By: Prof. Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh.
A year after Trump announced his plan to end the war in Gaza Strip (GS) and rebuild it, 94% of the population still urgently needs shelter and essential household supplies. About 1.5 million Palestinians remain displaced, living in some 270 thousand dilapidated tents, 162 thousand that are worn out and unfit for habitation. Meanwhile, large numbers of Palestinians continue to live in shelters such as schools or in damaged homes and buildings at risk of collapse. Yet the shelter assistance delivered under Trump’s plan and by the Board of Peace (BoP) has met no more than 3–4% of the population’s urgent needs.
Without dwelling on the statistics, a pressing question arises: How can the world’s most powerful country, together with the 27 countries that make up the BoP, remain unable to meet even the most basic needs of the people of GS, when those needs could be addressed within days if the crisis involved a domestic emergency in the US, one of the member states, or a friendly country?!
A Truce with Catastrophic Consequences:
Trump’s 20-point plan, announced on 29/9/2025, succeeded in halting the war and the genocide, securing a prisoner exchange, preventing the displacement of Palestinians, allowing some humanitarian aid and relief supplies into GS, and preventing Israel from acting unilaterally in the territory. However, the plan stalled in its second phase, while GS continued to endure devastating living and economic conditions, ongoing Israeli aggression, persistent insecurity, and the loss of even basic infrastructure and essential health and education services. Palestinians were left without even adequate tents for the displaced, let alone the reconstruction of their homes.
Gaza is no longer at the center of events or the world’s attention. People have returned to their own concerns and moved on to new developments, while Israel has continued its aggression with far less public scrutiny. Perhaps that is precisely what Israel and the US wanted. When US President Trump was asked about Gaza nearly a year after announcing his plan, on 12/9/2026, he responded, “We put out the fire and we got all the hostages back. There’s very little happening right now in Gaza. That’s not the place that people are talking about actually now.” In short, the catastrophe continues, but most people, including many of those directly concerned, have simply stopped watching!!
The Board of Peace:
The founding Charter of the BoP, which defines its powers and functions, was ratified on 22/1/2026, following Trump’s reference to the body in his plan as a supervisory “international transitional body” for GS. Trump assumed the chairmanship and was granted exceptionally broad powers, including exclusive authority to invite states to join the Board and revoke their membership. The BoP was subsequently expanded into an international organization that “seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict,” thereby extending its potential role beyond GS to other regions of the world.
The central problem with the BoP is that, with respect to GS, it has effectively supplanted the United Nations (UN) and its established frameworks. It represents a “supranational” system that overrides Palestinian agency and could evolve into a de facto permanent arrangement, which is precisely what the Israeli occupation seeks. Its implications are particularly troubling because it is a BoP ostensibly concerned with Palestine while Palestinians are excluded from its membership. At the same time, the occupying power responsible for genocide has been admitted as a member, with Netanyahu serving as Israel’s representative. In other words, the perpetrator has been incorporated into the very structure intended to deliver a solution, thereby stripping the concept of justice of its substance. Moreover, across the four tiers of this international body, Palestinians have been excluded from the first three: the BoP, the Executive Board and the International Stabilization Force (ISF). Instead, they have been relegated to the fourth tier, a technocratic committee established to administer GS. The committee’s members received Israeli and US approval individually before it was formally endorsed. Nevertheless, Israel has prevented the committee from entering GS and carrying out its functions since its formation more than nine months ago, on 14/1/2026. During this period, neither Trump nor the BoP has exerted meaningful pressure to compel Israel to allow the committee to operate. The same pattern applies to the Board’s other functions, which have effectively been stripped of substance whenever they serve Palestinian interests.
Addressing the Problems of the Occupation, Not Those of the Palestinian People under Occupation:
When a people lives under colonial rule, the responsibility of the international system and international law is to help end that rule and bring the occupation to an end. Yet Trump’s plan, the mechanisms of the BoP, and the plan advanced by Nikolay Mladenov, Director-General of the Executive Board, over recent months have instead focused on “legitimizing the occupation” by treating it as a partner in a transitional framework and as a participant in international arrangements. At the same time, Israel has effectively been left to determine the terms of these arrangements, without a clear timeline or binding framework governing its “satisfaction” with measures concerning the resistance or the civilian population, or the timing of its gradual withdrawal from GS. In effect, the arrangements prioritize the security concerns of the occupying power while leaving the population under occupation without a clear path toward ending the occupation. For Palestinians, there is no clear timetable for ending the occupation, lifting the blockade and opening the crossings, launching reconstruction, or restoring essential infrastructure and health and education services. Thus, the plan has proceeded in the opposite direction from the framework established by UN resolutions and international law.
A One-Sided Ceasefire:
Nearly a year after the ceasefire took effect on 10/10/2026, Israel has continued its bombardment, killings, assassinations and destruction, as though the ceasefire were binding only on Hamas and the resistance forces. As of 28/9/2026, Israel had committed 5,147 violations of the ceasefire, resulting in the deaths of 1,421 Palestinians and injuries to 4,983 others, an average of 4 deaths and 14 injuries per day. By contrast, Hamas and the resistance forces have generally adhered to the ceasefire.
