Why Gaza peace plan may collapse

On 18 November 2025, China and Russia abstained from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025), which endorsed a peace plan proposed by the United States President Donald Trump. One can understand that both the great powers and the permanent members of the UN Security Council wanted to give peace a chance and thus did not outrightly veto the resolution. Yet, given the progress of phase one of the peace plan, it is evident that the apprehensions of Russia and China about the success of this peace plan may not be unfounded.

I would like to address two questions here. One: What are the likely apprehensions of both Russia and China about this President Trump-sponsored Gaza Peace Plan, and two: based on the concerns shown by both China and Russia, why there are likely chances that this peace plan may collapse before the start of phase three. I consider Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the peace plan as a 'taming phase' that focuses on creating conditional requirements of security, humanitarian relief and matters of governance. There is no timeline attached to this phase, and all this phase does is to tame the people in Gaza by promising them immediate relief in exchange for a political solution that may or may not materialise. The very idea of postponing the real questions of sovereignty to phase 3 is a smart move that positions concrete political solutions to a later phase. This is a strategy of taming the people first and empowering them later, and has all the ingredients that are being projected as trust building, but in fact are already undermining the Palestinian trust in the peace plan; which is conditional, uncertain, and puts the horse of taming the people of Gaza before the critical cart of matter of Palestinian sovereignty.

The Chinese and Russian apprehensions about abstaining from the UN Security Council resolution were based on the content of the resolution's text. China considered it vague, unclear, and particularly regarded the absence of the structure, mandate and composition of ISAF (International Stability and Assistance Force) as something missing in the text resolution. China considered that the resolution did not reflect the core principles that China believes in while dealing with the Palestinian issue; Palestinians should govern Palestine and the two-state solution.

The Russian objection was based on the inability of the resolution text to provide clear timelines or mechanics for the handover of control of Gaza back to the Palestinians. Russia views the peace plan as in conflict with giving the Palestinian people a role to shape their future. As we see now, Phase 2 of the peace plan is already stalled. Hamas must disarm, but Hamas conditions its disarmament on Israeli withdrawal. Israeli forces have withdrawn behind a yellow line that borders the area with Israel, but there are no rules of engagement on this artificial border created within the border, and Israeli forces violate the ceasefire across this line daily when Palestinians inadvertently try to cross the line and are fired upon, injured and killed.

Why do armed Israeli soldiers control the border while unarmed people of Gaza are being fired upon and killed? In Gaza, more than peace, there is more incentive for renewed conflict and if Hamas is no longer allowed to act as a military actor who would oppose Israel from a renewed military intervention? One of the tasks mandated to the ISAF by the UN Security Council Resolution is the 'protection of civilians.' In case of renewed conflict, against whom will the civilian population of Gaza be protected? Against the Israeli forces or against Hamas? Reopening discussions on the two-state framework happens only in the third phase, and the very idea of keeping this ambiguous is to keep it discretionary and conditional on the taming of the people of Gaza, who are being told that they will be judged for behavioural compliance first.

There are likely chances that this peace plan will collapse before the start of phase 3. The word taming of people of Gaza in phases 1and 2 of the plan is something I use metaphorically, but it means that people of Gaza are being taken under control so that they behave in a more acceptable, predictable and institutional way. This is something that post 7 October, Israel refused to do.

The peace plan wants to tame and restrain one party of the conflict, yet considers the other party civilised, which requires no taming and restraint. Throughout the last two years, it was Israel that remained unchecked, unpredictable and operated outside legal boundaries and control. There is nothing in phase 2 of the peace plan that promises the taming of the Israeli Armed Forces or the Israeli state's behaviour, and that makes the likely achievements of phase 2 lopsided. Post 7 October 2023, Israel controlled Gaza through destruction, and now, through this peace plan, it wants to control the people of Gaza through rules that make one party of the conflict helpless and powerless and leave the other party all too powerful.

The relief that phases 1 and 2 provide to the people of Gaza is only in exchange for a long-term political dilution. Political settlement, sovereignty discussions and the two-state solution have been pushed to the later stage of phase 3. What is the binding guarantee for the people of Gaza that this latter will actually arrive? There is also a historical precedent when one looks at the Oslo Accords, and the result of that should surely make the people of Gaza sceptical. Oslo Accords offered Palestinians interim self-rule, but the final status issues, statehood, borders and the status of Jerusalem were postponed.

As we see it, the interim arrangements pushed forward by the Oslo Accords held ground, but the final status issues remain undecided. The lesson that the Palestinians have learnt from this is that only temporary arrangements tend to become permanent. How can people of Gaza be confident of the final status solutions when Israel enters Phase 3 as a recognised and powerful sovereign state, whereas Palestine enters the same phase as demilitarised, powerless people whose lives are controlled and governed less by themselves and more by external decisions and dictations? As long as this peace plan is being pushed down the throat of the people of Gaza, there is little hope I see in it entering phase 3 unscathed.