International Crisis Group (ICG)
14 November 2025 12 minutes
What to Look for as the Gaza Peace Plan Comes to the UN Security Council
The United States has proposed a UN Security Council resolution to back President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts Daniel Forti, Richard Gowan and Max Rodenbeck analyse its contents.
What is happening?
On 5 November, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mike Waltz presented a draft resolution to the ten elected members of the UN Security Council endorsing President Donald Trump’s twenty-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The Trump plan makes no mention of a role for the Council. But in the month-plus since Israel and Hamas agreed to the plan on 9 October – whose first phase focuses on a truce, hostage-prisoner exchange, partial Israeli withdrawal and increased Gaza access – Arab states and the Council’s other permanent members have convinced the U.S. that the Security Council’s imprimatur is needed. Only the Council, they have argued, can give its proposals the legal gloss and international legitimacy required for the deal’s successful implementation. To this end, the United States’ proposed resolution has three objectives.
To endorse Trump’s plan and urge all parties to implement its provisions.
To give the Council’s blessing for the creation of an international “Board of Peace” that will oversee the Trump plan’s implementation in Gaza. The Board (which according to the twenty-point plan is to be chaired by Trump himself) would serve as an external administration over the Palestinian enclave, supervising governance, reconstruction, economic development and humanitarian aid delivery.
To give the Council’s authorisation for an International Stabilization Force (ISF) (also contemplated by the plan) to work alongside Israel and Egypt to stabilise security in Gaza for an initial period of two years. The ISF would be established by and under the “strategic guidance” of the Board of Peace.
After many fruitless debates over Gaza since October 2023, Council members welcome the idea that they can play a role in ending the war. The draft U.S. resolution has, however, created many concerns. The text is vague at key points regarding both short-term governance (ie, the Board’s membership), security arrangements (ie, the ISF’s mandate and composition) and a long-term political horizon for the Palestinians. U.S. officials have engaged with other Council members on their concerns, sharing revised drafts on 10 November and 13 November. They have made token concessions, such as acknowledging the need for “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination” and agreeing that the Board of Peace should send regular updates on its activities to New York. But Washington appears unwilling to redraft significant passages or to answer questions about exactly how the resolution would work in practice. In addition to this U.S. opacity, Council diplomats are grappling with the complexities of endorsing a transitional administrative and force structure on a very short deadline and in a very volatile security environment.
Washington is keen to get the resolution over the line as soon as possible, though on 13 November Russia introduced a short alternative text that requests the UN Secretary-General to offer options for implementing the U.S. plan – including through deploying a stabilisation force – but makes no mention of the Board of Peace. Russia often floats texts to counter draft resolutions that it does not like, and it is not clear if this is a serious proposal or simply a ploy to complicate Council discussions and highlight Washington’s effort to ram through its proposals without debating other approaches. The U.S. has warned against efforts to “sow discord” in the Council and negotiations are likely to continue up until the moment votes are cast.
There is a solid case for locking in a deal before reduced but ongoing hostilities between Israel and Hamas have a chance to spiral out of control. A resolution would provide the ceasefire some degree of international backing, allow planning to start for the Board and the ISF, and possibly make it politically harder for Israel, Hamas, or their partners to back away from the wider Plan. But there is a risk in asking Council members to endorse a set of proposals that is politically fraught and operationally questionable, paving the way for messy disputes inside and outside the UN in the future.
What does the draft resolution say about who will take political charge of Gaza?
The draft resolution affirms the Trump plan’s provision for an international Board of Peace to take ultimate responsibility for governance in Gaza, and oversee a technocratic Palestinian administration that is currently being set up through Palestinian-led talks in Cairo. While the Council has in the past authorised political bodies to oversee peace agreements – such as a Peace Implementation Council to manage the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords in Bosnia in 1995 – embracing the Gaza Board and authorising states to work with it would still be a big leap. Even where the Council has established international transitional authorities, as in Kosovo and Timor-Leste, it vested power in UN missions with clearly defined mandates, with leaders appointed by the Secretary-General and with formal reporting obligations, not in an ad hoc board of yet-to-be-revealed political figures. To put a fine point on it, the Gaza Board would be granted broad legal authority over governance, reconstruction and security in Gaza despite the resolution offering virtually no clarity on how its members would be chosen, or what rules and mechanisms of accountability would govern the exercise of its powers. The one thing that is clear is the involvement of Trump and – according to the Plan and subsequent reports – former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
References to Palestinian engagement in these political questions are conspicuously absent from the draft resolution. The U.S. resolution does not make any space for a representative from the Palestinian Authority (the PA) to sit on the Board, let alone participate in discussions to shape its composition. Many UN members argue that the PA should alone oversee Gaza’s governance. Instead, the draft resolution sets hefty but vague pre-conditions for their potential return to power, namely that the PA “satisfactorily” completes an undefined reform program and secures effective control over Gaza. Absent meaningful Palestinian participation, the U.S. and Israel would be in a position to make the body into a proxy institution for managing Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Separately, the text does not explain whether or how the Board would interact with Hamas. Since the militant group remains the de facto governing authority in the strip’s populated centres, it will in all likelihood be operationally necessary for the Board or the ISF to establish lines of communication for deconfliction around aid delivery, at minimum, even if Trump’s plan says Hamas will have no future role in Gaza’s governance.
