Persistent Limited Conflict Is More Likely Than Peace

Gaza has reached a new equilibrium. Unsurprisingly, it is an ugly one. The good news is that the intense fighting is over and humanitarian relief is steadily entering the strip. Since the cease-fire began on October 10, Israel has released almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and Hamas has returned all living hostages as well as most of the bodies of those killed, in keeping with the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan. Israel has reopened the Kerem Shalom, Kissufim, and Zikim border crossings and promised to allow 600 trucks per day into Gaza, carrying both aid and commercial goods for sale, which it has begun. The Israel Defense Forces has also withdrawn to a “yellow line” that limits its presence to around 53 percent of the strip, although several of the specific boundaries are disputed.

Plans for a more extensive resolution, however, are stalled, and the relations between Hamas and Israel today are characterized by limited but persistent conflict, not progress toward peace. Israel’s policies, Hamas’s refusal to lose more power, and the Trump administration’s poor attention span are likely to foil the peace proposal’s more ambitious plans for Gaza’s rehabilitation. Fundamentally, further progress depends on the creation of an International Stabilization Force to police Gaza, disarm Hamas, and eventually train a new, vetted, non-Hamas Palestinian police force that would assume control over Gaza. The IDF would then withdraw to 40 percent of the strip and eventually to 15 percent, as local security conditions improved. At the same time, a technocratic and apolitical Palestinian government would emerge to govern Gaza, reporting to what U.S. President Donald Trump has called a “Board of Peace,” which would be officially headed by Trump and run on a day-to-day basis by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, is supposed to undertake major reforms while preparing to eventually take on a major role in governing the strip.

The United States is making some efforts to move the ball forward. The U.S. military has created a Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel to monitor the cease-fire and disbursement of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Senior U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and senior adviser (and Trump’s son-in-law) Jared Kushner, have visited Israel in recent weeks to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to the cease-fire agreement. But the vagueness surrounding statements and plans for important next steps to improve security; the Trump administration’s reluctance to take a bigger, more direct role in Gaza’s reconstruction; and the hesitation from potential partners to offer greater support to such efforts all make it less likely that the more aspirational parts of the Trump plan—namely, disarming Hamas and creating a new Palestinian government in Gaza—will be implemented soon, if ever.

Meanwhile, violence persists, leading to the deaths of a number of IDF soldiers and an even larger number of Palestinians, both fighters and civilians. Reports of cease-fire violations are difficult to verify, but the Government Media Office in Gaza, which Hamas controls, claims that Israel has violated the cease-fire agreement at least 282 times; the IDF, for its part, claims that Hamas has violated the agreement 24 times. As this limited fighting continues, 90 percent of the population in Gaza remains displaced, with 1.5 million people needing emergency shelter assistance. Despite Israel’s promise to allow 600 trucks of aid per day to enter Gaza, the United Nations has reported that the daily figure has averaged less than 120. Heavy rainfall and cold weather have added to Gazans’ misery.

This status quo—marked by improvised policies, hasty U.S. efforts to put out fires, and ongoing civilian suffering—may seem unstable. Yet something like the current situation may represent Gaza’s future: limited but persistent violence and mini crises rather than progress toward development, peace, and greater stability.

HOT POTATOES

Establishing a long-term stabilization force is one of the most vital tasks for progress toward peace, but it will also be one of the most difficult. For Israel, such a force is necessary to stop Hamas from returning to power and to oversee the group’s disarmament. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, has assured his cabinet that Israel will hold veto power over which countries are part of the force.

The United States, although it has championed the idea of a stabilization force, has declined to participate. So have other U.S. partners, despite their often supportive rhetoric. Even sympathetic Arab and Muslim states have hesitated, recognizing that on the ground, such a force would suppress Palestinians on behalf of Israel—political poison for their governments, especially if there is no clear path to a Palestinian state that might justify their cooperation with Israel in the short term. Still others seek a UN mandate for the overall effort, which would be difficult to achieve given China and Russia’s opposition, which they are employing to showcase support for Palestinian sovereignty and hostility to U.S. influence in the Middle East. Even if boots could be put on the ground, counterinsurgency is difficult, particularly in an urban environment, and requires aggressive rules of engagement, skilled forces, and a willingness to take casualties—a rare combination in the best of circumstances.

As scrutiny recedes, pressure on both sides to make painful concessions will diminish.

Demilitarizing Gaza and disarming Hamas are similarly challenging tasks. The Trump plan calls for ensuring that Hamas’s weapons are “permanently beyond use” and that, in general, all “military, terror, and offensive infrastructure” is destroyed. Considering how firmly Hamas has resisted disarmament in the past, it is likely to continue to do so in practice, despite its hypothetical acquiescence to the 20-point plan. Ideologically, Hamas sees itself as a resistance organization, and a resistance group without weapons is not credible. More practically, Hamas’s military power preserves its control of Gaza, allowing it to suppress its rivals and protecting it from revenge attacks by its many enemies. Shortly after the cease-fire began, for example, Hamas attacked members of the powerful Doghmush clan—a large family centered primarily in Gaza City that has fought against Hamas and, according to various media outlets, worked with Israel to do so—to ensure that the clan, and other Gazans, knew that Hamas was still in charge.

