An Israeli airstrike near a bakery in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, killed two Palestinians on Saturday, including a 3-year-old boy, Gaza medics said. The dead were Hussam Nusair and Tayyem Hamdan, the child. Several other people were wounded, the medics said. The strike hit near a bakery. Ordinary people were the ones standing closest to the blast, as usual.
The State's Monopoly
The same day, the policy machinery around Gaza kept grinding. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz posted on X/Twitter on August 28 that he had met with Board of Peace High Representative Nikolay Mladenov, whom he called "a key partner in the work to secure Gaza’s future, rid Hamas of its weapons, restore basic governance under a Committee of Palestinian technocrats, and build a real foundation for stability in the Middle East." Waltz also said, "Remember the Security Council’s pledge: Gaza cannot sustainably rebuild while Hamas retains the ability to plunge it back into war. We will be frozen in a cycle of humanitarian aid rather than rebuilding until Hamas disarms and demilitarizes." He added, "For the first time in modern history, a new future for Gaza without war or terrorist overlords is credibly in reach. To get there, we all must implement the 15-point plan for Hamas to disarm."
That language has the familiar smell of governance by committee, force, and paperwork. Mladenov posted that the peace process can only move forward after an International Stabilization Force is deployed, and that Hamas also has to adhere to its commitments. The article said Israel also has commitments under the 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum. It said Hamas has to disarm, meaning every category of weapon in Gaza has to be decommissioned, and only after that will Israel redeploy or withdraw forces. These steps are supposed to happen in phases that are performance-based and verified along the way. Hamas and other groups have agreed to hand over their weapons and transfer governance to a new full governing authority.
Who Governs the Ruins
The article said the IDF continues almost daily strikes in Gaza. In early August, Mladenov said that "two days of strikes across Gaza have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies that people depend on." He said this came after intense efforts by the Board of Peace and the mediators — Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, and the US — to bring the Palestinian factions in Gaza to agree to a roadmap on the full implementation of President Donald Trump’s plan, to hand over civilian governance and to decommission their weapons. He said, "Both parties carry obligations under the Comprehensive Plan and the Sharm el-Sheikh deal that secured the release of all hostages."
Burundi and Uganda had sent personnel to Israel to discuss deploying as part of the International Stabilization Force, and Albania and Kosovo had done so several months earlier. Not many troops had actually arrived for the force. Mladenov wrote, "My team and I are working around the clock with the parties, the mediators, and regional partners to de-escalate and create the space for the full implementation of the president’s plan. Achieving a lasting peace is hard but achievable if everyone makes their best efforts."
The Board of Peace also posted Mladenov’s UN comments, saying Gaza’s crisis has never been only a security or humanitarian problem and has always been a political and governance problem. It said the National Committee is composed of independent Palestinian professionals and is meant to govern during the transition and restore effective administration. Mladenov said, "This transition will ultimately be judged not by the structures we establish but by whether Palestinians experience greater security, more reliable services, and a measurable improvement in daily life."
The Catch-22 for Two Million People
No weapons have been decommissioned so far and Hamas has not handed over governance. The article said Hamas continues to control the lives of 2 million people in Gaza, that people have no way to leave the Hamas-controlled area because the rest of Gaza is either controlled by the IDF or has active armed militias, and that there is nowhere for civilians to go if they don’t want to live under Hamas rule. It said the IDF won’t withdraw unless all of Hamas’s weapons are collected, and that those weapons likely can’t be collected unless civilians can leave the Hamas area and a new governance authority is established.
The essence of the Gaza peace plan now appears to be a catch-22, trapping two million civilians under Hamas rule with no way to receive the new governance promised under the plan. The lack of deployment of the International Stabilization Force into Gaza, and the inability to create any zone that is Hamas-free and also open to civilians, means the plan can’t proceed according to its vision. The plan has been in place for almost a year, and in July and August last year Israel was involved in operations in Gaza City, re-conquering areas it had previously taken there. Israeli officials were saying the IDF would raze those areas and blow up high-rise buildings, as had been done in around 40% of Gaza, and that hundreds of thousands of people from Gaza City were displaced again.
The hostages were still being held in Gaza, and the Trump administration, exasperated by the lack of progress and watching another IDF operation unfold that had only tactical goals, moved to pressure numerous states to get a ceasefire deal. The US-backed Gaza Peace Plan emerged in late September 2025 when President Donald Trump unveiled a 20-point framework designed to end the war in Gaza and create a roadmap for long-term stability. The plan was endorsed by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2803 on November 17, 2025, following a ceasefire that began in October 2025. The framework sought to halt fighting and establish a new political, security and economic order in Gaza under international supervision.
The plan was good on paper and had all the ingredients of what needed to happen, the article said. Hamas was supposed to be replaced with a new technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, run by Palestinians. There was supposed to be a police force and security for ordinary people, disarmament was going to happen, and then there would be investment for reconstruction. The Board of Peace would oversee implementation, coordinate donor funding and verify compliance with the agreement.
The Iran war led the US to focus instead on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, and Gaza was largely forgotten along with the two million people living there. The US-backed CMCC, set up with the support of the Central Command in Kiryat Gaza, enabled humanitarian aid to flow, and numerous countries joined the effort. A logistics hub was established near the Gaza border to support the International Stabilization Force, but the thousands of personnel and troops supposed to be part of the force did not show up, and only a handful arrived to cautiously examine how the force would deploy.
The challenge has always been in the details of implementation, the article said. Hamas thrives by controlling the lives of two million people trapped under its rule, and without any way for those people to leave the Hamas-run zone, Hamas’s continued role is guaranteed. It will be difficult or impossible to collect weapons from Hamas so long as it controls 2 million people and can hide among them. The lack of creating a space in Gaza, with the International Stabilization Force and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, to enable people to move to a non-Hamas zone means the plan will face an endless catch-22.
The Trump administration likely knows this, and Israel’s October 27 election may also play into it. Some will argue that Israeli political leaders can’t do anything on Gaza because they have to look strong for the election, and that after the election the argument may be that no one can do anything on Gaza because the coalition has to be kept together and some small parties may leave over objections to Gaza policy. That leaves another endless catch-22 hanging over Gaza policy. For the US and others to break the cycle, they will need to provide more than statements about the process for Gaza.