuilding without restoring rights, or managing a population instead of ending an occupation. 2. Gaza is not empty land to be redesigned. It belongs to its people and is an inseparable part of Palestine. 3. Our future cannot be discussed without us—or reduced to a technical or humanitarian problem instead of confronted as a political and legal historic injustice. 4. Palestine is not without an address. There is one address: the State of Palestine and its national institutions—born of a 100-year struggle and recognized by 160 countries. For the full speech see HERE.