Dissecting the UN’s “Comprehensive Plan” for Gaza and the inevitable dead-end
US policy documents on the Middle East do not reach the daylight before Israel is given the chance to filter them, and gut them. The latest UN Security Council (UNSC) 2803, Comprehensive Plan, is no exception. The Resolution perpetuates the same failed logic that has governed international diplomacy for decades. One in which Palestinian rights are conditioned, while Israeli obligations are delayed with no mechanism, timelines, or accountability for violating agreements.
Following two years of using food as a weapon of war and genocide, the UNSC adopted a US sponsored resolution, not to condemn weaponizing food, but to reward the perpetrator. The UNSC “Comprehensive Plan” for Gaza is anything but comprehensive. It is narrow, short on details, rich in contradictions, and utterly lacking any overarching purpose.
Take Paragraph 2 for instance. The Resolution “welcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace (BoP)” as a transitional international administration that will manage Gaza’s redevelopment “until such time as the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program.”
In other words, the recognition of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is contingent, sequenced, and time-bound: reform first, demonstrate worthiness, satisfy outside evaluators, and then—maybe—they can “securely and effectively take back control” of their land. Meanwhile, Israel’s commitments are, at best, deliberately vague, crafted with such ambiguity allowing varying interpretations, much like UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338, written purposefully in a nebulous language that enabled Israel to evade compliance for decades.
There is not one single concrete or enforceable requirement placed on Israel: none to halt its extrajudicial assassinations, military attacks, timeline to complete withdrawal, or stop the expansion of Jewish-only colonies established on the same land reserved for the supposed Palestinian “self-determination.”
The Resolution weakens Item 7 of “Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan” which had called for “full aid be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip.” The new Comprehensive Plan replaced “immediately” by expressing only “the importance of the full resumption of humanitarian aid.” Israel’s already inexplicit obligations are further watered down to mere “consultation” and “cooperation,” giving the occupying power wide latitude to dictate its own interpretations and evade any real accountability.
The distortion becomes even more evident in Paragraphs 3 through 8. These sections deepen the asymmetry: Israel, whose leaders are indicted war criminals, is elevated to a co-supervisor with veto power over every stage of Gaza’s future. In effect, this Resolution upends international law by granting war criminals the final word on Gaza’s fate.
Paragraph 3, which addresses humanitarian aid, orders stringent monitoring of aid distribution inside Gaza. At the same time, there is no unequivocal demands on Israel to fully open all crossings, or stop hindering humanitarian aid delivery. The limited aid must be policed in Gaza, but the state that used food as a weapon and starved the population, is not required to do anything differently.
In Paragraph 4, a foreign-controlled “operational entities” strips Palestinians of their political agency by placing them under a technocratic committee selected from abroad and subordinate to the misnomer BoP. Yet, there is nothing in the Resolution on the freedom of ingress and egress, no mention of opening the seaport or rebuilding the airport. Furthermore, there are no tangible punitive measures, if and when, Israel fails to adhere to the UNSC Resolution.
The funding structures in Paragraphs 5–6 absolve Israel of responsibility. Gaza’s reconstruction is handed to donors and the World Bank, financed through voluntary contributions. Israel, the power that destroyed Gaza, is not asked to contribute a dollar, let alone pay reparations or assume legal responsibility for murdering and injuring 241,000 Palestinians, destroying all the universities, 97% of schools, 94% of the hospitals and 92% of the residential homes.
The heart of the resolution’s inequity is found in Paragraph 7, which authorizes a foreign military force (ISF) tasked with enforcing Palestinian demilitarization. The Palestinian Resistance must disarm, surrender weapons, accept foreign security supervision, and undergo vetting. Israel’s withdrawal, however, takes place only “when conditions allow” and to be negotiated between its army and ISF, guarantors, and the United States. Palestinians are entirely excluded from determining the terms of the Israeli withdrawal from their own land.
Even more alarming, the resolution normalizes Israeli occupation “that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.” An open-ended clause granting Israel a permanent military footprint in and around Gaza while granting Israel alone the power to define and determine any so-called “resurgent threat.”
Finally, Paragraph 8, mandates that any extension of international presence in Gaza must be done “in full cooperation and coordination with Egypt and Israel.” Once again, Palestinians are excluded from determining their own future. It is all left for Israel since its consent is conditional on the “full cooperation.”
Taken together, these provisions expose the true nature of the so-called Comprehensive Plan: a political instrument designed to entrench, not end, the structural inequality of occupation. And less than 72 hours following the UNSC Resolution, Benjamin Netanyahu appointed Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, two Jewish racist ministers who openly called for the ethnic cleansing and building Jewish only colonies in Gaza, to be in charge of, or more likely to undermine, the second phase of Trump’s 20-point plan.
In short, the UNSC Comprehensive Plan whitewashes Israel’s genocide and ties the future of Palestinian self-determination to a checklist that Israel is neither bound to accept nor prevented from obstructing. A Plan that will lead to exactly where previous UN Resolutions, mainly 194, 242 and 338 had gone, to an inevitable dead-end.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.