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Few people have been involved in more American efforts to broker peace in the Middle East than Aaron David Miller. A veteran State Department negotiator, he worked on Arab-Israeli relations for 15 years, including the Oslo Accords under Bill Clinton, and then in the George W. Bush administration.

How, then, does he assess President Donald Trump’s achievement this week? Trump has clearly oversold it, he says, including some “awfully grandiose statements” about its place in the pantheon of global peacemaking.

“It is not a peace agreement,” Miller tells this masthead in Washington. “It is not the most important peace agreement in 3000 years. It comes nowhere close to rivalling the Egyptian-Israeli or Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties.”

But, Miller says: “It is an extraordinary moment, delivered by a president who has acted in ways that are quite unprecedented. It could … offer a road map to end the war in Gaza on terms that normal people would regard as an actual end of the conflict.”

The positives of this week are obvious. After two years, the last live Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas are at home with their families; photographs and footage of the reunions provided a rare moment of hope in the otherwise long and bleak conflict. Some 2000 Palestinian prisoners were also released by Israel.

However, the ceasefire has been shaky. Israeli forces withdrew to an agreed line, and Palestinians returned to their homes – or what little is left of them. However, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says Israeli fire has killed at least 23 people since the ceasefire started only days ago.

Israel and Egypt are yet to reopen the border crossing into Gaza at Rafah, and Israel is restricting aid into the enclave while it presses Hamas to find and return more bodies of deceased hostages, with 19 still remaining.

During a whirlwind trip to the region at the start of the week, Trump was welcomed to the Israeli Knesset as a hero, and returned to the United States triumphant in his highly dubious claim of having ended eight wars since January.

But, as Miller puts it: “After the celebration, the Monday morning blues kick in. People turn to each other and say: What are we going to do now?”

‘After the celebration, the Monday morning blues kick in. People turn to each other and say: What are we going to do now?’

Aaron David Miller, veteran State Department negotiator

That question is one for the whole world. While Trump has taken credit for the ceasefire (as well as crediting Qatar, Egypt and Turkey), the next phase will require a truly global effort to demilitarise Gaza, ensure aid is delivered, manage negotiations with Israel and Hamas, raise money and start rebuilding the shattered strip.

Trump’s 20-point peace plan essentially calls for three outfits to be formed, including an international stabilisation, or peacekeeping, force to provide security, with about 200 Americans in oversight roles (but not combat boots on the ground). On Thursday, a senior US adviser said Indonesia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab nations had expressed interest in participating in the force, adding: “Some of the goodness that has happened here is infectious.”

The plan also calls for an apolitical, technocratic Palestinian committee to manage the provision of everyday services in Gaza, while high-level co-ordination would be directed by an international “board of peace”. Trump has identified himself as a potential chairman of that board, though he has also suggested he might be too busy, while former British prime minister Tony Blair’s name has also circulated.

But that is governance. On the ground, concerns are about coming home, cleaning up, and staying safe. Hamas militants executed seven men: members of a local clan accused of collaborating with Israel. Its members have returned to Gaza’s debris-strewn streets: establishing checkpoints, brandishing guns and reasserting power.

Reports from the ground suggest Hamas fighters emerged from underground in fresh clothes, with functional weapons and “sparkling clean pick-up trucks”. Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Centre for Political Studies in Ramallah, told the Financial Times: “New cars, new gear, new equipment, new uniforms, printing presses with massive slogans. What has Israel been bombing for two years?”

Israel says the ratio of non-combatant to combatant casualties in Gaza is less than two to one, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations last month was an “astoundingly low ratio”, especially given the territory’s population density.

But now the true state of Hamas’s degradation will be revealed. It appears the militant group – designated as a terrorist organisation in Australia and elsewhere – maintains significant manpower, equipment and capability, not to mention appeal.

Miller says: “If you ask me what is the pre-eminent political, military and security entity in Gaza right now other than Israel, it’s Hamas.”

Khaled Elgindy, of the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, said Hamas would take time to figure out its identity and capability. Its leadership has been largely wiped out, but it still has military commanders who can make and execute decisions. And it is still recruiting new members.

