Shortly after 3:46 p.m. Doha time on September 9, Osama Hamdan received a call from a journalist asking him if he knew anything about the explosion that had just taken place in the Qatari capital. The senior Hamas leader was at a meeting across town from the Islamic resistance movement\u2019s offices on Wadi Rawdan Street in the upscale Legtaifiyah District. He had not heard a sound. \u201cThere was an explosion in Doha,\u201d Hamdan recalled the journalist telling him. \u201cI think your people were targeted.\u201d Hamdan began calling other Hamas officials. \u201cNo one is answering. All the phones [were] out of order,\u201d Hamdan recalled. \u201cAfter around five minutes, one of the brothers came to me and he said, \u2018There was an airstrike against the office.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As Hamdan made his way to the scene, Israeli officials began telling media outlets that Israel had conducted a series of airstrikes aimed at assassinating top Hamas officials. \u201cThe members of the leadership who were attacked led the activity of the terrorist organization for years, and were directly responsible for the massacre of October 7, and directed the war against the State of Israel,\u201d the military said in a statement. Israel said the bombing was intended to kill the head of Hamas in Gaza, Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya. \u201cWe are waiting to see the results of the attack,\u201d one official said.<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at a gathering sponsored by the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in the immediate aftermath of the strikes. \u201cAt the beginning of the war, I promised that Israel would reach those who perpetrated that horror,\u201d Netanyahu boasted. \u201cToday that was done.\u201d<\/p>\n The Israeli airstrikes were brazen, not the least because they were conducted in Qatar, a U.S. ally that hosts U.S. Central Command, the premiere strategic American military facility in the region. The Hamas offices in Doha were established in 2011 at the direct request of the U.S. government in order to keep diplomatic lines with the group open. The Qatari government, along with Egypt, has served as one of the main liaisons the U.S. relies on for regional conflict negotiations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very clear political message that Netanyahu is not willing to have a ceasefire or any kind of solutions. He wanted to get rid of the delegation that was negotiating,\u201d Hamdan told Drop Site. He added that Netanyhau wanted to claim \u201ca victorious situation when he assassinated the head of Hamas in Gaza.\u201d By bombing Qatar, \u201cIt also shows that he doesn\u2019t respect even the people who are willing to achieve the ceasefire as mediators.\u201d<\/p>\n Social media sites were flooded with pro-Israel accounts claiming Al-Hayya had been killed, along with other senior Hamas officials including Khaled Meshaal and Zaher Jabbarin. Netanyahu said Israel had struck \u201cagainst the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas.\u201d But Hamdan soon discovered that, in fact, no senior Hamas officials had died. \u201cThey concentrated on the area in which they expected the meeting of the delegation,\u201d Hamdan said of the attempted assassinations. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, the strikes killed Al-Hayya\u2019s son, Hammam, along with the Hamas leader\u2019s personal secretary, and three office assistants and bodyguards. A Qatari security officer was also killed. In all, Israeli warplanes reportedly fired 10-12 missiles at the compound, blasting the administrative offices and Al-Hayya\u2019s apartment. Al-Hayya\u2019s wife, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren were also injured in the strikes.<\/p>\n Hamdan had to break the news to Al-Hayya that his son had been martyred in the attack. The Hamas leader, whose son Osama was killed in an Israeli strike in 2014, lost numerous family members to the genocide in Gaza. Hamdan said Al-Hayya absorbed the news and then offered sentiments that the Hamas leader would later reiterate in public.<\/p>\n \u201cAs much as the pain of losing my son, my companion, my office director, and the young men around me\u2014as much as this pain, which is a natural human pain\u2014we are not made of iron or stone. We weep for our martyrs; we weep for our families; we weep for our brothers,\u201d Al-Hayya said. \u201cWhat I see every day of killing, tyranny, assassinations, and destruction in Gaza makes me forget the pain of losing my loved ones, my brothers, and others. Because I feel that all of them are like my own children.\u201d<\/p>\n While Israel publicly justified the Doha strike by invoking October 7, the attack was, in reality, an attempt to kill Hamas\u2019s negotiating team at a crucial moment and to do it inside the borders of a country that was mediating the ceasefire talks. In the days leading up to the bombing, the Trump administration, via Qatari mediators, had sent Hamas an outline of what U.S. officials claimed was a new ceasefire proposal.