The deeper depletion of UN and other humanitarian agencies ... threatens to protract the suffering of Palestinians who need urgent and effective support.
Some UN members worry that the Board, whose mandate would only come up for renewal by the Security Council in December 2027 according to the draft, will also block the UN and its agencies – for decades the primary providers and coordinators of aid for Gaza – from any oversight or operational role. The draft gives the Board authority over humanitarian aid coordination and delivery. This would allow it to further side-line the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been a pillar of health and education services to Palestinian refugees since 1949. While in late 2024 the Israeli Knesset passed laws aimed at crippling UNRWA, which it accuses of complicity with Hamas, the agency has managed to keep up some operations. The deeper depletion of UN and other humanitarian agencies, and the possible chaos of establishing a different system for aid and services in Gaza, threatens to protract the suffering of Palestinians who need urgent and effective support as they struggle to recover from the effects of displacement, starvation and destruction.
What about the question of who will secure Gaza, and how?
The U.S. draft authorises the creation of the multinational ISF, which would be overseen and managed by the Board of Peace and tasked with stabilising Gaza, in close coordination with Israel and Egypt. Washington has proposed a laundry list of additional tasks for the ISF beyond simply overseeing the ceasefire, such as protecting civilians, facilitating relief efforts, training Palestinian police, and securing the border area with Israel. Most sensitively, the draft resolution states that it will oversee the demilitarisation of the strip, which would involve decommissioning weapons held by Hamas and other armed groups, and ensuring that they do not re-arm.
These are daunting tasks, and the U.S. has insisted that the ISF should be a well-resourced and militarily capable peace enforcement operation – similar to the NATO forces the Council authorised in the Balkans and Afghanistan – rather than a UN-led “blue helmet” peacekeeping mission. Israel, which has complained that the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has failed to quash Hezbollah on its northern border in Lebanon, would not accept a similar mission in the strip. UN humanitarian officials who have witnessed the breakdown of law and society in Gaza in the last two years have told Crisis Group that any international force would need to be able to use force to maintain order – a role that Hamas authorities have quickly been filling since the ceasefire began. A separate Palestinian police force, which Egypt has been training for months and which the Trump plan accounts for, is also expected to be deployed to take over law enforcement duties in Gaza, yet its relationship vis-à-vis the ISF and the Board of Peace are not clearly defined in the draft resolution.
Major questions remain over the ISF’s composition and its precise terms of engagement. The U.S. hopes Arab nations and other Muslim countries will provide the bulk of the troops, but some of the key potential contributors such as Indonesia and Pakistan have indicated that they would prefer to contribute to a more traditional peacekeeping mission, with less risk of lethal clashes with militants and civilians. Council members are also perplexed that the U.S. draft resolution does not place the ISF under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – which is the traditional means of authorising peace enforcement – and the UAE has signalled it could not deploy personnel without a firmer legal foundation. Media reports suggest that the U.S. is preparing to assume command of such a force, even though it appears unlikely that it will contribute more than a handful of personnel, or add “boots on the ground” inside Gaza. (Presumably its forces could remain in Israel.) The resolution states that the force would be funded entirely through voluntary donations, but U.S. officials have yet to share how much they think the operation will cost, or any firm commitments of who would be prepared to foot the bill.
Other political and security concerns loom. Israel has indicated that it does not want Türkiye – whom Israel sees as an advocate for Hamas and top regional rival for influence in Syria – to send personnel, though Ankara has reportedly already begun recruiting soldiers to serve the ISF. Potential troop contributors also worry about what happens if the situation deteriorates and they find themselves in a shooting war between Israel and Hamas, which would necessitate evacuation under fire and the risk of contingents being trapped or taken hostage. This is hardly an idle question as Israel remains the dominant power on the ground, with over half of Gaza currently under its direct control. While part of the rationale behind the ISF is that its presence would deter Israel from firing, Israel could unilaterally launch air strikes or other military operations, with the ISF unable to respond.
Absent an understanding with Hamas, it is hard to imagine that any external force could succeed in forcibly disarming or repressing the group where Israel failed.
