The United Nations Security Council on Monday approved President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, a breakthrough that provides a legal U.N. mandate for the administration’s vision of how to move past the cease-fire and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip after two years of war.
The Council’s vote was also a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration. For the past two years, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas has raged, the United States had been isolated at the United Nations over its staunch support for Israel.
The U.S. resolution calls for an International Stabilization Force to enter, demilitarize and govern Gaza. The proposal, which has attached Mr. Trump’s 20 point cease-fire plan, also envisions a “Board of Peace” to oversee the peace plan, though it does not clarify the composition of the board.
The resolution passed with 13 votes in favor and zero vetoes. Russia and China, either of which could have vetoed the resolution, abstained, apparently swayed by the support for it from a number of Arab and Muslim nations.
Security Council resolutions are considered legally binding international law, and although the Council does not have a mechanism for enforcing such resolutions, it can take measures to punish violators with penalties such as sanctions.
“It’s a win-win,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director of the International Crisis Group, a conflict-preventing organization. “It’s a diplomatic victory for Trump but also a recognition that the U.N. matters.”
Still, the path forward is still plagued by many uncertainties with Israeli strikes continuing in Gaza and outbreaks of violence in the West Bank. Among the next steps would be naming members of the Board of Peace, the body in charge of overseeing the transition in Gaza, and clarify under whose authority the stabilization forces would operate.
The resolution says that if the Palestinian Authority, which partly governs the West Bank, undergoes reforms and the redevelopment of the shattered Gaza Strip advances, the conditions “may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
That language drew objections from Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Sunday that “our opposition to a Palestinian state in any territory has not changed.”
The resolution went through multiple revisions in negotiations last week and faced significant pushback from many Council members, including Europeans, who demanded more clarity on Palestinian statehood and the Board of Peace.
At one point late last week, objections by China and Russia, which typically coordinate their positions around resolutions by the United States, threatened to derail the U.S. resolution altogether. Russia drafted its own 10-point counterresolution on Gaza, which called outright for Palestinian statehood and said the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza should be joined as a state under the Palestinian Authority.
The United States made minimal compromises on the resolution and instead rallied the support of Arab countries, Turkey and Pakistan, which is a member of the Council, in order to pressure Russia and China to go along and to not be seen as obstacles to a breakthrough in Gaza. Diplomats said that Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had warned the countries during negotiations that if the resolution failed, the cease-fire in Gaza would collapse.
The stakes were high for all the major actors. Palestinians want the suffering and the war to end. Israelis want Hamas disarmed. And the United States hoped to be the major player bringing peace to the region.
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, told NBC News in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he believed “we are on the brink of a historic realignment in the Middle East.” Now, Washington’s plan for the Gaza cease-fire, reconstruction and stabilization has the weight of the Security Council behind it.
The Trump administration sought the mandate of the United Nations because countries tapped to contribute troops to the stabilization forces in Gaza — Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates — said they needed Security Council authorization so that their troops would not be viewed by their own populations as occupiers in Gaza.
The resolution also allows the World Bank, a U.N. entity, to allocate financial resources for the reconstruction of Gaza and calls for the establishment of a dedicated trust fund for this purpose.
The resolution authorizes the Board of Peace to oversee Gaza at least until the end of 2027 and says that the enclave would be managed day-to-day by a “technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians from the Strip.”
The International Stabilization Force would be responsible for destroying military infrastructure in Gaza and decommissioning militant groups’ weaponry.
It would coordinate with Egypt and Israel to train and support Palestinian police personnel, protect civilians, work to secure humanitarian corridors and secure border areas.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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