Washington Announces Pre-Christmas Shift to Second Phase of Gaza Deal
President Donald Trump is preparing to declare before Christmas that the Gaza peace initiative is moving into its second phase, centered on an international Board of Peace and a foreign stabilization force that would help manage security and governance in the territory, Axios reports.
US officials say the second phase of the plan envisions further Israeli pullbacks from parts of Gaza, the rollout of an International Stabilization Force, and the formation of a new administration that excludes Hamas from formal power. At its top would sit the Board of Peace, chaired by the American president and composed of roughly 10 Arab and Western leaders, working alongside an international executive body and a Palestinian technocratic cabinet of about 12 to 15 vetted professionals without ties to Hamas or Fatah.
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Washington and regional partners Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey are engaging Hamas on a staged disarmament process and on handing governing authority in Gaza to the technocratic cabinet. The plan assumes Hamas will accept phased disarmament and that Israel will approve a schedule for troop withdrawals as the international force gradually assumes security duties across Gaza.
The goal is to complete preparations and declare the move to phase two before the year-end holiday period. According to Channel 12, a US official framed Hamas’s choice as either disarming and allowing an Israeli withdrawal or risking renewed fighting.
The ceasefire, reached in October alongside a hostage–prisoner exchange, followed many months of intense combat. Elements of the US approach, including the international force and the Board of Peace, have been endorsed in a United Nations Security Council resolution, and build on a 20-point framework that seeks to separate Gaza’s reconstruction and governance from Hamas while responding to Israeli security concerns.