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s backchannel offer was sparse in its details, but its central demand was that all Israeli captives held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza be released at once\u2014not in phases. In return, the U.S. president suggested he would push Israel to accept a ceasefire and resume the flow of humanitarian aid to the enclave. From Hamas\u2019s perspective, the offer seemed like a trap, in large part because its language was vague and noncommittal on the conditions the deal would impose on Israel for ending the genocide and forced starvation campaign.<\/p>\n Hamas also had been burned by Trump\u2019s promises before. In May, U.S. emissaries met directly with Hamas officials to negotiate<\/a> the release of U.S. citizen and Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who was among the captives held in Gaza. In return, Hamas was told Trump would call for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of aid deliveries to Gaza. Hamas freed Alexander and Trump reneged on his pledge.<\/p>\n Still, senior Palestinian resistance leaders recognized the only path to a negotiated end to the genocide would have to go through Trump, and it was for this reason they had gathered in Doha to discuss the U.S. proposal on September 9 when Israel attempted to assassinate them.<\/p>\n On August 18, three weeks before the Israeli attack in Doha, the Palestinian negotiating team had offered substantial concessions and already accepted the terms of a 13-point ceasefire proposal that Trump and Israel demanded. The \u201cWitkoff framework\u201d was originally drafted in March and named for Trump\u2019s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas\u2019s acceptance of the terms was the culmination of months of negotiations and technical talks following Israel\u2019s unilateral abandonment, on March 2, of the original January ceasefire deal, its imposition of a full-spectrum blockade on Gaza, and the resumption of scorched earth bombing on March 19. The Witkoff framework centered on an initial 60-day ceasefire with the resumption of aid deliveries, the release of half of all living and deceased Israeli captives, and the possibility of extending the ceasefire as negotiations to end the war continued.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe President Trump\u2019s assessment was that Hamas would not hand over the 20 captives in Gaza all at once, because this is the only card Hamas and the resistance still held,\u201d said Mohammed Al-Hindi, the chief political negotiator for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in an interview with Drop Site last week. \u201cHamas and the factions\u2014we consulted with each other and decided to accept the Witkoff agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n The Palestinian negotiators came to the conclusion that it was important to break the stalemate and pare down their red lines to the bare minimum. For months, the Israelis had repeatedly issued new demands after the Palestinian negotiators would indicate a deal was possible. In an effort to call the question, the Palestinian negotiators informed mediators they would agree to make substantial concessions. These included the release of eight Israeli captives on the first day of a deal, dropping their demands for a clear timeline for withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Philadelphi corridor and accepting an Israeli \u201cbuffer zone\u201d encircling Gaza that cut deeper into Palestinian territory than they wanted. They also agreed to move forward with a temporary agreement in the absence of a clear guarantee from Trump that the war would end. \u201cIf the Israeli government now refuses to accept the mediators\u2019 proposal\u2014which is fundamentally their own\u2014it exposes the true nature of the Israeli position,\u201d Al-Hindi told Drop Site<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n The Palestinian negotiators saw the Witkoff framework as a flawed and temporary plan that left open the door for Israel to resume the genocide and keep significant forces inside Gaza, but the negotiating team reiterated its position that Hamas was prepared to enter into an \u201call-for-all\u201d deal to release all Israeli captives at once and to sign a long-term truce with Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question was for Mr. Witkoff: How do you define the ceasefire? Is it a permanent ceasefire, or will it be just for a period of time?\u201d Hamdan recalled. \u201cThe answer was: it\u2019s a step toward the end of the war, but it\u2019s not a permanent ceasefire,\u201d he said. Despite their reservations then, the Palestinian negotiators decided to accept the terms and move forward with what they hoped would be the start of a process that would bring the war to an end.<\/p>\n \u201cEven when we accepted that [deal] on the 18th of August, in our reply, we said we prefer to have an end of the war, and if that happened, we will return all the war prisoners and the bodies,\u201d Hamdan said. \u201cWe suggested: why not make a modification for the first sentence, saying \u2018According to this arrangement, there will be a permanent ceasefire,\u2019 or a declaration of the end of the war with a complete prisoner exchange?