Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Middle East Peace Plan and Prospects

Palestinian Children Celebrating Peace in Central Gaza

- BY RAJAN PHILIPS

“BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS,” President Donald Trump exclaimed in ALL CAPS in his social media post from the White House, just before 7:00 PM on Wednesday, 8th October. He was announcing the agreement reached a few minutes earlier but well past midnight at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, between Israel and Hamas on the modalities of implementing the first phase of Trump's 20-point Peace Plan for Gaza. The opening phase will include a ceasefire in Gaza; Israel pulling back its forces beyond an agreed upon line leaving 53% of Gaza under its control; Hamas releasing all remaining 20 Israeli hostages and the handing over of the 28 who are believed to be dead; Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners and the return of their dead; and the start of uninterrupted humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

The ceasefire announcement came a day after the second anniversary of Hamas’s 2023 October 7 attack on 21 communities in Southern Israel. Nearly 1,200 people including 79 foreign nationals were killed, and another 253, including women and children, were taken as hostages. The immediate beneficiary of the attack was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who at that time was in the throes of his worst political crisis. Netanyahu seized the opportunity to consolidate himself as Israel’s wartime Prime Minister with license to attack and flatten Gaza. He went beyond Gaza and has destroyed the Hezbollah leadership and its infrastructure, silenced the Houthis and militarily crippled Iran. By then Iran had already lost the only state ally it had in the region — the discredited Assad regime in Syria.