In the early months of 2026, President Trump is poised to declare the initiation of the second phase of his peace strategy involving Israel and Hamas. However, numerous challenges and unresolved issues still confront the nations committed to the restoration of the Gaza Strip.

Despite allegations of violations and deadly military engagements, the ceasefire established in October remains intact. A critical condition of the initial phase was met when Hamas returned the remains of all but one deceased Israeli hostage.

There is now mounting pressure to advance to the more intricate second phase of Trump’s plan, which demands Hamas surrender its armaments and relinquish control, while Israel continues its withdrawal from the region.

According to U.S. officials, Trump intends to announce this transition later this month. A meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is anticipated on December 29 to outline the forthcoming steps.

Yet, the journey forward is fraught with uncertainty, as stated by principal partners of Trump’s peace initiative, which was formalized through United Nations Security Council resolution 2803 last month.

“The plan says many of the right things, but it’s not very clear what happens first and what happens next,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said at the Doha Forum last week. 

Eide warned that progress needs to be made this month or the countries risk a return to war, “or descent into total anarchy.”

Trump said on Wednesday that he will announce early next year the makeup of the “Board of Peace,” which is expected to oversee a yet-to-be-created Palestinian technocratic government providing key services to the strip, such as infrastructure, water, education and health.

Trump took on the role of chairman of the BoP and told reporters at the White House earlier this week that the rest of the board will include “heads of the most important countries.”

As these governance structures come into play, an International Stabilization Force is expected to deploy alongside a Palestinian police force to maintain security and order. 

Little progress on disarming Hamas

But none of that can happen if Hamas refuses to give up its arms and renounce control in the strip, analysts warn. 

“The main problem, which actually overlaps all the dimensions – political, security – is the idea that Hamas must be disarmed, dismantled and the Gaza Strip must be demilitarized,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy.

“If these things will not happen, then nothing will happen.”

Hamas is sending mixed messages on what disarmament means. Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s decision-making political bureau based in Doha, told the Associated Press on Sunday that Hamas is ready to discuss “freezing or storing” its weapons. 

But in an interview with Al-Monitor published on Monday, Naim offered two options: that Hamas would only surrender its weapons to a future Palestinian state, or that decommissioning could begin under a truce of five to 10 years that includes guarantees Israel will not resume the war. 

Danield Shapiro, who most recently served as deputy assistant secretary of Defense for the Middle East during the Biden administration, said Trump should use his influence with Turkey and Qatar to pressure Hamas to give up its weapons in line with the 20-point peace plan. 

“I think the Qataris and the Turks are still the essential player to get Hamas to do that, whether they agree to do it instantaneously or whether they agree to do it in some moderately phased period,” Shapiro, who is now a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, said on the J Street Podcast. 

But Israel is distrustful of Qatar and Turkey overseeing Hamas’s elimination, as Doha and Ankara are key backers of the U.S.-designated terrorist group. 

“This is something that works just, against the interest of Israel,” Michael said, “because Turkey and Qatar are the biggest providers and supporters of Hamas. They do not intend to enable the disarmament of Hamas. On the contrary, they want Hamas to remain as a relative and influential player in the Gaza Strip and beyond.”

Mike Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday that there are “intensive” conversations with Netanyahu around what role Qatar and Turkey may play. 

Israel’s evolving governance plan

Trump’s ceasefire divided Gaza in half, with Israel controlling 53 percent of the territory – comprised of the east, southern Rafah and part of the north – and Hamas still in control of 47 percent.

Israel has demarcated a “yellow line” with colored concrete blocks to divide the two sections, but that has become a flashpoint for continued violence. 

United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk told journalists in Geneva on Wednesday that Israel is shifting the yellow-line boundary, contributing to confusion for Palestinians seeking to cross it. Clashes have resulted in 360 Palestinians killed and 922 injured, Türk said, citing Gaza health authorities. Those numbers do not distinguish between militants and civilians. 

Israel has alleged that it is responding to “terrorists” trying to cross the yellow line and posing threats to Israeli forces.

A preferred scenario for Israel, Michael explained, is for the area Israel controls to be a testing ground for Trump’s phase two. In this area, Israel would maintain overriding security control as a technocratic Palestinian administration is set up, overseen by the Board of Peace with security carried out by an International Stabilization Force alongside newly trained Palestinian police.

The Atlantic reported last month that the U.S. was planning to pilot “Alternate Safe Communities,” admitting vetted Gazans to live in fabricated villages with homes, schools and health facilities. 

If stability is secured in the east, Michael argued, “Israel will have the legitimacy and the backing of the American administration” to resume military operations against Hamas in the West, and then allow the governance structure in the east to expand Westward. 

But it’s not clear if the Israeli position is compatible with Trump’s plan or acceptable to its international backers, a consortium of European and Muslim-majority nations who gave their stamp of approval during an elaborate ceremony held in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt in late October.

International force a work in progress

The key part of the second phase of the deal is the further withdrawal of Israel’s military from the strip and deployment of the International Stabilization Force (ISF). Trump is reportedly assigning a two-star American general to lead the ISF, but potential members of the international force are holding back commitments without clear answers to thorny questions. 

Waltz, in his interview with Channel 12, said the ISF will be authorized to disarm Hamas by “all means necessary,” but the U.S. is having a conversation with each country that signs up about such tasks. 

Reuters reported on Friday that the U.S. is not demanding the ISF disarm Hamas, and wants to get the force deployed by January, citing two unnamed U.S. officials. 

Countries that have earlier pledged troops are still looking for more details. 

Rico Sirait, spokesperson for the Indonesian Defence Ministry, said that while the country is prepared to deploy 20,000 troops, it is focused on health and construction in Gaza. 

“It is still in the planning and preparation stages,” he told Reuters. “We are now preparing the organizational structure of the forces to be deployed.”

Meanwhile, Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said the country is considering committing troops but waiting for more clarity on the force’s mandate and rules of engagement, in an interview with Al-Monitor.

Likewise, an unnamed senior Azeri official told The Times of Israel that Azerbaijan had not decided on whether to join the ISF, despite being named as an early partner. Among their concerns is a pathway to Palestinian statehood, something that the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2803 endorses but does not explicitly require. 

Saudi Arabia is also reinforcing the need to lay out a pathway to a Palestinian state as the only way to ensure a durable peace, as well as being a precondition for diplomatic ties between Israel and Riyadh.

“The ultimate objective is security for all, it is regional integration, which is embedded in the realization of a Palestinian state,” said Manal Radwan, head of the negotiation team at the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the Doha Forum. 

“If we don’t have that in mind, then there is no plan in the world that will be able to drive us, not only from one stage to the next, but also to prevent another spiral of violence.”