By Sõzarn Barday
Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has claimed the lives of at least 66,055 Palestinians, leaving entire neighbourhoods in rubble and families erased from the civil registry. Amid this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, former U.S. President Donald Trump has unveiled a 21-point plan that he claims will end the bloodshed. Yet a closer look reveals that the plan envisions Gaza’s future shaped not by Palestinians, but by foreign powers with long histories of enabling Israel’s occupation and undermining Palestinian rights.
At the heart of the proposal is a blueprint drawn from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose record in the Middle East has consistently favoured Western and Israeli interests over Palestinian freedom. The plan calls for the removal of Hamas and the deployment of a “temporary international stabilization force” led by the U.S. and regional allies. In theory, this force would oversee security and governance in Gaza. In practice, it strips Palestinians of any real control over their own territory, replacing local agency with external supervision.
According to The Times of Israel, the plan promises that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza” and that those who do leave will be permitted to return. Palestinians would supposedly be “encouraged” to remain and given the chance to build a “better future.” But these assurances ring hollow in light of Trump’s own statements earlier this year. In February 2025, he openly called for the U.S. to “take over” and “own” Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians could be displaced to allow for large-scale redevelopment.
The plan also proposes the exchange of Israeli captives held by Hamas for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, coupled with a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. On the surface, this may appear to address humanitarian concerns, but it ignores a glaring reality: over 11 100 of Palestinian political prisoners, 400 children, and 3577 administrative detainees, have been held in Israeli jails for years, many without charge or trial. By centring Israeli captives while sidelining Palestinian detainees, the plan reinforces a selective approach to justice that denies Palestinians equal recognition of their rights.
Adding to the imbalance, the plan calls for the establishment of the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA), a foreign-imposed administration that would govern Gaza under the supervision of a U.S.-led international body with European and Middle Eastern partners. GITA would oversee day-to-day services, security, and reconstruction, with a budget of $90 million in its first year, rising to $133.5 million and $164 million in the third and fourth year. Tony Blair, aged 72, would chair this body. While presented as a temporary measure, GITA effectively replaces Israeli occupation with foreign control, leaving Palestinians under external authority rather than enabling genuine self-rule.
This dynamic highlights a critical truth: one colonial power is simply being substituted for another. Israel’s violent occupation is to be replaced not with Palestinian sovereignty, but with a Western administrator whose past policies have facilitated oppression in the region. Gaza is still treated as a territory to be managed, its people reduced to subjects under a foreign framework rather than citizens exercising their inalienable right to self-determination.
Even the plan’s so-called guarantees of “amnesty” for Hamas members, provided they agree to “peaceful coexistence,” expose its paternalistic character. Palestinians are framed as problems to be managed, rather than as a people entitled to full freedom, justice, and sovereignty.
A credible path forward for Gaza must go beyond externally imposed frameworks. Palestinians are entitled to reparations for decades of siege, military attacks, and systematic dispossession. Reparations should include the restoration of land, compensation for destroyed homes and livelihoods, rebuilding of hospitals, schools, and cultural institutions, and long-term investment in Palestinian sovereignty — under Palestinian leadership. Reconstruction funded and administered by external powers alone risks perpetuating the structures of colonial domination rather than addressing the historical injustices inflicted on Gaza.
Ultimately, what Gaza needs is not another temporary plan imposed from abroad. What Palestinians demand is an immediate end to occupation, the lifting of the blockade, accountability for war crimes, reparations for destruction, release of all Palestinian prisoners, and the full realization of their right to self-determination, guaranteed under international law. Anything less is not peace; it is the continuation of colonial domination under a different guise.
Trump’s Gaza plan, framed as a pathway to stability, is instead a blueprint for ongoing control — a new chapter in the history of Gaza’s subjugation. Without true Palestinian agency at its centre, the plan cannot deliver justice, security, or freedom. It is Gaza’s right to determine its own future, not to be governed by external powers under the pretence of peace.
Sõzarn Barday
Sõzarn Barday is a writer and lawyer based in South Africa and has a particular interest in human rights within the Middle East. The views expressed are her own.