The Security Council has adopted a resolution endorsing President Donald J. Trump’s “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict,” known as the 20-Point Plan.Footnote ¹ The United States sought Security Council backing to give the plan international legitimacy and to provide momentum for its implementation. It gained the Council’s support without making changes to the plan’s content or relinquishing control over its operationalization. For states considering whether to contribute troops to the plan’s International Stabilization Force (ISF) or intending to provide financial support for reconstruction, the Council’s authorization was essential lest they be regarded as assisting Israel’s occupation of Gaza.Footnote ² Approval of a plan drafted without UN input and lacking UN oversight—recognizing an autonomous international territorial administration—reflected Council members’ strong desire to end the war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.Footnote ³ Even with the Council’s sanction, though, it is uncertain whether the 20-Point Plan can be implemented beyond its initial phase, at least over the entirely of Gaza. The plan’s embedded ambiguities paper over challenges that cannot be resolved without further concessions by both Hamas and Israel.

The 20-Point Plan came together during negotiations in September 2025 between the United States, Israel, and a coalition of Arab and Muslim-majority states (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates) in the weeks following Israel’s airstrike targeting Hamas senior officials meeting in Doha.Footnote ⁴ The plan comprises three phases.Footnote ⁵ The first phase provides for an end to the fighting. It includes: an immediate ceasefire; Hamas’s return of all remaining living and dead hostages; Israel’s release of 1,950 Palestinian prisoners; the withdrawal of Israeli forces to “an agreed upon line” (the “yellow line”); and the sending of “full aid” into Gaza “without interference from the two parties.”Footnote ⁶ The second phase calls for an interim government that will maintain security and initiate reconstruction. It involves: governance of Gaza by “a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” overseen by a newly established entity called the Board of Peace (BoP);Footnote ⁷ economic development, also overseen by the BoP;Footnote ⁸ Hamas’s disarmament;Footnote ⁹ the constitution and deployment of the ISF, which is tasked with serving as Gaza’s “long-term internal security solution” and “train[ing] and provid[ing] support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza”; and the gradual withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to a security perimeter within Gaza.Footnote ¹⁰ The third phase anticipates a pathway toward the establishment a Palestinian state. According to the plan, once “the [Palestinian Authority (PA)] reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood,” and “[t]he United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”Footnote ¹¹

Incorporated into these broad features are specific ground rules and expectations. Gaza “will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors,” and it “will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza.”Footnote ¹² Hamas is to have no role in Gaza’s governance; all of Hamas’s military infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, are to be destroyed.Footnote ¹³ Israel will “not occupy or annex Gaza,” and it will withdraw its forces following Hamas’s demilitarization.Footnote ¹⁴ No one will be forced to leave Gaza.Footnote ¹⁵ Other aspects of the plan are conspicuous by their absence. The plan does not incorporate the PA into Gaza’s governance or guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The provisions in the plan’s second and third phases are intentionally indefinite. There are no details regarding the composition of the BoP (except that it will be chaired by President Trump and include heads of state and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) or how the BoP will make and implement decisions.Footnote ¹⁶ There are no particulars about how economic development will take place—only that a plan “will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East.”Footnote ¹⁷ There are no specifics regarding who will contribute troops to the ISF, how the ISF will provide security, whether the ISF will be involved in the demilitarization of Hamas, or what the ISF’s rules of engagement will be. There is no clarity regarding how Hamas will be disarmed or how Hamas’s military infrastructure will be destroyed. There are no agreed criteria for Israel’s progressive withdrawals. There are no standards for determining when PA reform has been “faithfully carried out” or when conditions will be in place for a Palestinian pathway to statehood. There are no timeframes or deadlines for setting up the plan’s institutions and organizations or for accomplishing its stated goals.

All these issues will need to be negotiated, and agreement will be difficult. It will be difficult because Hamas refuses to demilitarize and relinquish control over the territory it still holds—fundamental requirements of the plan’s second phase. But it will be difficult as well because key participants want to ensure that the implementation of the plan’s second phase is linked to strong commitments regarding the outcome of its third phase. That is, if Hamas is to be demilitarized, and if the BoP and the ISF are to be granted governmental authority over Gaza, there also needs to be a real pathway toward Palestinian statehood. But the current Israeli government opposes a Palestinian state, the goal (if not the guarantee) of the plan’s third phase.

Due to pressure from the United States and the coalition of Arab and Muslim-majority states that worked with the United States to negotiate and conclude the plan, both Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase, and its provisions, for the most part, were implemented relatively quickly, if imperfectly.Footnote ¹⁸ The United States then sought the Security Council’s endorsement to help establish the conditions for effectuating the plan’s second and third phases. Though there were some objections to the initial draft resolution,Footnote ¹⁹ the United States pressured the Council to accede, enlisting the same coalition of states that initially backed the deal to get the resolution over the line.Footnote ²⁰

