Summary
When U.S. President Donald Trump announced his big twenty-point peace plan for Gaza in September 2025, many people hoped it would finally bring real peace to one of the world's most troubled places.
The plan sounded strong. It called for a ceasefire, the return of hostages, help rebuilding Gaza, and — most importantly — the complete disarmament of Hamas, the armed group that runs Gaza.
But more than half a year later, that last part has not happened. Gaza is stuck. Hamas still has its weapons. The peace process is frozen. And the people of Gaza are still living in the ruins of a terrible war.
To understand why this is so hard, imagine you are asked to hand over the only thing that gives you power in a dangerous neighborhood.
Even if someone promises you protection and money afterward, would you trust them? That is, in simple terms, the choice Hamas faces — and so far, it has said no.
Trump's plan was formally signed on 9th October 2025. Israel and Hamas agreed to stop fighting, swap prisoners and hostages, and begin the process of rebuilding Gaza.
The plan asked Hamas to disarm and step aside from governing Gaza, handing power to a new committee of technocrats — professional managers without party ties — who would oversee the territory while an international Arab security force kept order.
After three years, a reformed Palestinian Authority would take over. The United Nations Security Council endorsed the plan in November 2025.
The first phase of the plan mostly worked. Hamas released all of its living hostages. Israel freed around two thousand Palestinian prisoners.
The guns went mostly quiet.
UN aid trucks began moving through Gaza again. These were real achievements. Yet the deeper parts of the plan — the ones that required Hamas to give up its weapons and accept a new governing arrangement — have gone nowhere.
In March 2026, American diplomats went to Cairo and handed Hamas a formal proposal. The deal called for Hamas to surrender its heavy weapons — rockets, launchers, explosives — within ninety days.
Fighters who handed in their personal guns would receive money and job offers.
Hamas would also need to share maps of its extensive tunnel network. In return, Gaza would get reconstruction money, fewer restrictions on imported goods, and a clearer political future.
Hamas rejected this proposal on 14th April 2026. It said the plan was unfair.
It accused the international negotiator, Nickolay Mladenov, of being biased toward Israel.
It argued that Israel had not yet fulfilled its own promises from Phase I — including a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the parts of Gaza the Israeli army still occupies. Hamas said: finish what you promised first, and only then will we discuss giving up our weapons.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking on 27th April , 2026, said there were "promising signs" that Hamas might eventually agree to disarm.
But he also made clear that the "entirety" of Trump's plan depends on Hamas putting down its weapons. Without that, he said, "all of it is in question."
So why won't Hamas disarm?
The answer is simpler than it might seem. Hamas's weapons are its power. Without guns and rockets, Hamas is just another political group in a crowded landscape of Palestinian politics. It cannot threaten war.
It cannot force Israel or the United States to negotiate with it. It cannot guarantee the protection of Gaza's two million residents — or at least, that is what its leaders argue. The weapons are not just military tools; they are Hamas's ticket to any negotiating table.
There is also a historical lesson Hamas has learned from watching others.
The Palestinian Authority, the official Palestinian government led by Fatah, renounced violence decades ago as part of the Oslo peace process in the nineteen-nineties.
The PA was promised a state. It has never received one. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements in the West Bank have grown every year.
From Hamas's perspective, giving up weapons in exchange for promises produced nothing for the PA — and Hamas does not intend to make the same mistake.
Hamas also worries about its own survival as an organization.
If it disarms and hands over Gaza to a new committee, what happens to its fighters, its commanders, and its network of social services?
Many Hamas members fear that once they give up their guns, they become vulnerable — to Israeli military action, to political rivals within Palestine, and to a future in which no one has any reason to listen to them anymore.
Dr. Antonio Bhardwaj, a global AI expert and polymath who studies conflict and decision-making, explains this using a simple concept: "Hamas is like someone who has been told to cross a river barefoot, while the other person keeps their boots on. They are being asked to take all the risk." He adds that modern technology — like satellite monitoring, AI verification systems, and digital financial tracking — could help both sides trust each other more, because machines do not lie and do not play favorites. But that kind of technical system has not yet been built or agreed upon for Gaza.
