Sharm el-Sheikh

On October 13, 2025, more than 20 world leaders gathered at a ceremony in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to witness US President Donald Trump sign the ceasefire agreement meant to end the war between Israel and Hamas that has lasted for over two years. At the beginning of 2026, the start of the second phase of the agreement was announced, despite failure to fully implement the first phase. This article will look at the components of the second phase and its implementation to date.

A Brief Look at The Status of Phase One

As part of the ceasefire agreement, both Hamas was required to release all hostages, as well as the bodies of those that had deceased, within 72 hours of Israel’s public acceptance of the ceasefire. This was to be followed by Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners. Other key obligations included a halt to hostilities, a withdrawal to agreed-upon lines, and the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. To date, Israel has failed to fulfill its obligations in each of these areas. Hamas released all living hostages it had still held and facilitated the return of the bodies of those that had died in their captivity. For its part, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees. However, the IDF has routinely redrawn the line to which it was supposed to redeploy within the Gaza Strip according to the terms of the ceasefire agreement. The IDF has also killed nearly 600 Palestinians and wounded some 1,600 since October 13, 2025. This number does not include Palestinians who have died because of the destruction of civilian infrastructure, remain missing under the rubble, or have died due to the conditions imposed on human life by Israel’s ongoing siege.

Regarding the flow of humanitarian aid, UN figures from mid-October 2025 through the first week of February 2026 show that just under 13,000 trucks had been unloaded in Gaza – an average of about 120 trucks per day. This remains significantly below the 600 trucks per day that the ceasefire agreement stipulated should be permitted into the Gaza Strip.

The Elements of Phase Two

The second phase of the peace agreement stipulates Israeli withdrawal from nearly all of the Gaza Strip, a durable ceasefire, an international stabilization force, the disarmament and transfer of power from Hamas, the establishment of a transitional governing authority, and the start of reconstruction. Phase two should be overseen via a set of institutions to include Trump’s Board of Peace, an administrative body of Palestinian technocrats, an international stabilization force, and a civil-military coordination center. These institutions are all still in the early stages of establishment as of spring 2026.

The Board of Peace

The Board of Peace, chaired personally by Trump for life, is still being assembled. More than 50 countries have been invited to join, but so far only some 25 have signed up. Permanent membership of the board comes with the hefty entry fee of $1 billion. It remains unclear where this money will go to. A Board of Peace charter has been issued, which makes no mention of Gaza. It is unclear how membership would be legally binding on states whose leaders decide to join the Board without obtaining proper domestic ratification.

National Committee for the Administration of Gaza

Second, although the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza has been assembled, its officials have yet to enter the Gaza Strip. The Hamas government in Gaza has called on them to do so and has expressed its willingness to cooperate with its mission. However, Israel controls all entry points into the Gaza Strip and not permitted the committee to enter the strip. To date, the committee operates out of Cairo, with no measurable impact of its work within the Gaza Strip.

The International Stabilization Force

The third component of the institutional architecture, the International Stabilization Force (ISF), has not yet been formed. Despite rumors that various countries may be willing to contribute troops, the only official commitment to contribute forces to date has been from Indonesia. A main obstacle appears to be that countries are unsure what they might be signing up for if they were to commit soldiers. Would their roles encompass peacekeeping, policing, or disarmament? How will they engage with Hamas or the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)? Will they protect civilians or only themselves from attacks? How long will ISF deployment last? This lack of clarity may explain why the ISF has not yet been created.

Civil-Military Coordination Center

The Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), established in southern Israel on October 17, 2025, was supposed to help enforce the ceasefire and monitor the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Its 200-strong team so far has failed to prevent ceasefire violations or to ensure that the level of humanitarian aid delivered into the strip does not continue to fall of what is stipulated in the peace deal. European partners working alongside the United States at the CMCC have reportedly reconsidered their involvement, with diplomats calling the Center “directionless” and a “disaster.” In late January 2026, Reuters reported that the senior military and civilian leaders of the CMCC had stepped down and not yet been replaced amidst uncertainty about the Center’s future.

Bigger than the Sum of Broken Parts

The biggest challenges to phase two of the ceasefire agreement seem to stem not just from the dysfunctions of its individual components, but from the factors that are producing this dysfunction. President Trump himself pursues a highly personal dimension on the entire process, by both creating new international organizations such as the Board of Peace and insisting on playing a leading role in them. Trump also seems to be prioritizing short-term outcomes and positive media headlines over long-term, detailed, and durable agreements. His interest and grasp of each of the components of the peace plane outlined here may therefore by limited, although this is of course speculative. For its part, Israel appears unwilling to endorse a vision for Gaza that responds to the increasingly widespread international support for Palestinian self-determination. The coalition partners that make up Netanyahu’s government stated to not believe that the terms of the ceasefire deal represent the “total victory” that Netanyahu promised. Some of his coalition partners have expressed a desire for ethnic cleansing of the whole Gaza Strip, to be followed by re-colonizing the area with Israeli settlers On a more symbolic yet exemplary matter, Israel has also objected to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza using Palestinian national symbols.