Israel has now received all its captured prisoners alive, along with most of the bodies of its fallen held by the Qassam Brigades, including on Monday 3 November the body of Colonel Asaf Hamami, commander of the southern brigade in the Gaza Division, the highest ranking Israeli officer ever captured by the Palestinian resistance.
The prisoner exchange file, which has almost reached its end, was one of the most sensitive issues for Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from Israeli society, the families of the captives, and the army leadership, which treats the return of its soldiers as a supposed “moral duty”.
Despite its high profile, the prisoner exchange is in fact the easiest component of the ceasefire deal compared with the other hard political questions that touch the future of the Gaza Strip and the national rights of the Palestinian people.
Even within this file, Israel’s behaviour sends worrying signals. During the exchange, the occupying power did not respect its commitments on humanitarian access, allowing in less than 25% of the agreed food and medical aid and under 10% of the needed fuel, while continuing airstrikes on the Strip that killed more than 250 Palestinians and wounded hundreds. All this points to bad faith and a premeditated attempt to keep pressure on Gaza.
A Political Minefield
Despite its importance in halting the genocide, rejecting forced displacement, allowing partial entry of aid and affirming the principle of full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the agreement hides a series of complex files that could become fertile ground for political confrontation and even renewed security escalation.
Among the most contentious issues:
First: Who Governs Gaza After the War?
Trump’s plan envisions forming an administrative committee of “Palestinian technocrats and international experts” led by former British prime minister Tony Blair, to manage municipalities and public services under the supervision of a “Peace Council” headed by President Trump.
This arrangement is described as temporary, remaining in place until the Palestinian Authority completes a vague “reform programme”. In practice, that opens the door for an interim setup that could become permanent from an American and Israeli point of view.
In contrast, Hamas and other Palestinian forces insist that Gaza’s administration must be in the hands of a Palestinian technocratic body, led either by a figure from the Strip or by a minister from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, but on the basis of broad national consensus. The “Peace Council” could assist in reconstruction and monitor transparency, but not replace Palestinian ownership of governance.
The clash here is clear: an externally designed custodial model that dilutes Palestinian sovereignty, versus an internal Palestinian framework that insists governance of Gaza must remain a national Palestinian matter.
Second: Disarming the Resistance – And Egypt’s Reservations
Trump’s plan explicitly calls for disarming the resistance, dismantling its infrastructure, especially tunnels, and linking full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza to the completion of that process and to firm guarantees that the Strip will pose no military threat to Israel. International forces would be deployed to control Gaza, secure the borders and prevent weapons from entering.
For Hamas and the wider resistance, weapons are inseparable from the question of Palestinian statehood. They see any discussion of disarmament as a national, strategic issue that must be addressed only within a comprehensive national framework and in connection with the realisation of Palestinian rights.
In this context, the statement of Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, is telling. He recently noted that Israel wants to strip Hamas of its weapons, while Hamas refuses and sees its guns as resistance weapons. He pointed to a proposal to “freeze Hamas’ weapons for a 10 year truce instead of confiscating them”.
Rashwan’s position suggests that Egypt is wary of disarmament without the Palestinians first gaining their right to self determination and a sovereign state. If the Palestinians are unable to win their rights while still resisting, how could they win them after being disarmed, with Israel entrenching its control over Gaza and its settlement project in the West Bank?
From Cairo’s strategic perspective, Gaza is also Egypt’s historic eastern gate. It is not in Egypt’s interest for this gate to fall under full Israeli control or to become a completely subordinated security zone.
Third: International Forces – Separation or Protection for the Occupation?
The idea of international forces is one of the most ambiguous elements in Trump’s plan. The proposal speaks of “International Stabilisation Forces” as a long term solution to meet security requirements, secure borders and prevent weapons from entering Gaza.
This vagueness guarantees that the issue will be heavily contested, not only between mediators and Israel, but also within the United Nations itself.
Israel refuses to include Turkey or Qatar in these forces, despite the fact that both are guarantor states of the agreement alongside Egypt and the United States. Ankara views Hamas as a national liberation movement, and President Erdogan openly likens Netanyahu to Hitler and accuses Israel of committing genocide. Turkey and Qatar both support the Palestinian right to self determination that Israel rejects.
For Israel, Turkish participation would give Ankara new leverage in the region against Israeli influence, at a time when Turkey has advanced ties with Syria, Iraq, Gulf states, Egypt, Libya and Sudan, along with important relations with Washington and a functional relationship between Erdogan and Trump.