\u201d<\/p>\n Israel did not officially reply to Hamas\u2019s acceptance of Witkoff\u2019s framework or to its suggestion of a comprehensive deal. Instead, Israel joined senior U.S. officials in falsely claiming Hamas was refusing to make a deal, despite the fact that it had agreed to what a senior Qatari official said constituted 98% of the U.S.-Israeli demands.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were surprised that Israel rejected it, and even Witkoff rejected it, trying to place responsibility on Hamas and the Palestinian resistance,\u201d Al-Hindi said. \u201cThey gave Israel yet another opportunity to destroy the Gaza Strip. During this period, Israel [intensified] strikes on Gaza against civilians\u2014these were all crimes\u2014as if it was responding to the factions\u2019 refusal, even though the factions had accepted [the proposal].\u201d<\/p>\n As Israel expanded its ground operations against Gaza and launched what it said would be a full-scale invasion of Gaza City aimed at forcibly displacing a million Palestinians, President Trump announced<\/a> on September 3 that he was making another \u201cfinal\u201d offer to Hamas. Ignoring the fact that the Palestinian negotiators had already conceded to what Trump had also called the \u201clast chance\u201d for a deal, the U.S. delivered a 100-word document<\/a> to Hamas via Qatari mediators that called for the unconditional release of all Israeli captives in Gaza, living and dead. This exchange would entail a 60-day ceasefire and a vague commitment to end the war.<\/p>\n \u201cHamas welcomes any initiative that helps in the efforts to stop the aggression against our people. We affirm our immediate readiness to sit at the negotiation table,\u201d the group said in a statement on September 7.<\/p>\n As the U.S. initiated backdoor communications with Hamas, claiming to want to make a deal, Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir publicly threatened to assassinate Hamas leaders outside of Gaza if the Palestinian resistance did not surrender. \u201cMost of Hamas leadership sits abroad; we will reach them too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On September 8, Qatari mediators delivered to Hamas an expanded version of Trump\u2019s 100-word proposal. The next day, less than two hours after Hamas\u2019s negotiators gathered in Doha to discuss their response to Trump, Israel launched the assassination operation.<\/p>\n Trump and other U.S. officials claimed that Israel did not inform the U.S. in advance of the strike and that the president was only briefed on the movement of Israeli warplanes by the U.S. military shortly before the strikes. This narrative is implausible, given that Qatar houses CENTCOM, along with substantial U.S. military and intelligence assets.<\/p>\n Qatar also possesses extensive U.S. air defense systems and routinely coordinates with the American military, including in confronting Iranian missile strikes on Al Udeid Air Base in June 2025. On September 9, Israel faced no resistance in its strikes against the Hamas offices in Doha. Two days before the Israeli attacks, Trump issued an ominous statement. \u201cI have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!\u201d he wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n \u201cOne hundred percent they knew it,\u201d Hamdan said of U.S. knowledge about the Doha strikes. \u201cI think there was a kind of green light, maybe less than authorization, because Netanyahu would tell them before doing that, \u2018I can do something which can change the whole situation. And if we did that, you can give Israel a clear victory and you can have the chance to stop the war.\u2019\u201d Hamdan said Trump\u2019s claim\u2014after the fact\u2014to have opposed the bombing amounted to theater.<\/p>\n The Doha strike was the opening salvo in a new U.S.-led push to help Israel achieve what it failed to win through its genocidal war: a surrender of the Palestinian liberation cause and the long-term subjugation of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n To listen to Donald Trump, the agreement eventually signed by Israel and Hamas on October 8 was a monumental achievement not seen in the Middle East for millennia. He celebrated his 20-point plan as \u201cone of the great days ever in civilization\u201d and boasted it would bring \u201ceternal peace in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s plan was sweeping in its scope and carried with it monumental ramifications for the future not just of Gaza, but of Palestinian liberation writ large. On a practical level, the negotiators would not be able to respond to each point of the plan swiftly. On a political level, Hamas did not believe it had the right to unilaterally negotiate such an agreement on behalf of all Palestinians.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s plan included the deployment of foreign troops and the establishment of an international board, with Trump at its helm and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side, to dictate Gaza\u2019s affairs. It also left open the likelihood of a long-term Israeli military presence inside Gaza and envisioned the total disarmament of Palestinians, erasing their right to resist Israeli occupation. Trump\u2019s overarching message, in the eyes of the negotiators, was that Palestinians must surrender their fight for liberation and self-determination and submit to international\u2014mostly U.S.