One of the newest ideas being floated for Gaza’s postwar transition involves the creation of Hamas-free zones — referred to more carefully by planners as “temporary communities” — inside the Israeli-controlled Green Zone. The concept would allow Palestinian civilians to access shelter, services, and protection under a future Palestinian civilian authority.
However, the proposal — designed to offer a practical starting point while diplomatic efforts remain stalled — also highlights the central challenge facing President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace: most of the plan’s institutional framework exists only on paper, while the tools needed to actually carry it out inside Gaza remain blocked, unfinished, or politically disputed.
Representatives of the Board of Peace and related bodies have been holding meetings in Cyprus this week, following a preparatory workshop in Cairo, to advance the work of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, known as the NCAG. This Palestinian technocratic body is expected to replace Hamas’ rule in the territory. The committee was announced earlier this year to lead reconstruction and humanitarian relief efforts, but it remains stationed outside Gaza and has not yet entered the enclave.
The security side of the plan faces similar uncertainty. The Board of Peace has been working to establish both a Palestinian police force and an International Stabilization Force, referred to as the ISF, but no clear operational timeline has been set. Moroccan officers arrived in Israel on June 18 to join the early-stage ISF headquarters in southern Israel, according to the Board of Peace and reports citing the French global news agency AFP — but that arrival does not constitute an active deployment inside Gaza.
The Board of Peace’s near-term backup plan appears to center on establishing temporary communities within the Green Zone, with a first location reportedly being planned near Rafah, in the portion of Gaza currently held by the Israel Defense Forces. The goal is to create areas where civilians can receive humanitarian aid, housing, and services outside of Hamas-controlled territory. But even this limited approach raises significant questions: whether Palestinians would willingly relocate to areas under Israeli military control, whether the NCAG would lose credibility by operating there, and whether Israel would approve the steps needed for construction and administration.
On the diplomatic front, the message is straightforward: Hamas giving up its weapons is the key to unlocking Phase Two of the Gaza plan. According to a report seen by The Associated Press, the Board of Peace intends to ask the UN Security Council to pressure Hamas to disarm. That report identifies Hamas’ refusal to accept verified disarmament, surrender control, and allow a civilian transition as the primary obstacle to full implementation.
Hamas has pushed back against that framing, accusing the Board’s report of ignoring what the group characterizes as Israeli violations of the ceasefire — including issues related to humanitarian access, troop withdrawals, and restrictions at Gaza’s border crossings.
That dispute has locked the ceasefire framework in a standoff over sequencing. Israel says it will not pull back without full Hamas disarmament. Hamas says it will not discuss disarmament until Israel addresses what it considers failures to implement Phase One and provides international guarantees. The Board of Peace says reconstruction cannot begin where weapons remain. Palestinians and Arab mediators argue that without a clear Israeli withdrawal timeline and a political horizon, disarmament cannot be sold to the Palestinian public.
Dr. Gershon Baskin, co-founder and co-director of the Alliance for Two States and Middle East director of the International Communities Organisation, argued that the Board of Peace should not wait for a perfect agreement before taking action. He told The Media Line that the NCAG should stop being “a committee waiting outside Gaza” and instead become a functioning authority operating within the Strip.
Baskin’s proposal centers on the immediate creation of a Palestinian-administered Green Zone. In his view, the NCAG should move into the Israeli-controlled area of Gaza, Palestinian police should be deployed there, the ISF should take up positions along the Yellow Line, and civilians should be given the option to relocate to areas where shelter, food, medical care, schools, and jobs can be provided.
For Baskin, the urgency is as much about institution-building as it is about humanitarian relief. He argued that Palestinian civilian governance must become visible on the ground before the political framework falls apart into another cycle of violence. The Green Zone, in his view, is not meant to be a permanent solution but rather an operational bridge — a way to establish secure Palestinian-administered areas, move civilians into them voluntarily and safely, and gradually reduce the territory controlled by both Hamas and the Israeli military.
The logic is both humanitarian and political: to create a visible alternative to Hamas rule without waiting for Hamas to agree to full disarmament. Baskin argued that the Green Zone should steadily expand while Hamas-controlled space shrinks and Israel’s military presence can be rolled back in stages.
He also emphasized employment as a stabilizing force. Reconstruction work — clearing rubble, fixing water systems, building temporary housing, staffing clinics, and reopening schools — is presented as a broader strategy to weaken Hamas’ hold over Gazan society by giving civilians a tangible alternative.
Katherine Prescott, a senior political advisor at the U.S. Department of State, offered a far more skeptical view of where the plan actually stands. She argued that the problem goes beyond technical delays — it reflects a deeper conflict between institutions that exist on paper and institutions that still cannot function inside Gaza.