Fundamental questions remain unresolved:
Will these forces operate under a UN Security Council mandate? What will China and Russia’s position be? Will the Council define their mission clearly, or will Washington and Israel shape their mandate in practice? Will they act as neutral separation forces between Palestinians and Israelis, or will they function largely to enforce disarmament and pursue Palestinian fighters?
The War Has Not Really Ended
Trump’s plan ended the first round of war by halting the genocide, laying a theoretical basis for preventing mass displacement, opening the door to reconstruction and setting the principle of Israeli withdrawal. But it left major core questions hanging: disarming the resistance, long term international guardianship over Gaza, and the failure to address the root cause by granting the Palestinian people their right to self determination.
That makes the agreement fragile, even after two years of brutal fighting and under an Israeli government that is one of the most extreme right wing in its history.
These unresolved issues feed deep uncertainty about the future and raise fears of renewed escalation in Gaza. The United States has not abandoned its war objectives or those of Netanyahu: removing Hamas from governing Gaza, disarming it militarily, and shifting the Strip from direct occupation to an international custodial regime.
A full scale return to genocide may be harder now due to Israel’s growing international isolation, the exhaustion of its army, recruitment challenges, and the limits placed by a ceasefire endorsed by 20 significant countries at the Sharm el Sheikh ceremony led by President Trump.
Yet the difficulty of resuming all out war does not mean Washington and Tel Aviv have given up on their original goals. Trump’s plan is designed to achieve those goals at the negotiating table, exploiting the humanitarian catastrophe to extract concessions and force a weaker Palestinian position.
In this context, Israeli violations, targeted bombings and “limited” strikes that have killed more than 250 Palestinians and wounded hundreds are deliberately overlooked, under various pretexts. The real intention is to sustain Palestinian bleeding in order to reshape the political and social landscape in Israel’s favour.
Two Gazas: East and West
By its nature, the occupation will not voluntarily stop seeking an iron security grip on Gaza. It will try to remain physically present in large parts of the Strip, blackmail Palestinians through control of crossings and the blockade, and obstruct reconstruction to keep Palestinians preoccupied with survival. This becomes a permanent mechanism of punishment and deterrence.
In this framework, Israel may move along two parallel tracks:
- First track: exploiting the humanitarian disaster and obstruction of reconstruction to push Palestinians to leave the Strip in search of treatment, work, education and basic life needs. This would reduce the population and pave the way for resettlement schemes under the cover of “humanitarian” absorption in third countries.
- Second track: dividing the Strip into two Gazas, an eastern and a western one, if the stages of Trump’s plan related to disarmament and international guardianship stall, once the prisoner file is fully closed.
On the ground, western Gaza today is under the administration of Hamas and the resistance, and is home to nearly two million Palestinians. The eastern part, lying east of the “yellow line”, is largely empty of residents and under direct control of the Israeli army.
With American backing, Israel could begin rehabilitating the areas east of the yellow line to receive Palestinians who agree to move and live under Israeli and international control, with promises of services, aid and the chance to restart daily life.
International forces would help manage this new reality, overseen by the civil military coordination office that Washington established in Israel to run the logistical aspects of the ceasefire agreement. Dozens of states and organisations have joined this mechanism, according to US statements.
This scenario dovetails with Article 17 of Trump’s plan, which states: “In case Hamas delays or rejects this proposal (the plan’s terms), implementation of the above will begin, including the expansion of humanitarian assistance in areas free of terrorism (east of the yellow line), delivered by the Israeli army to the International Stabilisation Force.”
Further support for this reading came from US Vice President JD Vance during his visit to Israel on 21 October. He said: “We hope to begin reconstruction quickly in areas not under Hamas control,” adding that “we hope that around half a million people will be able to live in Rafah city within two or three years.”
The aim is clear: split Gaza’s population into two societies. One, in western Gaza, remains under siege, catastrophe and deprivation, administered by Hamas and the resistance west of the yellow line. The other begins to regain some normal life east of the yellow line under Israeli control and the umbrella of international forces.
By doing so, Israel hopes to pressure Gaza’s social base. The population would be pushed to distance itself from the resistance, moving from western to eastern Gaza, from an area under resistance governance to one under Israeli and international administration.
This scenario reflects an Israeli and American understanding that one of the main sources of Hamas’ strength, and of the wider Palestinian resistance, has been the cohesion of Palestinian society and its unity with the resistance during the genocide and broader occupation project.
Having failed to break the resistance militarily, Zionist strategy is now shifting toward targeting its social base. The idea is to separate the people from the resistance through “humanitarian” enclaves built on Israeli terms, opening the way to slowly neutralise and exhaust the resistance.
The first round of the war may have stopped. But the war itself is not over. The confrontation continues on new fronts, and its chapters are far from complete.
