What Does Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan Promise?

Israel and Hamas have begun to implement the first steps US President Donald Trump has proposed for settling their two-year war. Under a preliminary agreement between the two sides, Hamas on Oct. 13 freed all 20 of the last surviving hostages it took from Israel and began to return the remains of hostages who are dead, who are thought to number 28. Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinians it had jailed. Earlier, a ceasefire officially went into effect in most of the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces pulled back from most populated areas in the territory.

While agreeing to release the hostages, Hamas has not assented to other key aspects of Trump’s 20-point plan, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted. In its most ambitious form, the plan envisions Hamas doing what it has said it would not: surrendering. That would mean agreeing to disarm and give up all power in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas has ruled since 2007. Such a move, according to the plan, would precipitate an end to operations in Gaza by Israeli forces, their gradual replacement by international peacekeepers, and the rebuilding of the devastated territory.