The US plan for Gaza won UN backing. Carrying it out could be far more difficult

CAIRO (AP) — The U.N. Security Council has backed the United States’ ambitious plan for the future of the Gaza Strip. How and when it will be carried out remain largely unknown.

In a twist unimaginable across the tumultuous history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the plan would mean U.S. President Donald Trump becomes the de facto ruler of Gaza. The territory remains devastated by Israel's campaign to eliminate Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

An international body known as the Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is to govern Gaza and oversee reconstruction under a 2-year, renewable U.N. mandate. An armed International Stabilization Force is to keep security and ensure the disarming of Hamas, a key demand of Israel.

Major questions hang over nearly every part of the plan and the timeframe for implementation. In the meantime, nearly all Palestinians remain displaced and dependent on humanitarian aid, Hamas retains significant control over nearly half of Gaza and the rebuilding of the territory has barely begun.

Some talks over the next steps have taken place behind the scenes among the U.S., Israel, Qatar, Egypt and other countries. But serious negotiations have not begun because Israel and Hamas remain in the first phase of the ceasefire deal that came into effect in October. The militant group is still required to hand over the bodies of the last three hostages.

The U.N. resolution passed Monday gave the plan international legitimacy. That opens the door for Arab and Muslim-majority nations to participate, particularly by contributing troops to the ISF. The U.S. is hoping that the more those countries are involved, the more palatable the international rule will be for Gaza's more than 2 million people.

But the Palestinian public's acceptance is far from certain. Without it, the Board of Peace risks becoming seen as a foreign occupation working on behalf of Israel, further thwarting their dream of self-determination and statehood.

The plan gives Palestinians almost no voice in governing Gaza. Because of Israel’s fierce opposition, it doesn’t promise statehood, offering only a vague reference that it might one day be possible. It also gives only an ambiguous timetable for reconstruction to begin and for the Israeli military to withdraw from the around 50% of the Gaza Strip that it still holds since the ceasefire began.

Disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza are the keystones to the whole plan. But there’s no detail on how that will happen.

So far, the militant group has not agreed to disarm. In a statement after the U.N. resolution’s passage, Hamas said the fate of its weapons is connected to ensuring a path to the end of the Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The International Stabilization Force is tasked with ensuring disarmament and the destruction of Hamas’ military infrastructure. The ISF will also oversee a Palestinian police force, made up of vetted members trained by Egypt and Jordan.

A number of nations have been cited as possible contributors to the ISF, including Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and Azerbaijan. But none has committed to sending troops yet, and Israel opposes Turkey participating in the force.

They are unlikely to want their soldiers to take Hamas' weapons by force. Hamas warned that trying to do so would turn the ISF “into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation.”

Hamas is under heavy pressure, particularly from Qatar and Egypt, to find a compromise. One possible idea is a “decommissioning” – handing the arsenal over to the ISF for safekeeping -- which Hamas could argue is not a permanent surrender of its right to armed resistance.

Without disarmament, much of the rest of the plan could stall. Israel’s troop withdrawal is linked to the pace of Hamas demilitarization and the deployment of the ISF. Reconstruction is also unlikely to happen in most of Gaza unless Hamas disarms.

Many Palestinians fear the end result will be a partition of Gaza between an Israeli-controlled zone, where some reconstruction might take place, and the rest, where almost all of the population of more than 2 million live with little rebuilding.

Trump has said the board will be made up of “distinguished leaders” from other countries, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and that its members will be named in the coming weeks.

But who they will be is unknown, and even Blair’s participation has not been confirmed.

The U.N. resolution gives the Board complete say in Gaza with powers over the ISF, reconstruction and economic recovery. The Board is also to oversee a “technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians” who will run the day-to-day civil service in Gaza.

The members of the Palestinian committee are to have no connection to either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers scattered parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel has rejected any role for the PA in Gaza.

The plan doesn’t specify who will select the members, but that likely will fall to the Board of Peace. Israel will want to have a strong say in who can be included.

In an online post, Palestinian political analyst and pollster Khalil Shikaki said the committee should be picked through an “an all Palestinian” process to boost its support, consulting among political factions, trade syndicates, local leaders and women’s and youth organizations.

But if the Board and the committee are seen as a tool for the U.S. or Israel, prominent Palestinians may be reluctant to join. In its statement Monday, Hamas denounced the “international guardianship” that the U.N. resolution places on Gaza, saying it aims to further Israel’s interests.

The plan emphasizes two goals for Gaza – demilitarization and reconstruction. Anything beyond that remains largely blank.

The U.N. resolution offers the possibility of the Palestinian Authority eventually taking control of Gaza if it carries out a slate of internal reforms to the satisfaction of the Board of Peace – everything from fighting corruption, increasing efficiency to holding elections.

The Palestinian Authority welcomed the U.N. resolution in a statement Monday and said it was prepared to step in to govern Gaza. But Israeli opposition raises doubts whether that will ever be allowed to happen.

Under pressure from Arab allies, the United States inserted a reference to Palestinian statehood in the U.N. resolution.

But it remains only a vague nod. It states that if the Palestinian Authority “faithfully” carries out reforms and if Gaza redevelopment advances, “conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

The lack of a clear path to self-determination threatens to complicate every other step. For example, Shikaki wrote, without a path to statehood, “disarmament will be seen as capitulation; with it, demobilization can be framed as part of national strategy.”

For much of the population, the priority is to see reconstruction and a revival of Gaza’s economy so families have livelihoods. If that comes, it could paper over reluctance toward international rule, at least for a time. If it doesn’t or if Palestinians see no progress toward self-determination, resentment is likely to mount.