Israel would not be the only potential threat to the ISF. Absent an understanding with Hamas, it is hard to imagine that any external force could succeed in forcibly disarming or repressing the group where Israel failed. Israel possessed overwhelming military superiority, intimate familiarity with the terrain, pervasive intelligence capacity, strong motivation to eliminate Hamas, and demonstrated willingness to inflict massive human and infrastructural damage during its two-year campaign. Yet it could not dislodge Hamas, which retains defensible tunnel infrastructure, especially in Gaza City. A foreign stabilisation force would have none of these advantages and far less willingness to accept the costs.
Even the exact size of the ISF is a matter of speculation: diplomats quote figures between 20,000 to 30,000 personnel in active service. This is a very high density in such a small area as the strip, which already has IDF troops, Hamas forces and other armed groups and gangs on the ground. Nor is it clear what if any mechanisms would be in place to monitor potential human rights abuses committed by its troops, as details on accountability and compliance are noticeably absent from the draft resolution (despite some Council members explicitly requesting such provisions).
What does the proposed resolution imply for the two-state solution?
After receiving significant pushback from many Arab countries and Council members, the U.S. addressed concerns about the lack of meaningful language about Palestinian statehood in its third draft. It did this by acknowledging that conditions for a “pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” may be possible after the PA completes its reform program and Gaza has been redeveloped. Washington’s draft also commits to initiating the opening of a dialogue between Israel and Palestine on a “political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence”.
It seems clear that U.S. officials are leaving intentionally vague whether it would be the U.S., the Security Council, the Board of Peace, or some other actors to decide whether the criteria have been met. Nonetheless, the inclusion of even broad platitudes about Palestinian statehood suggests that Washington acknowledges the centrality of this political horizon to the viability of Trump’s peace plan.
What comes next?
The U.S. is pushing to conclude negotiations in the Security Council quickly and schedule a vote, even as the new Russian text threatens to complicate Council dynamics yet further. Council members are unlikely to block a draft that enjoys overall regional backing even if they are uneasy with many of its provisions. But it remains unclear how strong that backing is. For their part, representatives from Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates (none of which is currently on the Council) joined U.S. Ambassador Waltz during his 5 November meeting with elected Council members to offer some measure of support. But broadly backing Security Council negotiations is not the same as endorsing the provisions that the U.S. has put on the table.
Council members will also closely watch for reactions from Israel and Hamas, who have divergent asks from this deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Tel Aviv will only support the ISF if it spearheads the demilitarisation of Gaza and Hamas’ disarmament. It also wants to retain control over Gaza’s borders and the movement of people in and out of the strip throughout the transition, and possibly indefinitely. For its part, Hamas sees the ISF as more of a disengagement monitor than an intervention force. It wants the ISF stationed along the Gaza fence but not inside Gaza’s cities or camps. As concerns its weapons, the militant group has suggested that it is willing to give up “offensive” weapons, such as rockets and heavy explosives, but not “defensive weaponry” like small arms. Though these are intentionally vague distinctions, Hamas argues that the latter are necessary for Gaza’s internal security, and also insists more generally on a Palestinian right to bear arms in order to defend against an occupying power, Israel. At the same time it argues that decommissioning should only happen under the auspices of a Palestinian national body, if not a Palestinian state, in consultation with other political parties. Clearly, squaring such circles will require intensive international diplomacy and an internal Palestinian political process, not merely the insertion of the ISF.
For the Trump administration, which has in general dismissed the UN as a vehicle for crisis response, this resolution may be a helpful reminder that the UN can be relevant on issues of war and peace. But for Council members confronting a hastily drafted and deeply flawed text, the vote looks more like a choice between two paths to irrelevance. Either they endorse an arrangement they did not design and can barely influence, or refuse and watch as the U.S. and its partners proceed without UN authorisation. The first option means rubber-stamping a dubious governance structure with minimal accountability mechanisms. The second risks marginalising the UN and making it harder for these mechanisms to succeed, or potentially triggering the breakdown of President Trump’s peace effort and a return to war.
Faced with these alternatives, Council members may feel compelled to acquiesce to a resolution that helps reinforce a fragile peace, figuring that they will need to work out the details in the course of implementation. But if this is the path they take, they should urge the U.S. to ensure that the Council continues to have regular opportunities to review and address its performance, not just when the mandate comes up for review in two years. In addition, UN members that back a two-state solution, including possible contributors to the ISF, should press the case that the whole plan makes little sense if there is no political horizon for the Palestinians. They should also continue to look for other ways to advance that cause. And the U.S. and Israel must recognise that even if they succeed at Turtle Bay, the enterprise may break down if they are unable to clear up the political, operational, and other questions looming over Gaza’s future in terms that other states – and the people of Gaza – find credible.
Contributors
- Daniel Forti
Senior UN Analyst
- Richard Gowan
Director, UN and Multilateral Diplomacy
New York
-Max Rodenbeck
Project Director, Israel/Palestine
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