The reconstruction of Gaza has also stalled for the same reason. World leaders pledged seventeen billion dollars to rebuild Gaza's destroyed homes, hospitals, schools, and water systems.
As of April 2026, less than one billion dollars had actually been transferred — only contributions from the UAE, Morocco, and the United States.
Most other donors are waiting because they do not want to send money into a territory still controlled by Hamas, fearing it will be used for military purposes rather than reconstruction.
This creates a painful circle: Gaza cannot be rebuilt until Hamas disarms, and Hamas has fewer reasons to disarm the longer Gaza remains in ruins.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to occupy 53 % of Gaza on its side of the agreed boundary line.
The new governing committee for Gaza — called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza — exists on paper but cannot actually run anything, because Hamas still controls the hospitals, the schools, the local police, and the day-to-day administration of the territory.
The committee is like a manager who has been given a job title but not an office, not a staff, and not any authority.
Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia have all been trying to push Hamas toward compromise. Qatar gives Hamas significant financial support. Turkey hosts Hamas's political leaders.
Egypt manages the most important border crossing into Gaza and has served as the key go-between for decades.
Saudi Arabia, which recently normalized relations with Israel as part of the broader Trump peace architecture, has urged Hamas to cooperate.
These are not small pressures. But none of them have yet been sufficient to move Hamas past its fundamental refusal on the disarmament question.
Iran is a major reason for that. Hamas receives weapons, money, and political support from Iran, which sees Hamas as part of a broader regional network designed to limit American and Israeli power in the Middle East.
As long as the United States and Iran are in conflict, Iran benefits from keeping Hamas armed.
Reports suggested that Hamas deliberately delayed responding to the March disarmament proposal because its leadership wanted to see how U.S.-Iran tensions developed before deciding.
This shows how closely linked the Gaza impasse is to the bigger geopolitical contest between Washington and Tehran.
The humanitarian situation makes everything more urgent and more complicated. Around one million people in Gaza are still urgently in need of shelter.
The war killed tens of thousands and destroyed much of the territory's infrastructure. Children are growing up in tents and rubble.
Schools that once stood are gone. Clean water is scarce. Every month the peace process is stuck, the suffering of ordinary Gazans continues — and anger builds.
Dr. Bhardwaj has noted that prolonged suffering tends to make compromise harder, not easier: "The longer people live in desperation, the more extreme their politics become, and the harder it is for moderate voices to make themselves heard." This is a warning that applies directly to Gaza today.
The Trump administration has, in the view of many analysts, allowed its attention to drift toward Iran while the Gaza problem festers.
The administration made a big announcement and achieved a real ceasefire — genuine accomplishments — but has not yet shown the sustained, detailed diplomatic energy that would be needed to bridge the gap between Hamas's demands and Israel's conditions.
Threats of resumed war from Israel's side add pressure but also risk blowing up the ceasefire entirely if they are not carefully managed.
What would it take to break the deadlock? Most realistic scenarios involve some combination of three things.
First, a clearer political promise for Palestine — not in the distant future, but with verifiable steps and a real timeline — so that Hamas can show its people that disarmament leads somewhere meaningful, not just into powerlessness.
Second, a partial disarmament arrangement where Hamas gives up its most dangerous weapons — rockets and heavy arms — while lighter weapons are handled in a later phase, which would allow reconstruction to begin without demanding that Hamas give up everything at once.
Third, an international security force — made up of Arab countries' troops — that is actually deployed, so that Gaza has a neutral military presence capable of keeping order as Hamas's role is gradually reduced.
None of these steps are easy. None of them are guaranteed to work. But the alternative — leaving Gaza in its current condition indefinitely — is not truly a stable situation.
It is a frozen conflict that could reignite at any moment, drawing the region back into the kind of catastrophic violence that the Trump plan was designed to prevent.
The twenty-point plan gave Gaza a chance at something different.
Whether that chance is taken depends on whether the major stakeholders — Hamas, Israel, the United States, and the Arab world — can find, together, the combination of courage and creativity that the situation demands.