The potential for chaos is high with the multiple divisions within Gaza. Already, the territory has Hamas, several Israeli-backed armed gangs that oppose the militant group and the Israeli military itself. Add to those a Palestinian police force, international troops, Palestinians who join the administration and those who oppose it – and the scene becomes even more volatile.

FILE - A general view shows a Security Council meeting at the U.N. headquarters, Sept. 23, 2025, at the United Nations. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

Palestinian children look at the camera as they play in a makeshift camp for displaced people in Zawayda, in the central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Israeli tanks are parked in a staging area near the border with Gaza, in southern Israel, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

President Donald Trump waits to welcome Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A man carries a child while riding his bicycle along a damaged street in the Al-Shati camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Five years ago, video images from a Minneapolis street showing a police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd as his life slipped away ignited a social movement.

Now, videos from another Minneapolis street showing the last moments of Renee Good's life are central to another debate about law enforcement in America. They've slipped out day by day since ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good last Wednesday in her maroon SUV. Yet compared to 2020, the story these pictures tell is murkier, subject to manipulation both within the image itself and the way it is interpreted.

This time, too, the Trump administration and its supporters went to work establishing their own public view of the event before the inevitable imagery appeared.

But half a decade later, so many things are not the same — from cultural attitudes to rapidly evolving technology around all kinds of imagery.

“We are in a different time,” said Francesca Dillman Carpentier, a University of North Carolina journalism professor and expert on the media's impact on audiences.

No one who saw the searing video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020, is likely to forget it — and Chauvin's impassive face Floyd insisted he couldn't breathe. United in revulsion, demonstrators began one of the nation's largest-ever social movements. Chauvin was convicted of murder.

The footage “caused many individuals to experience an epiphany about racism, specifically cultural racism, in the United States,” legal scholar Angela Onwuachi-Willig wrote in a Houston Law Review study that examined whether white Americans experienced a collective cultural trauma.

She eventually concluded that didn't happen and that the impact diminished with time. The rollback of diversity programs with the second Trump administration offers evidence for her argument.

“The people who are writing the cultural narrative of the Good shooting took notes from the Floyd killing and are managing this narrative differently,” said Kelly McBride, an expert on media ethics for the Poynter Institute.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good, who was demonstrating in opposition to ICE enforcement of immigration laws, a domestic terrorist — an interpretation that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey dismissed with an expletive. Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance suggested the shooting was justified because Good was trying to run Ross down with her vehicle.

On the night of the killing, White House border czar Tom Homan was cautious in an interview with the “CBS Evening News” when anchor Tony Dokoupil showed him the most widely distributed video of the incident, taken by a bystander and posted by a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer. The veteran law enforcement official said it would be unprofessional for him to prejudge before an investigation.

Later that evening, Homan issued a statement calling the shooting “another example of the results of the hateful rhetoric and violent attacks” against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers.

Video of the incident has been generally inconclusive about whether Good's vehicle actually hit Ross before he opened fire. Even if she did, many experts question whether that represented grounds for firing his weapon. Clearly, however, that would bolster public sympathy for the officer.

“These ICE videos do present irrefutable facts — a woman drove her car and then she was shot dead by an ICE agent,” said Duy Linh Tu, a documentarian and professor at the Columbia University journalism school. “What the videos can't show is the intent of the woman or the officer. And that's the tricky part.”

Good, obviously, can’t speak to what motivated her to put her SUV in drive and move on Portland Avenue South.

Several news organizations have carefully examined the forensic evidence that has emerged. The Associated Press wrote that it was unclear if Good's car made contact with Ross. The Washington Post wrote that “videos examined by The Post, including one shared on Truth Social by Trump, do not clearly show whether the agent is struck or how close the front of the vehicle comes to striking him.”

The New York Times said that “in one video, it looks like the agent is being struck by the SUV. But when we synchronize it with the first clip, we can see the agent is not being run over.”

Video that emerged Friday from the Minnesota site Alpha News showed the incident from Ross' perspective. It, too, left many questions and no shortage of people willing to answer them.

Vance linked to the video online and wrote: “Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn't hit by a car, wasn't being harassed and murdered an innocent woman. The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self-defense.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote online that “how could anyone on the planet watch this video and conclude what JD Vance says?” Schumer said the administration “is lying to you.”

When one online commentator wrote that Good did not deserve to be shot in the face, conservative media figure Megyn Kelly responded, “Yes, she did. She hit and almost ran over a cop.”

Poynter’s McBride said the media has generally done a good and careful job outlining the evidence that is circulating around in the public. But the administration has also been effective in spreading its interpretation, she said.

There are more camera angles available now than there was with Floyd, but “I don't know if that adds clarity or more fog to this case,” Tu said. “I think that people will see what they want to see. Or, rather, they'll pick the angle that aligns with what they already believe.”

That nagging sense of uncertainty left by the videos leaves experts like Tu and Carpentier to conclude they will pale in impact compared to the Floyd case. With each passing year, the public is becoming more desensitized to images of violence — as the online spread of footage showing Republican activist Charlie Kirk illustrated, she said.

The spread of AI-enhanced fake images is also teaching the public to question what it sees, she said. Before Ross was identified, BBC Verify said false images were being spread online speculating about what the masked agent looked like, and fake video of a Minneapolis demonstration spread.

“Now you can't believe what you're seeing,” Carpentier said. “You don't know if what you're seeing is the real video or if it has been doctored. I don't think AI is being a friend in this case at all.”

David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

Federal immigration officers make an arrest as bystanders film the incident Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders film a federal immigration officer in their car Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)