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“This is a very different world,” Elgindy said on the Foreign Affairs magazine podcast this week. “It was never really in the cards that Hamas was going to be totally obliterated, but it’s going to be a very different Hamas.”

Whatever the present status of Hamas, its ongoing presence and authority in Gaza exposes an impasse at the centre of the ceasefire: Israel wants Hamas gone entirely, and it won’t do that. “The end goals of the current Israeli government and the Islamic resistance movement are mutually irreconcilable,” says Miller.

“Hamas wants to survive as a political organisation, at a minimum, keeping its light weapons. They will no longer be able to govern Gaza, but they want to remain the most pre-eminent political force there. They want to remain a fixture as a movement and continue their influence to take over the Palestinian nationalist movement.

“That fundamental and until now, implacable, irreconcilable endgame has been the single greatest reason why the war in Gaza has not ended and will not end. To me, that is the greatest challenge.”

Potential pitfalls

Under the Trump plan, Israel will slowly withdraw from Gaza based on milestones and timelines linked to the demilitarisation of Gaza and the stability of the international stabilisation force. These points will be agreed between the Israel Defence Forces, the peacekeeping force, the guarantors, and the US, the plan says.

There are many potential pitfalls. As the Atlantic Council’s Daniel Mouton notes, there is room in the plan for Israel to maintain some military presence in Gaza to monitor the disarmament of Hamas. Netanyahu said on October 10 that this would be achieved either diplomatically or “militarily, by us”.

Israel is divided, with far-right politicians against any further withdrawal from Gaza. But everyday Israelis are less likely to support more combat now that the hostages have been returned. Shira Efron, the Israel policy chair at RAND Corporation, told the Foreign Affairs podcast that defeating Hamas is an elusive and nebulous goal and “the Israeli public, for the most part, at this point, is against the war”.

Mouton said the IDF’s full retreat would depend on the Trump administration’s ability to enforce the plan. Still, Israel’s security needs would “override any political concerns” about US unhappiness with Israel’s adherence.

On a briefing call with reporters on Thursday (AEDT) organised by the White House, two senior US advisers – who spoke on condition of anonymity – sounded an optimistic note about the state of play. They credited Hamas with releasing all 20 living hostages as scheduled, and said it was impossible for Hamas to immediately find and unearth the remains of the dead ones, given the state of Gaza and their lack of equipment.

“The entire Gaza Strip has been pulverised. It looks like something out of a movie,” one of the advisers said. They emphasised goodwill from all parties to honour the agreement and made clear they did not regard Hamas to be in violation at this stage.

Trump, however, issued strong warnings to Hamas in numerous public statements, telling CNN that if Hamas didn’t disarm, he would let Israel go back in and “knock the crap out of them”. On Friday, he posted on Truth Social: “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

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That differed from his remarks in the Oval Office the previous day, when he said Hamas had killed some “very bad” gang members, which didn’t really bother him.

On the Foreign Affairs podcast, Elgindy said the ceasefire would be likely to hold as long as Trump wanted it to. The dynamic had changed, he said, particularly after Netanyahu attempted to assassinate Hamas’ political leaders in Doha, the capital of US ally Qatar. “That overreach really propelled him [Trump] to pivot, with the help of Qatar and other Arab states.”

‘You have to open that channel’

But the success of the endeavour may also depend on Trump’s continued focus. While he is committed to ending the conflict – and securing his Nobel Peace Prize – he is also trying to resolve the war in Ukraine. Trump is set for another summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin after the pair spoke for more than two hours on Thursday, and ahead of that meeting, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to visit the White House on Friday.

Miller noted that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, met Hamas’ lead negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, face to face during crucial late-night talks in Egypt last week, an encounter The New York Times described as “quick but rare”. That was when, back in Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio handed Trump a handwritten note telling him the deal was “very close” (Axios first reported the meeting).

In Miller’s view, maintaining a direct channel of communication between the US and Hamas “will drive the Israelis absolutely crazy” but may be vital to the peace plan progressing. While there are no silver bullets or secret weapons, “if you want Hamas to come along, you’re going to have to open that channel”, he says.

Moreover, says Miller, Trump has to remain actively involved. “Governing is about choosing. Presidents can’t have everything. They’ve got to focus.”

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