Outside states are also not eager to reconstruct Gaza. The Trump administration has promoted ambitious visions of what a future Gaza would look like, proposing as one of its 20 points an “economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza . . . by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.” Trump put the onus on “Muslim and Arab nations” to finance the rebuilding of Gaza—which will require an estimated $70 billion. But so far, there has been far more rhetoric than dollars in support of this end. Continued fighting, even if low level, will frighten away investment and reconstruction funds.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty is the unsolved question of who will govern Gaza in the long term. Language about “technocrats” or a “reformed” Palestinian Authority masks the reality that there is currently no obvious or even plausible alternative to Hamas rule or direct Israeli military occupation, the two realities in Gaza today. Hamas has already begun repairing its damaged reputation among Gazans simply by being the only credible force that can provide basic law and order. And to avoid being bypassed by Israel or shot at by Hamas, any future government will need to be acceptable to both, a feat currently hard to fathom. Without such a government and competent security force in place, Israel will continue to feel the need to strike Gaza to prevent Hamas from rebuilding.

NOBODY WANTS THIS

Israel does not seek a return to full-scale fighting. As the war dragged on, Israel’s military operations suffered diminishing returns, a problem compounded by the accumulating damage to its international reputation. The costs to Israeli society also grew as the war disrupted the country’s economy and imposed an unequal burden on families, given the exemptions from conscription that ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arab communities historically enjoyed. Now, renewed fighting would risk angering Trump, if he blamed Israel for the collapse of one of his signature achievements. Most Israelis have thus welcomed the cease-fire.

But Israelis remain unwilling to accept Hamas leadership in Gaza, both out of a fear that the events of October 7, 2023, will be repeated and a broader anger at the militant group for the devastation and humiliation the attack wrought on Israel. Right-wing Israeli leaders oppose any deal that benefits the Palestinians in general, believing that Palestinians should not “win” in any way because of October 7. And Israelis are broadly suspicious of the Palestinian Authority. At an operational level, this means Israel would be hesitant to pass off security to an International Stabilization Force, let alone Palestinian forces, unless it were fully confident that the force would suppress Hamas—a confidence that may never come. Although these Israeli attitudes may not prompt the resumption of outright war, they are likely to lead to regular Israeli strikes on Gaza in the future. If Hamas openly consolidates power in parts of Gaza, it is plausible that Israel would try to kill the Hamas leaders who emerged, to ensure the group remained on its back foot.

Hamas, like Israel, does not want a return to full-scale fighting, but it, too, has strong incentives to carry out limited acts of violence. The brutal war following October 7 left much of Hamas’s leadership dead and its command and control weakened. Hamas’s particular excuses for the recent attacks on the IDF may be plausible, as local commanders may at times strike on their own. But the organization will almost certainly continue to use violence to put down those that defy its rule and may at times attack Israeli forces, either out of a desire for revenge or to send a message to its supporters that it remains strong enough to resist Israel.

When the time comes to implement the aspects of the Trump plan that would greatly weaken Hamas’s power and destroy it as a political actor, Hamas is also likely to violently resist, both for ideological reasons, given that it still seeks to control Gaza and the Palestinian national movement, and out of fear that rival Palestinians would take revenge if Hamas could not defend itself. Hamas attacks on the IDF and the inevitable massive Israeli response would, in turn, discredit any technocratic or Palestinian Authority government, revealing its inability to protect Gazans and making it more likely that such a government would be seen as a collaborator. This would be a political win for Hamas even if its leaders, and Gazans in general, suffered from the Israeli retaliation.

NOT GONE BUT FORGOTTEN

Today, Israeli forces vigilantly patrol the yellow line laid out by the cease-fire, shooting at Gazans who try to cross it—killing dozens—and building physical barriers with concrete blocks to mark it. It is easy to see how such a temporary line could become semipermanent. Amid this reality, some U.S. efforts to promote reconstruction have already been dashed. In November, for example, the United States tried to create “Alternative Safe Communities” where Israeli-vetted Palestinians could live on the Israeli side of the separation line in Gaza. But this proposal stalled almost immediately in the face of difficult questions about whether Palestinians in these communities could cross freely between parts of the strip respectively controlled by Israel and Hamas. The effort, which remains in limbo, is a warning that even seemingly benign proposals have political consequences that one or both sides might oppose.

Over time, international attention to Gaza will fade, particularly if limited violence does not become massive and if the humanitarian situation is miserable rather than catastrophic. As scrutiny recedes, pressure on both sides to make painful concessions will diminish, and Israel will face lower potential diplomatic costs for military strikes.

As the parade of senior U.S. visitors suggests, the Trump administration is proud of its role in creating a cease-fire and would like to make Gaza a success story. Doing so, however, would require constant pressure and patient diplomacy, neither of which are hallmarks of Trump foreign policy. It would also involve Washington deploying U.S. troops as part of a stabilization force or cajoling capable allies into participating. Trump himself would have to press Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to withdraw from parts of Gaza, despite the uncertain security situation, and coordinate continued pressure from Arab and Muslim partners on Hamas. Without the headlines generated by war and starvation in Gaza, the administration is unlikely to sustain its efforts. And without such near-constant efforts by the United States, Israel and Hamas are likely to settle into an uneasy relationship that avoids all-out war but is nevertheless characterized by constant conflict, a lack of reconstruction in Gaza, and little or no political progress toward lasting peace.

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