Speaking about the NCAG, she told The Media Line: “The committee exists, has a chair, has a mission statement, and has not entered Gaza. Israel blocked its members in January, and there is no current timeline for entry. The PA and Hamas both publicly support it and are both working against it behind the scenes. That is not a technical problem. That is the problem.”
Her assessment of the ISF was equally direct. “There is no force. There is a commander, a coordination center, and outreach to over 70 countries that has produced no firm commitments. The current design confines the ISF to a buffer zone behind the IDF’s yellow line, which means it would operate precisely where Hamas is not,” she said. “That is not stabilization. That is theater with a UN mandate,” she added.
The contradiction is evident on the ground. The ISF is central to the Board of Peace’s design, but at this stage it functions more like a coordination structure than a deployed security force. Morocco’s participation carries symbolic weight, particularly since Arab and Muslim-majority involvement is considered essential for the plan’s regional legitimacy. Yet without deployment inside Gaza, a legal framework, Israeli approval, and clear rules of engagement, the force cannot yet fulfill the role assigned to it.
Prescott also highlighted the unresolved disarmament roadmap put forward by Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s director-general and high representative for Gaza. “There is no agreed verification mechanism, no distinction between light and heavy weapons that both parties accept, and no third party with the leverage to break the deadlock. The talks in Cairo this month are real, but the gap is not procedural,” she said.
A previously reported disarmament proposal would require Hamas to surrender weapons in phases over eight months, allow the destruction of tunnels and military infrastructure, and transfer security authority to the NCAG. It would begin with the technocratic committee assuming security and administrative control and end with an Israeli withdrawal after Gaza is verified as weapons-free. However, Reuters reported that Palestinian factions — including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — criticized the proposal for placing disarmament ahead of reconstruction, Israeli withdrawal, and political guarantees.
Meanwhile, Israeli security concerns appear to be growing. According to an unsourced report from Kan, senior officers in the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate and Southern Command warned Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir that Hamas’ military wing is preparing for renewed conflict. The report said Hamas was manufacturing explosive devices and anti-tank missiles, recruiting young fighters, restarting training for its elite Nukhba force, rebuilding underground infrastructure, and attempting to smuggle drones and communications equipment from Sinai.
The same report indicated that these senior officers believe fighting must resume, while the United States opposes a renewed Israeli offensive and prefers to maintain the current status quo while continuing to advance the Board of Peace initiative.
Prescott declined to comment directly on intelligence assessments but said the public record points to the same core dilemma regarding Hamas’ military posture: “Hamas is degraded and still armed enough to veto Phase Two indefinitely. That is the situation,” she noted.
The Gaza situation also intersects with broader regional diplomacy now centered on Washington and Tehran. Since a June 17 memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, U.S. diplomatic attention has been heavily consumed by the Iran track — including discussions over sanctions relief, Iranian assets, maritime access, the nuclear file, the Strait of Hormuz, and Iranian militia networks.
“Gaza was not formally linked to the Iran war, but it was functionally deprioritized by it. The June 17 memorandum gives Washington breathing room. Whether that translates into serious reengagement on Gaza is a political question, not a diplomatic one, and the answer is not obvious,” Prescott said.
The question of accountability is also becoming more urgent, and the absence of a clear political endpoint remains one of the most sensitive issues in the postwar framework. “The Board and ISF are authorized through December 2027 with no binding political endpoint, no path to statehood, and an enforcement posture that, based on Mladenov’s own leaked correspondence, does not apply equally to both parties. That is a legitimacy problem that compounds over time,” she noted.
“My honest summary: the architecture exists, the institutions do not function, and the central obstacle — Hamas’ weapons — has no agreed solution. Everything else is negotiation over sequencing,” Prescott added.
For now, the Board of Peace continues to move forward. Workshops are being held. The NCAG is being prepared. Moroccan officers have arrived. Temporary communities are being discussed. Palestinian police training is being planned. The Security Council is being asked to reaffirm that Hamas must disarm.
But the gap between planning and execution remains vast. Hamas still holds weapons and local coercive power. Israel still controls much of Gaza and has not agreed to a clear withdrawal timeline. Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have reasons to resist an independent technocratic body that could bypass their influence. The ISF is not yet a deployed force. And Washington is divided between managing Gaza and handling the fallout from the Iran diplomatic track.
The result is a ceasefire framework with institutions, documents, and diplomatic language — but still lacking the political leverage needed to turn those elements into facts on the ground. The concept of Hamas-free camps may become the first real test of whether the Board of Peace can build a functioning alternative inside Gaza. It may also reveal whether the plan can survive without an answer to the question that has blocked every other step: Who, if anyone, can compel Hamas to surrender its weapons — and what will Israel, the Palestinians, and the broader region receive in return?