-Israeli\u2014 subjugation.<\/p>\n In reality, the Palestinian side did not agree to all of Trump\u2019s terms. Instead, Hamas offered a multifaceted response<\/a> that was the product of consultations with a wide range of political factions, including those who do not control armed forces, in an effort to respond to President Trump with a unified position. If the only issues facing the negotiators involved a ceasefire, the Palestinian resistance was confident they could come to an agreement. The situation was more complex because the proposed ceasefire was linked to what Hamas officials saw as existential issues for the national liberation struggle and involved arriving at a unified position across Palestinian factions and negotiators.<\/p>\n In the days leading up to the October agreement, Palestinian negotiators faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators to make significant concessions and finally reach a ceasefire agreement. They also were hearing intensifying demands from inside Gaza to make a deal that would end the genocide. The heads of Turkish and Egyptian intelligence, along with senior Qatari officials, assured them that Trump was serious about stopping Israel\u2019s onslaught.<\/p>\n The Palestinian negotiators, aware of Trump\u2019s erratic nature, did not doubt Trump had made such statements to the regional mediators. Still, if Trump decided to allow Israel to resume the genocide after all of the Israeli captives were released, they were concerned there would be no way to enforce the ceasefire.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regional mediators are incapable of compelling Israel to abide by any commitments in accordance with the agreement. This is something we emphasize: there is an incapacity among the regional mediators,\u201d Al-Hindi said. \u201cOf course, the Americans are biased\u2014biased in favor of Israel and supportive of it. Despite occasional differences, they remain supportive of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n In their deliberations, the coalition of Palestinian factions crafted a strategy to thread the needle: Hamas and Islamic Jihad\u2014whose armed wings held the Israeli captives and were fighting the Israeli occupation\u2014only had a mandate to enter into a deal on issues directly related to a ceasefire and the exchange of captives. \u201cThe turning point was that, for the first time in the last two years, there was a clear position from the mediators and the United States administration that this means the end of the war against Gaza, which means that the genocide will be stopped,\u201d said Hamdan.<\/p>\n Releasing all of the captives with Israeli forces still deeply entrenched in Gaza was a gamble the Palestinian resistance had consistently rejected. The internal assessment, however, was that Trump had determined that ending the active war against Gaza was a priority for him. This was not because Trump had any genuine respect or concern for Palestinians, but because of the complex constellation of interests at play: business deals, Trump\u2019s relationship with Gulf monarchies, and his pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize. They also understood that Trump recognized Israel would be incapable of retrieving the 20 Israeli captives alive from Gaza through military force and that its international reputation was in critical condition.<\/p>\n Al-Hindi laid out the strategic thinking to Drop Site:<\/p>\n From the beginning, we had no objection to releasing all the captives at once, but only if two conditions were guaranteed: a halt to the aggression and a withdrawal. These were the two elements we insisted on at all times. If Israel had agreed to a deal in which all the captives were exchanged at once, neither Islamic Jihad nor Hamas would have had any objection. But it was Israel that insisted on a phased approach. And I tell you, they insisted because Netanyahu wants to prolong the war for political reasons related to his governing coalition in Israel, and for personal reasons as well. And so he went for fragmented deals\u2014smaller exchanges. But we were prepared to release everyone from day one if Israel had agreed, and the price was ending the war and withdrawal.<\/p>\n Al-Hindi said that, when it came to terms for negotiating an end to the active genocide in Gaza, the outline of Trump\u2019s plan was \u201cgenerally in line with our position, but we needed guarantees that the war would be over and that the withdrawal would occur, even in stages.\u201d In a series of meetings\u2014including with Witkoff and Kushner, as well as mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey\u2014the Palestinians were told that Trump was serious about compelling Israel to end the war.<\/p>\n In the week leading up to the announcement of the deal, Hamas\u2019s negotiators circulated proposed language among Palestinian factions and delivered it to the commanders from the Qassam Brigades and Hamas\u2019s political leadership inside Gaza. Despite repeated invitations from Hamas and others, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority refused to participate in the deliberations. A consensus was reached that ending the genocide was the most urgent priority, but it could not come at the price of conceding to Trump\u2019s menacing demands regarding Palestine\u2019s future.