Adopted by a vote of 13–0 (China and Russia abstaining),Footnote ²¹ Resolution 2803 “endorses” the 20-Point Plan and “call[s] [upon] all parties to implement it in its entirely.”Footnote ²² Seemingly adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter,Footnote ²³ the Council’s approval provides broad international legal authority for the plan’s governance, redevelopment, and security activities in a territory, Gaza, that is subject to the law of occupation. The resolution “welcomes” the creation of the BoP as a “transitional administration,” an autonomous entity that has “international legal personality.”Footnote ²⁴ It specifically authorizes the BoP to enter into “arrangements,” as necessary, to achieve the plan’s objectives, including agreements pertaining to privileges and immunities, and it empowers the BoP to establish “operational entities … [with] international legal personality and transactional authorities for the performance of its functions,” which may include “any such additional tasks as may be necessary” to implement the plan.Footnote ²⁵ The resolution also bestows significant powers on the ISF. It “authorizes” the ISF to secure border areas, “ensure the process of demilitarizati[on],” “protect civilians, including humanitarian operations,” train a Palestinian police force, secure humanitarian corridors, “and undertake such additional tasks as may be necessary.”Footnote ²⁶ Critically, the resolution authorizes the ISF “to use all necessary measures” to carry out its mandate, employing the Council’s usual euphemism for the use of force.Footnote ²⁷

Like the 20-Point Plan, the resolution is significant as much for what it does not say as for what it does. The resolution does not specifically call for Palestinian statehood. It does not provide dates for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza or impose other requirements on Israel, such as an obligation to facilitate (or not interfere) with the delivery of aid. It does not rely on the consent of the PA to the BoP’s governance over Gaza or the ISF’s deployment there (presumably because such consent would imply PA sovereignty over Gaza and statehood). It does not establish the BoP or the ISF as UN entities. It does not provide any meaningful oversight or accountability over either, only requesting periodic reports and requiring a renewal of the Council’s authorization by the end of 2027.Footnote ²⁸ Council members were well aware of the breadth of the resolution’s conferral of authority, as well as its silences and ambiguities—the Russian representative referred to it as a “pig in a poke,” but they voted for it nonetheless.Footnote ²⁹

Noteworthy, as well, is the resolution’s failure to mention the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinions. In its 2024 opinion on the “Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the Court stated “that all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory [(OPT)] and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by [Israel’s] continued presence” there.Footnote ³⁰ The Court found that the same “obligation not to recognize [Israel’s presence in the OPT] as legal” also applies to international organizations, including the United Nations.Footnote ³¹ Though the resolution does not explicitly recognize Israel’s presence in Gaza as legal, it effectively permits that presence for an undefined period. The resolution also does not mention the Court’s 2025 advisory opinion, issued less than a month before, on “Obligations of Israel in Relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in Relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”Footnote ³² In that opinion, the Court indicated “that the State of Israel has an obligation to co-operate in good faith with the United Nations by providing every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [(UNRWA)].”Footnote ³³ The resolution does not mention UNRWA, referring instead obliquely to “the importance of the full resumption of humanitarian aid … into the Gaza Strip in a manner consistent with relevant international legal principles and through cooperating organizations, including the United Nations.”Footnote ³⁴

U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mike Waltz lauded the adoption of the resolution. The Council’s decision, he said, “demonstrates the overwhelming support for the President’s vision for a stable Gaza in which Palestinians determine their own destiny, free from terrorist rule and violence.”Footnote ³⁵ Secretary-General António Guterres’s spokesperson said that, with the resolution’s adoption, “[i]t is essential now to translate the diplomatic momentum into concrete and urgently needed steps on the ground.”Footnote ³⁶ The State of Palestine “welcomed” the resolution.Footnote ³⁷ Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967, severely criticized the resolution. She lambasted the Council for “not … ground[ing] its response in the very body of law it is obliged to uphold,” international law.Footnote ³⁸ “Rather than charting a pathway toward ending the occupation and ensuring Palestinian protection,” she continued, “the resolution risks entrenching external control over Gaza’s governance, borders, security, and reconstruction. The resolution betrays the people it claims to protect.”Footnote ³⁹ “A military force answering to a so-called ‘Board of Peace’ chaired by the President of the United States, an active party to this conflict that has continually provided military, economic and diplomatic support to the illegal occupying Power, is not legal,” Albanese said.Footnote ⁴⁰ “It is a brazen attempt to impose, by threat of continued force against a virtually defenceless population, US and Israeli interests, plain and simple.”Footnote ⁴¹

At the time of this writing, there has been some progress on aspects of the 20-Point Plan’s second phase. The White House has announced the composition of the BoP and the technocratic Palestinian committee, now called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, as well as the appointment of the commander of the ISF.Footnote ⁴² But the most challenging elements of the second phase remain. Hamas refuses to disarm and relinquish its power. Potential ISF contributing countries are reluctant to send their troops to Hamas-controlled areas, to have them participate in demilitarizing the group, and to be involved in lethal operations.Footnote ⁴³ In addition to needing 10,000 troops (reportedly the U.S. goal), the ISF also requires funding, equipment, logistics, and other forms of support.Footnote ⁴⁴ Many in Gaza are still experiencing food insecurity.Footnote ⁴⁵ Efforts to rebuild Gaza, which the United Nations estimates will cost $70 billion, have not begun.Footnote ⁴⁶ Gaza remains divided into Hamas- and Israeli-controlled areas—Hamas consolidating its control west of the yellow line (approximately 47 percent of the territory) and Israel securing its position to the east (about 53 percent).Footnote ⁴⁷ With Hamas refusing to accede to Washington’s demands to demilitarize, Israel and the United States intend to move forward with the second phase in the Israeli zone, a possibility anticipated by the plan.Footnote ⁴⁸ This opens up the prospect of a divided Gaza for some time.