Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the latest Trump envoy visiting Israel in a bid to keep the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan intact despite the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — which include, in Rubio’s words, “threatening the peace deal” by allowing preliminary approval of a bill to annex the West Bank.
Following his trip to Israel last week, President Donald Trump has sent several senior officials to Jerusalem, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Vice President JD Vance and, most recently, Rubio.
Trump’s peace plan, which is the basis for the Oct. 10 ceasefire, reads more like one of his stream-of-consciousness social media posts than a binding agreement.
It’s been almost two weeks since the deal to end the war in Gaza went into effect, with little clarity about its 20 points and an even smaller chance of implementing most of them. One part of the Trump plan, however, is unambiguous — and should never have been up for negotiation in the first place: the commitment to protect civilians, in particular by facilitating humanitarian aid and allowing Palestinians to travel into and out of Gaza.
The text of Trump’s peace plan, which is the basis for the Oct. 10 ceasefire, reads more like one of his stream-of-consciousness social media posts than a binding agreement. It recognizes Palestinian statehood aspirations but establishes a neocolonial international board, chaired by Trump, to rule Palestinians in Gaza. It requires Hamas to disarm, even though Trump said it didn’t “bother him much” that the group used violence to “take out a couple of gangs that were very bad” in Gaza. And its call for an international stabilization force, which Vance and Rubio were supposed to be brokering this week, seems destined to fail because, to start, there’s no clarity about the role of Hamas or any other Palestinian actor; sporadic hostilities continue; and third-party countries don’t want to be seen as occupying Gaza or fighting Hamas on Israel’s behalf. Rubio reiterated the pledge to set up an international force during a visit Friday to a U.S.-led command center in southern Israel but did not provide details.
Other provisions have been partially implemented: Hamas has released the 20 living Israeli hostages and the remains of 15 others; Israel has released 1,968 Palestinian prisoners and detainees and repatriated the remains of 195 Palestinians; and Israeli troops withdrew to the so-called yellow line, reducing direct Israeli control to about half of Gaza’s territory.
But the ceasefire plan also included commitments that should never have been part of political negotiations and have still not been met, like an Israeli promise to allow 600 trucks of desperately needed supplies into Gaza daily and an Israeli agreement to reopen Gaza’s Rafah Border Crossing with Egypt. More aid has entered Gaza since the ceasefire, but nutritious food, medical supplies and shelter materials remain catastrophically scarce, including in Gaza City, where experts declared a famine in August.
International humanitarian law requires Israel to facilitate the rapid supply of international aid, as well as to actually pay for and provide essential supplies, as part of its obligations as an occupying power. The Israeli military has instead used starvation as a weapon of war, blocking food, medicine and other necessities from entering Gaza even as it has razed croplands, prohibited fishing and destroyed civilian infrastructure like reservoirs, wastewater treatment plants and hospitals. All of this has created conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, which is part of the legal definition of genocide.
The Biden and Trump administrations could have ended these abuses by suspending military aid and issuing targeted sanctions. But they chose not to.
The U.S. government bears legal, moral and political responsibility for these crimes, because each year it supplies the Israeli military with billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons that have been used to block food supplies, unlawfully displace more than 90% of Gaza’s population and kill civilians unlawfully. At any moment in the past two years, the Biden and Trump administrations could have ended these abuses by suspending military aid and issuing targeted sanctions. But they chose not to.
Thus Israel has continued to weaponize aid, with U.S. backing, contributing to the death of what experts believe to be thousands of people from malnutrition, infectious disease and lack of medical care. That’s in addition to more than 68,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed in attacks since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led fighters killed and kidnapped hundreds of civilians in Israel in attacks that constituted crimes against humanity.
Trump’s ceasefire plan promised to immediately restore “full aid” to Gaza and finally allow travel. But since the ceasefire began, Israel has twice suspended humanitarian aid, alleging violations by Hamas, and it has repeatedly delayed the opening of the Rafah Crossing.
Humanitarian aid, the right to health and the right to freedom of movement are legal obligations that the Israeli government owes Palestinians in Gaza, regardless of what Hamas does or doesn’t do. In the same way, the release of civilian hostages by Palestinian armed groups was an absolute obligation that should never have been negotiated.
There are tentative signs that the Trump administration is finally demanding relief for civilians in Gaza. After the Israeli government last Sunday alleged ceasefire violations and announced that it would obstruct humanitarian aid, the U.S. reportedly pressured Israel to quickly reverse course, and aid was restored.
The ceasefire plan includes a rare U.S. acknowledgement that Palestinians in Gaza have suffered terribly, and its declaration that Palestinians in Gaza have a right to remain in Gaza supersedes, at least for now, Trump’s earlier call to “level out” Gaza and transfer its population to other countries.
The U.S. should never have allowed Israeli authorities to starve and forcibly displace civilians in Gaza, nearly half of whom are children. These visits from Rubio, Vance and others should be an opportunity to clarify that whatever else the U.S. ceasefire plan for Gaza means, it can and should mean an end to using human beings as bargaining chips. We shall see if that pans out.