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important thing about Trump\u2019s plan is the ceasefire,\u201d said Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative and a prominent political leader, in an interview with Drop Site.<\/p>\n A former presidential candidate who was elected to parliament in 2006, Barghouti has spearheaded efforts to build consensus across the Palestinian political landscape throughout the genocide, and he was directly involved in determining the response to Trump\u2019s plan. He agreed that achieving a ceasefire needed to be separated from responding to Trump\u2019s broader demands. \u201cThe rest has to be negotiated in a way that will guarantee that there is a true reconstruction of Gaza and that Palestinians, Gaza, the West Bank will eventually be freed from the Israeli occupation,\u201d Barghouti told Drop Site. \u201cThat\u2019s the main issue, in my opinion, and we have to deal with that.\u201d<\/p>\n For these reasons, Hamas and Islamic Jihad agreed to a narrowly crafted acceptance only of the terms to end the acute war, lift the blockade on the entry of life essentials to Gaza, and exchange prisoners. \u201cThis is the first phase, and we fully committed to successfully implementing this phase,\u201d said Al-Hindi, who directly participated in the negotiations. Any agreement or formal response on the bulk of Trump\u2019s proposal would require the involvement of all Palestinian factions\u2014not just Hamas and Islamic Jihad\u2014the Palestinian negotiators asserted.<\/p>\n In accepting Phase 1, Al-Hindi said that the Palestinian negotiators told mediators that they wanted a UN Security Council resolution \u201cspecifying the mandate, roles, and duration of the forces that would enter Gaza,\u201d saying, \u201cWe do not accept that these forces operate inside the Strip in a way that clashes with the Palestinian people and their resistance\u2014we want them to be peacekeeping forces. We want clear wording linking the West Bank with Gaza, not ambiguously related to Palestinian Authority reforms, which Israel and the U.S. would control.\u201d<\/p>\n While Hamas agreed to Phase 1 of Trump\u2019s proposal, it said in a statement on October 3 that the other phases in Trump\u2019s plan \u201cshall be discussed within a unified Palestinian framework, in which Hamas will participate and contribute responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe said all matters of the second phase are national issues involving all factions and national forces that participate in proposing them,\u201d Al-Hindi added.<\/p>\n In response to Hamas\u2019s acceptance, Trump ignored the nuance of the Palestinian response and called it \u201ca GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America.\u201d Thus began a mini-victory tour of the Middle East, first to deliver an address to the Israeli Knesset and then to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt for the performative signing of a symbolic agreement at a \u201cGaza Peace Summit\u201d\u2014an event that included neither Palestinians nor Israelis.<\/p>\n \u201cThis long and difficult war has now ended. You know, some people say 3,000 years, some people say 500 years\u2014whatever it is, it\u2019s the granddaddy of them all. And in an unprecedented achievement, virtually the entire region has endorsed the plan that Gaza will be immediately demilitarized, that Hamas will be disarmed, and Israel\u2019s security will no longer be threatened in any way, shape, or form,\u201d Trump told the Knesset on October 13. \u201cSo, Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You\u2019ve won. I mean, you\u2019ve won. Now it\u2019s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East. It\u2019s about time you were able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamas upheld its side of the limited agreement and released all 20 living Israeli captives the day Trump landed in Israel. It also returned the bodies of most of the deceased and has been cooperating with international teams in locating the handful still buried under the rubble left by Israel\u2019s bombing. \u201cIn Sharm El-Sheikh, we received clear commitment from the United States administration and were told directly by Witkoff and [Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared] Kushner that President Trump has a complete guarantee that all those arrangements and agreements will be implemented 100 hundred percent,\u201d Hamdan recalled.<\/p>\n For its part, Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire, killing 340 Palestinians in Gaza since October 10 and refusing to allow the agreed-upon levels of life essentials to enter the enclave. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians from Israeli captivity and returned the bodies of 330 deceased Palestinians. Many of them showed signs of torture and extrajudicial killing. Some, according to medical officials, had organs surgically removed. The freed Palestinians came out of Israel\u2019s prisons and military sites emaciated, sick with disease\u2014some with limbs or eyes amputated\u2014and with stories of unspeakable torture.