US-backed Gaza peace plan ‘fails to overcome central obstacles’, warns expert

Talks aimed at ending the war between Israel and Gaza hit an impasse this week, with the United States playing mediator between the two parties. Amjad Iraqi, a senior Israel-Palestine analyst with the International Crisis Group, tells RFI there remain major issues that the US-backed roadmap to peace does not address. Despite Monday's impasse in the latest round of disarmament talks between Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – mediated by US Envoy for Peace, Jared Kushner – the Gaza-based militant group on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment to the 15-point roadmap, including the condition of disarmament. On 31 July, Hamas had said it would begin disarming only once Israeli forces began withdrawing from Gaza. In response, Israel on 9 August rejected the roadmap, saying there would be no withdrawal from Gaza until Hamas is "genuinely" disarmed. Both parties had initially agreed to the roadmap, as part of the Gaza peace plan spearheaded by US President Donald Trump under the auspices of his Board of Peace. The final draft of the plan was announced on 29 September last year and came into effect on 10 October with a ceasefire. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, around 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since this came into effect. Amjad Iraqi spoke to RFI about the flaws in the roadmap, and the steps he believes can be taken to achieve disarmament. Netanyahu rejects Gaza plan in new break from Trump Amjad Iraqi: Anyone who expected some kind of breakthrough from the Board of Peace meetings with Hamas and the Israeli government was bound to be very disappointed. The roadmap itself has not overcome two of the central obstacles that have marred the entire ceasefire process from the beginning. The first is the problem of the Board of Peace itself. Among many issues, even in its diplomacy it's been very inconsistent. It's tended to defer to Israeli positions in negotiations. It says one thing in one negotiating room and then comes out saying something else. We saw this live with the roadmap. And we saw this also [on Monday] with Kushner, where he meets between the parties and still ends up taking more or less Israel's position that Gaza will not be rebuilt until demilitarisation happens first. The second problem is the disarmament deadlock itself. The Board cannot settle the issue of where Palestinian factions are in terms of seeing decommissioning happen as a gradual process in lockstep with Israeli troop withdrawal – versus the Israeli [and de facto American] position that reconstruction will not happen until total disarmament is completed in order for Israel to pull out, let alone to supply the promised levels of aid. RFI: You say that the Board of Peace itself is problematic. Can you expand on that? AI: What it has done in Gaza was to establish a system whereby US, or mostly US, officials essentially hold supreme authority over Gaza's decision making, with Trump at the top. This executive board and all these figures, including Kushner, and [Steve] Witkoff and Tony Blair, that's the chain of command. And the Palestinian technocrats, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza [NCAG], are at the bottom of that chain of command. The vision the Board of Peace has been pursuing for Gaza and the way it has completely controlled the political and diplomatic and reconstruction process... amounts to a protectorate over the Gaza Strip. And nothing moves without their approval. This is one [way in] which the governing hierarchy has actually stifled Gaza's ability to properly recover [and failed to give] Palestinians any control over their own homeland. With negotiations over disarmament, these are very delicate, complex negotiations where both sides have very strong views and distrust, so it needs delicate hands. This is where countries [in the region such as] Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, even the Emiratis and the Saudis, have been trying to step in to help facilitate some kind of a framework, which the Palestinian factions have now quite clearly said they are on board [with] going forward, despite their distrust of Israel. Israel's targeting of Gaza's children proves genocidal intent, UN inquiry finds RFI: We've been using the term "disarmament", but there's also "demilitarisation" and "handing over arms". Are there any differences or nuances between these terms? AI: There definitely are. It's alright for [these terms] to sometimes be used interchangeably. But when it comes down to the actual technical process and implementation, the differences actually matter. Decommissioning your weapons [versus disarming entirely means] that Hamas and other factions will [not] give their weapons to Israel, but [will hand them] to the NCAG as a Palestinian body [on whom] they are bestowing [their] trust, under international monitoring. [The idea is] that they will store these weapons away. In other words, [the weapons] are not to be touched by their enemies, but stored in facilities [as part of] a longer-term process to decide what to actually do with them. The nuances that come with decommissioning [make it] different from a broad concept of disarmament. As far as Israel is concerned, it's very disinterested in any of those nuances. The government has been very clear that it wants total disarmament. And it says [both] heavy and light weapons, all tunnels, all facilities, everything has to be destroyed. 'Believing in peace is not naive' say Israeli and Palestinian 'brothers' RFI: Given the major global players involved in the Gaza war, is this the best we can expect in terms of a roadmap? AI: For the moment, it's the most practical way forward. The regional mediators, who really understand the nuances of the politics, have tried to put this forward collectively. The Palestinian factions, even though they have their reservations, have officially signed up to this roadmap. Part of it is seeing the advantages, and part of it is the pressure that's being placed on them. But they still said yes. That means that you have very crucial buy-ins from the factions [whose weapons you're trying to decommission], who still have control over Gaza. It means that there's space for compromise. The roadmap is focusing especially on trying to empower the NCAG to be the [leader in the process] rather than the Board of Peace. There's language there which does try, at least rhetorically anyway, to centre Palestinian agency and ownership over the process. But if Israel says no, and the world's largest superpower, the US, ends up backtracking to support it, then it's dead in the water before it's even gotten off the ground. If they cannot even give this roadmap... a shot to be tested, then, as we heard from Kushner [on Monday], the Americans will allow Israel to "finish the job".