The Board of Peace’s New Gaza Initiative Is Bold — And It Just Might Work

After months of apparent inactivity, Trump’s Board of Peace is back. And it has a new idea. On July 8, the Board of Peace (BoP) announced plans to create a “pilot zone” in Gaza in the coming months. While there are many questions surrounding its implementation, this zone represents a novel approach that might provide a workable alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza. And it can work; if Washington can help the BoP navigate real but predictable hurdles. The zone, located in the Tel Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, would sit on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line, which divides Gaza between Israeli and Hamas-controlled territory, and accept Gazan civilians vetted for Hamas ties. Once inside, they will receive food, medical care, and temporary housing to begin with. Israel has not commented directly on the zone, so far, but has approved some measures necessary for its creation. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a BoP-appointed committee of Palestinian technocrats, will administer the zone, the International Stabilization Force (ISF) and a new Palestinian police force will provide security, and the BoP will offer logistical support. The Israel Defense Forces will not have a direct role in the zone itself but will continue holding territory around it and along the Yellow Line. The Tel Sultan zone is effectively proof of concept for a Gaza without Hamas. Living in the zone is completely voluntary. Civilians will enter and leave of their own volition. But its strategic purpose is to separate Gaza’s population from Hamas and begin building an alternative governing model in areas the terror group no longer controls. Officials have also made clear that Gaza’s full reconstruction will remain conditioned on Hamas’s disarmament, meaning that the pilot zone is an interim humanitarian and governance structure. If successful, the Tel Sultan zone could expand into a broader network of Hamas-free areas each potentially housing tens of thousands of civilians. Should the idea of the Tel Sultan pilot zone proliferate, it has the potential to blunt Hamas’s most strategic weapon: the civilian population of Gaza. For, if these zones are plentiful and house a critical mass of Gazans, Hamas will be increasingly isolated from the civilians it uses as human shields. Simultaneously, if the terror group is totally isolated in its part of Gaza, Israel can eliminate the remnants of the organization with far less risk to civilians. A voluntary civilian relocation of this magnitude would also erode Hamas’ legitimacy. If a substantial share of Gazans decide they’d rather live under NCAG rule in a relatively autonomous but still ultimately Israeli-controlled area, Hamas can no longer say it represents the people of Gaza. While many Gazans still support Hamas, those who don’t would have the opportunity to vote with their feet. To make the zones work, four steps are necessary: First, it must keep Hamas — and weapons generally — out of Tel Sultan. Hamas will undoubtedly attempt to sabotage this initiative or take control of the zone. The vetting process is therefore crucial. Even if Israel isn’t involved on the ground, the ISF and NCAG should welcome Israeli intelligence, which can enhance the vetting process substantially. Even if Hamas manages to sneak a few terrorists through, the terror group can only take power if it has weapons. Ensuring the ISF, or whichever multinational force is tasked with keeping the peace, has a monopoly on force is essential. Early reports indicate that the zone’s peacekeepers will be armed with nonlethal weapons. That decision is ill-advised, if true. For this new initiative to succeed, the zone must have redundant layers of security to protect it from Hamas. Second, the Board must ensure that those who seek to live in the pilot zone are able to make the journey. Previous efforts to unshackle Gazans from Hamas, such as aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), faced terror attacks. As recently as May, Hamas threatened Palestinian contractors at gunpoint to prevent them from working on a UAE-funded reconstruction project in Rafah. Ensuring safe travel conditions will involve some level of IDF activity in the Hamas-controlled part of the Strip. In the case of the GHF, the IDF secured humanitarian routes to safeguard civilian movement to aid distribution sites. Still, Hamas often launched deadly attacks against IDF forces. Fortunately, a trip to a pilot zone would be one-way, rather than a daily commute, lessening the risk. Third, the Board must convince Israel that the promise of these zones can be realized. Israeli officials have already signaled their opposition to ceding captured territory until Hamas is fully disarmed. That said, Jerusalem approved the deployment of some 200 Moroccan and Uganda ISF troops in the Tel Sultan pilot zone on July 27; albeit with conditions. These include: a requirement that countries sending troops must have a peace deal with Israel, that the IDF will not withdraw from any other areas behind the Yellow Line until Hamas is completely disarmed, and that the ISF will work “in full coordination with the IDF.” What that coordination practically constitutes has yet to materialize, however Israel is rightly concerned that Hamas will try to infiltrate the zone. Jerusalem also seeks to prevent potentially hostile foreign troops from operating close to its borders, and is maintaining its ultimate standard for a permanent peace: the disarmament of Hamas. Finally, the BoP must have a plan for what this project will look like after Trump. Trump is, of the course, the BoP’s Chairman, and could easily retain a leading role after his presidency. Support from his successor administration, however, would drastically increase the chances of this project’s success. This first zone could take months to become fully operational. And this is just proof of concept. To work at scale — setting up more of these zones, recruiting and training a multinational force to police them, vetting the civilian population, and operationalizing humanitarian routes — could take years. During the remainder of Trump’s term, he should work to make these zones an indisputable success. Future administrations might roll back the initiative if there are high death counts during population transfer, Hamas successfully infiltrates the zones, conditions there are similar to, or worse than, the rest of Gaza, or if Israel’s role is too public. International support, whether through financial commitments or troop deployments, will help this project on the global stage. Simultaneously, Washington must show it is serious about this effort. If this exercise is merely a half-measured advertisement designed to prove Trump’s BoP is active, then it should be scrapped. Recent reports that the first pilot zone’s inauguration has been pushed back is worrying. The Trump administration must ensure full funding and staff at least in the Tel Sultan zone to prove its intent. Pilot zones are innovative, but fragile. If they succeed at scale, they can isolate Hamas from the civilians it abuses and be a precursor to the terror group’s eradication. More than anything, Palestinian civilians deserve a real opportunity to escape the clutches of Hamas. Samuel Ben-Ur is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.