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s occupation forces remain entrenched in more than half of Gaza\u2019s territory and its leaders continue to broadcast a message that its war of annihilation and conquest will continue until the Palestinians surrender. Israeli officials say they are erecting infrastructure in eastern Gaza and that they envision remaining there for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a ceasefire, but Israel is still destroying the houses, the remains of the houses in Gaza. It means that they want to convert Gaza to a place that no one can live in,\u201d Hamdan said. \u201cIs that a sign of a chance for peace? I think they are showing the people that there is no way to continue living in your land unless you resist.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the signing of the agreement, the Trump administration has scrambled to find a path to implementing its broader agenda, namely its pledge to disarm the Palestinian resistance and demilitarize Gaza. While Arab and Islamic countries publicly endorsed Trump\u2019s efforts, none of them have committed to providing troops in a deployment that runs the risk of battling Palestinian resistance fighters. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian leaders have been clear that they are open to the presence of an international force under the auspices of the United Nations, but only if their sole mandate is to enforce the ceasefire.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no objection to the presence of international forces, but for peacekeeping, like UNIFIL in Lebanon. Forces that maintain the peace in the region,\u201d said Al-Hindi. \u201cBut if their role expands into internal matters inside the Gaza Strip\u2014handling aid and its distribution, protecting civilians, or training the Palestinian police\u2014these are all roles that open the door to interference and friction between these forces and the Palestinian people inside Gaza. To maintain stability in the region, these forces must be peacekeeping forces that stand between the Israelis and the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n On November 3, the Trump administration began circulating a draft UN resolution that it hoped would provide Trump with a hammer of international legitimacy that could be used to implement his agenda. At the center of this effort was the securing of a formal UN endorsement for Trump\u2019s \u201cBoard of Peace,\u201d making him the de facto viceroy of the territory. The U.S., however, did not want an international force to fall under UN command or oversight. In the ensuing days, the Trump administration worked behind the scenes to pressure Arab and other Islamic countries to join his campaign. Palestinian leaders saw this as a perilous situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are three principles that we all agreed about as Palestinian forces, with the Egyptian side and with the mediators,\u201d said Barghouti. \u201cOne is that Gaza will be run by Palestinians by themselves, not by a foreign authority. Second, that Gaza should not be separated from the West Bank. And third, the international force that they speak about should be a UN peacekeeping force to observe the ceasefire\u2014to separate us from the Israelis and to guarantee the Israeli complete withdrawal from Gaza. These are the principles that should govern any proposal in the United Nations.\u201d Barghouti added, \u201cWe should never accept any kind of foreign rule over us again. We don\u2019t need colonialism again, and especially we don\u2019t need Tony Blair to come and govern us.\u201d<\/p>\n In the lead-up to the vote, Trump pulled off a diplomatic victory when the resolution was endorsed by a coalition of Islamic countries\u2014Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey. He also secured a pyrrhic endorsement from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas\u2019s administration, which nominally governs parts of the occupied West Bank and is immensely unpopular among Palestinians. Abbas also controls the non-member, observer seat of the \u201cState of Palestine\u201d at the UN. Now Trump could claim that \u201cthe Palestinians\u201d and Israel were on the same side.<\/p>\n Israel, which failed to defeat or disarm the Palestinian resistance in Gaza over two years of genocide, wanted the delivery of aid or any Israeli withdrawal linked to Palestinian disarmament\u2014a term enshrined in the vague language of Trump\u2019s plan. Netanyahu has made no secret of his loathing of the UN, which has passed hundreds of resolutions over the decades condemning Israel\u2019s apartheid regime. In September, at the General Assembly, he called the UN a \u201cswamp of antisemitic bile.\u201d Netanyahu nevertheless saw strategic opportunity in the UN endorsing the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance and the demilitarization of Gaza, especially if it came with no actual involvement of the UN.<\/p>\n On November 17, the Security Council convened to vote on the resolution. The U.S. envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, told the member states that the genocide would resume if the council did not bend to Trump\u2019s demands, saying that, \u201cA vote against this resolution was a vote to return to war.\u201d<\/p>\n In an unprecedented move, the council endorsed the deployment of an international force that would not operate under the banner of the UN, but would instead be commanded and controlled by Trump and his so-called Board of Peace. The UN effectively co-signed Trump\u2019s position that the Palestinians should be stripped of their right to armed resistance against occupation and apartheid. The resolution states that Trump\u2019s occupation forces would be authorized to operate with UN backing until the end of 2027, at which point its mandate could be renewed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have experience with such matters. Anything \u2018renewable\u2019 can continue indefinitely and not remain temporary. It can last for long periods,\u201d said Al-Hindi, the deputy leader of Islamic Jihad and a co-founder of the movement. \u201cWith Oslo, they said it was extendable for five years, but it has now been more than 30 years, and we are still living under Oslo.\u201d<\/p>\n The resolution, which passed without objection, contained no enforceable instructions or detailed map for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, further solidifying indefinite Israeli occupation of large parts of Gaza. It states that Israel would work alongside Egypt and the international troops to \u201cstabilize the security environment in Gaza\u201d by disarming Hamas and other Palestinian resistance forces.<\/p>\n While Trump achieved victory at the UN, implementing his plan may prove complicated. In late October, Trump claimed on Truth Social that several Arab states \u201chave explicitly and strongly, with great enthusiasm, informed me that they would welcome the opportunity, at my request, to go into GAZA with a heavy force and \u2018straighten out Hamas,\u2019 if Hamas continues to act badly, in violation of their agreement with us.\u201d<\/p>\n But several key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Jordan\u2014along with the Arab League\u2014have suggested they would not send any troops on a mission to disarm the Palestinians. U.S. officials have quietly acknowledged they are, for now, struggling to convince them to shift positions. Some of these players, however, have not entirely ruled out participating in an international force and have asked for more clarity on the scope of the mission. The administration has been in talks with non-Arab Islamic countries\u2014including Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan\u2014but no country has yet publicly pledged to participate under the current scheme. Even if some nations do offer troops, it is likely Trump will need to employ private military contractors to stand up his force.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the Arab and Islamic states that were supposedly going to participate in such forces all reject entering the Gaza Strip for the purpose of disarming the Palestinian resistance,\u201d said Al-Hindi. \u201cThat is Israel\u2019s task\u2014a task it has failed to achieve for two years. Should such forces come to do the dirty work on Israel\u2019s behalf?\u201d He added, \u201cAny plan that talks about taking away the weapons of the Palestinian people\u2014meaning taking away their will, because weapons are essentially [an expression of] will\u2014and bringing them to a point where they believe resistance is useless will be a failed plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Trump and Netanyahu have portrayed the issue of Palestinian disarmament as a fait accompli in their agendas for Gaza, as though the Palestinians have surrendered. Accordingly, Israel continues its threat to continue the war if Gaza is not demilitarized.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/bdb38418-f6ea-4dc8-9f17-c57e69870edc_6720.jpeg\")
<\/a>Members of Hamas\u2019s Qassam Brigades around Baghdad Street in Gaza City, Gaza on November 5, 2025. Photo by Hamza Z. H. Qraiqea\/Anadolu via Getty Images.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/7298bbf9-4dad-4aa5-ba23-d7da9c814d00_3089.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after explosions in Qatar\u2019s capital Doha on September 9, 2025. Photo by JACQUELINE PENNEY\/AFPTV\/AFP via Getty Images.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/7f69ee6f-f256-449f-af49-7a2838c1e57f_5268.jpeg\")
<\/a>The funeral in Doha for Khalil Al-Hayya\u2019s son, four Hamas members, and a Qatari police officer who were killed in an Israeli strike in Qatar. Handout from Amiri Diwan of the State of Qatar\/Anadolu via Getty Images.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/4a020b82-904f-4168-89ed-688bcc789676_1600.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Photo by Jeremy Scahill.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/a5c10061-402e-4f35-9dfe-181f965d6d30_5479.jpeg\")
<\/a>U.S. President Donald Trump signs a Gaza ceasefire agreement on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/9fd4e019-24f0-4709-8b42-4888da8ec42b_1600.jpeg\")
<\/a>Photo by Jeremy Scahill.<\/p>\n