At the same time, Israel has sought to expand its control over the GS in blatant violation of the ceasefire’s fundamental terms. It has increased the area under its occupation from 52% to about 70% and has threatened to occupy the entire GS. Such actions fundamentally undermine both the ceasefire and the very premise underlying the BoP.
These violations have occurred in full view of the BoP and its executive board, neither of which has taken meaningful action to halt them. For Trump, however, these violations have apparently been of little consequence so long as Israel, his strategic ally, retains control over the terms governing the situation.
Withdrawal and Disarmament:
Trump’s plan called for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from the GS and the disarmament of the resistance. Regardless of one’s position on these provisions, the plan did not make disarmament a precondition for the start of the withdrawal. Nor did it specify the details of the disarmament process, including its scope, timeline, or the entity responsible for collecting the weapons. Israel, however, sought to impose its own interpretation of the plan, conditioning the commencement of each stage of its withdrawal on Hamas and the resistance forces surrendering their weapons. It also continued its military operations throughout the GS and the targeted killing of resistance figures in an effort to impose its terms. The Board of Peace and Mladenov, through his fifteen-point plan, subsequently adopted much of the Israeli position. Although Hamas responded positively to the plan, agreeing to a proposed roadmap on 30/7/2026, and the US welcomed this response, Israel rejected the roadmap because it did not conform to its arrogant and domineering posture. The BoP, meanwhile, remained silent as Israeli forces continued their aggression.
Notably, before Trump’s plan was implemented, the international community had been focused on pressuring Israel and imposing sanctions to end its aggression, open the crossings and secure its withdrawal from the GS. Yet, through US backing and a selective interpretation of Trump’s plan, Israel succeeded in shifting the international focus toward pressuring Hamas and the resistance forces to disarm. This, in turn, diverted attention from Israeli aggression and ceasefire violations, the blockade, ongoing killings and targeted assassinations, the expansion of areas under Israeli occupation and other violations.
Economic and Humanitarian Blackmail:
During the war, the Israeli army destroyed more than 90% of the GS’s infrastructure and productive capacity, including universities, schools, hospitals, health clinics, mosques, churches, water wells, agricultural land, roads, electricity and irrigation networks, sewage systems and other essential facilities. It also left more than 60 million tons of rubble from destroyed buildings and homes… Yet throughout the ceasefire, Israel has continued to block the entry of reconstruction materials, equipment and machinery, preventing any meaningful reconstruction effort from getting underway. The BoP’s reconstruction plans have likewise remained largely on paper. In May 2026, the BoP cited donor pledges of about $17 billion for reconstruction. Four months later, however, in September 2026, it was still referring to an “initial plan” of $2.45 billion covering just 66 projects.
Under these devastating conditions, Trump’s plan called for 600 trucks to enter the GS each day to meet the population’s basic needs. Nevertheless, Israel has continued to exploit the population’s humanitarian needs as a means of pressure. Nearly a year into the ceasefire, only 35% of the minimum required volume had been allowed to enter, averaging 206 trucks per day: 72,826 out of the 210,600 trucks required as of 28/9/2026. These restrictions have affected large quantities of medical and educational supplies, construction materials, shelter equipment, electrical equipment, water and sewage pipe and other essential goods.
Meanwhile, the BoP has effectively stood by as a passive observer!! making no meaningful effort even to compel Israel to implement the humanitarian provisions of Trump’s plan.
Armed Collaborator Groups:
Throughout the ceasefire, Israel continued to support armed collaborator groups that engaged in looting, terrorized civilians and cooperated with the Israeli forces in targeting resistance members. Israel also killed and assassinated numerous Palestinian police and public security personnel, thereby facilitating the activities of these groups, fostering disorder and further fracturing the social fabric of GS. Although these groups are relatively small, Israel’s provision of weapons, protection and cover has turned them into an additional instrument of pressure and coercion against the population of GS.
Entrenching Conditions for Displacement:
Trump pledged not to displace the population of GS. Yet, over the course of a full year of the ceasefire, the Israeli forces have instead entrenched conditions that drive Palestinians out of GS and made it increasingly uninhabitable. Some 370 thousand housing units remain destroyed, with no meaningful repairs or reconstruction under way. Construction materials and equipment for clearing the rubble remain unavailable, while even the most basic necessities for daily life, healthcare and education, as well as essential infrastructure, remain severely inadequate. These conditions have persisted amid continuing aggression, insecurity and the further spread of lawlessness.
Conclusion:
A year into Trump’s plan, there are few grounds for optimism about the implementation of its second phase. Israel has largely disregarded both the plan and the BoP, selectively embracing provisions that serve its interests. Meanwhile, the GS remains in a state of continuing humanitarian catastrophe under what is nominally a ceasefire, which Israel has violated at an average rate of 14 times per day. Israel has also continued to expand the areas under its occupation and entrench conditions conducive to the displacement of Palestinians from the GS. At the same time, the BoP has demonstrated a fragile institutional structure, limited effectiveness and an inability to compel Israel to fulfill its obligations under the plan. These shortcomings have been compounded by continued US political cover for Israeli violations, ongoing US-Israeli efforts to accommodate and reassure Israel, and measures that effectively punish the victim while leaving the Palestinian people’s rights and interests unaddressed.
Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, 7/10/2026
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