Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
On September 29, the White House released a 20-point plan to “end the Gaza conflict,” which includes the creation of a “Board of Peace,” headed by President Donald Trump, that will temporarily govern Gaza.
The board will be made up of other “heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair,” and will “set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program,” per the plan.
Trump, along with Israeli prime minister and accused war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, unveiled the proposal at the White House. Netanyahu threatened to “finish the job” if Hamas rejected the plan, which, at the time, Hamas said it had not even seen.
“If Hamas rejects the deal,” Trump said, “Bibi, you’d have our full backing to do what you would have to do.”
“If Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President, or if they supposedly accept it and then do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself,” Netanyahu said.
Drop Site News reported that the prime minister told “Hebrew audiences” that there is “no way” Israeli troops will leave the Gaza strip, which is one of the terms of the proposal. Since Israel began its genocide in October of 2023, Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged ceasefire talks.
The proposal states that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza,” and that the Israeli military will “progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies” to the International Stabilization Force (ISF). The ISF will be created by the United States and “international partners” to “train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza.”
Trump’s plan requires that Hamas is removed from power and provides for the group’s leaders to be granted amnesty if they “commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons.” Under the terms of the proposal, Hamas must release all hostages, after which time, Israel will release “250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7th 2023, including all women and children detained in that context.”
The proposal says a “panel of experts” will create a “Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza.”
“New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors,” the plan says.
“No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return,” the proposal says. “We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.”
Many are condemning Trump’s plan as an imperialist takeover of Gaza.
“Trump and War Criminal Netanyahu, perpetrators of the genocide, do not get to decide the future of Gaza,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) posted on X. “Palestinians get to determine the future of Palestine.”
Rutgers University professor and human rights lawyer Noura Erakat said that under the plan, there is “no Palestinian self-determination”; “Israel maintains control of borders, air & sea space”; and there is “no accountability for a single person or company for #genocide.”
The plan is “the #Gaza Riviera Plan in sheep’s clothing w threat of annihilation,” she wrote on X.
In February, Trump said that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and create the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The Washington Post subsequently reported on a leaked document that proposed ethnically cleansing the region and creating numerous mega-projects in the Gaza Strip, including the “Gaza Trump Riviera & Islands,” described as “World-class resorts along the coastline and on small artificial islands (similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai).” NBC News reported that in August, Blair and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had presented the proposal to the White House.
Journalist Amine Snoussi called Trump’s 20-point plan a “colonial abomination.”
Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said the Palestinian people are not “minors needing guardianship,” Al Jazeera reported.
“Gaza or the West Bank are internal Palestinian matters to be resolved by national consensus, not imposed by outside powers,” he said.
As for Blair, Badran said the former prime minister should be on trial for his role in the Iraq War. Under Blair, who served as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, the U.K. joined the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The war was based on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
“Any plan linked to Blair is an ill omen,” said Badran.
Many reacted similarly to the prospect of Blair’s involvement.
“Classic Blair. He is now proposing himself as the Empire’s Regent of Gaza,” Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, wrote on X. “A war criminal himself, he demands a five year appointment to run the site of Israel’s genocide on behalf of Donald Trump in the finest tradition of White Settler Colonial projects.”
British politician Jeremy Corbyn posted on X that Blair’s “catastrophic decision to invade Iraq cost thousands upon thousands of lives.”
“It is not up to Blair, Trump or Netanyahu to decide the future of Gaza,” he continued. “That is up to the people of Palestine.”
Prior to the plan’s announcement and in response to rumors of Blair’s involvement, the United Nation’s Francesca Albanese wrote on X: “Tony Blair? Hell no. Hands off Palestine. Shall we meet in The Hague perhaps?”
Media that fights fascism
Truthout is funded almost entirely by readers — that’s why we can speak truth to power and cut against the mainstream narrative. But independent journalists at Truthout face mounting political repression under Trump.
We rely on your support to survive McCarthyist censorship. Please make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation.