In a nearly unanimous vote Monday evening, the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 2803 (2025), placing its stamp of approval on President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza and the creation of an international force to maintain order in a post-Hamas Gaza. The final text leaves open the possibility of future Palestinian statehood, but the near-term effect paves the way for the disarmament and replacement of Hamas.
Contents of the Resolution
The resolution gave official U.N. sanction to the peace plan Trump negotiated with Arab leaders in late September. It recognized an international Board of Peace (BoP) to oversee a transitional government in Gaza. It authorized the BOP to oversee aid delivery, local administration, and security coordination with Israel and Egypt. It recognized an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to replace Hamas as the armed power in Gaza. It also looked expectantly to the future establishment of a Palestinian state.
“It dismantles Hamas’ grip. It ensures Gaza rises free from terror’s shadow, prosperous and secure,” glowed Mike Waltz, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. And it “charts a possible pathway for Palestinian self-determination ... where rockets will give way to olive branches and there is a chance to agree on a political horizon.”
Soon after the vote, President Trump posted to Truth Social his “Congratulations to the World,” explaining that the BoP would be “chaired by me,” and that the resolution “will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations, will lead to further Peace all over the World, and is a moment of true Historic proportion!”
“The fact that he won and that this resolution passed is nothing short of a tremendous victory for the White House,” said Michael Rubin, former Pentagon official and current American Enterprise Institute senior fellow on “Washington Watch.” “This brings a great deal of legitimacy … because it shows that the entire world is lining up behind President Donald Trump’s plan.”
Resolution 2803 “Endorses the Comprehensive Plan” that Trump negotiated in September “and calls on all parties to implement it in its entirety,” according to text of the resolution published by Middle East Eye.
It “[w]elcomes the establishment of the Board of Peace (BoP) as a transitional administration with international legal personality that will set the framework, and coordinate funding, for the redevelopment of Gaza … until such time as the Palestinian Authority (PA) has satisfactorily completed its reform program … and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza.” The document cited multiple proposals for PA reform including the reforms outlined in Trump’s 2020 peace plan and a proposal for Palestinian statehood spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia in September 2025.
“After the PA reform program is faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced,” the resolution elaborated, “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.”
Meanwhile, the resolution “[a]uthorizes … the BoP” to “establish operational entities” for “a transitional governance administration,” “the reconstruction of Gaza,” “humanitarian assistance in Gaza,” and “measures to facilitate the movement of persons in and out of Gaza.”
It also “[a]uthorizes … the BoP to establish a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza … with forces contributed by participating States, in close consultation and cooperation with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel.” The ISF will “stabilize the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip, including the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”
The resolution stipulates Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip along the terms agreed to in Trump’s 20-point peace plan. “As the ISF establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will withdraw from the Gaza Strip based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization … save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.”
The resolution authorized the BoP for two full years, until December 31, 2027, although the Security Council could choose to extend or modify its authorization.
Negotiations and Final Passage
The final vote in the U.N. Security Council was 13-0, with two abstentions by permanent members Russia and China (all five permanent members — Russia, China, the U.S., the U.K., and France — hold veto power). Currently, the other member states on the council are Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia.
Although this list contains multiple nations with little love for Israel and the U.S., the U.S.-proposed text nevertheless won support from the entire Security Council, save our greatest geopolitical rivals.
Such consensus came at a cost. To win such broad support, the U.S. had to win over the anti-Semitic government of Algeria, which had objected to the first draft alongside China and Russia.
As a result of this opposition, the U.S. “made some limited changes” in a revised draft, according to the Security Council Report. The new draft added a reference to the Saudi-French declaration endorsing Palestinian statehood, deleted language prohibiting organizations that misused aid from providing future aid — a prohibition aimed at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which widely collaborated with Hamas — and required the BoP to submit a written report to the Security Council every six months.
The revisions also explicitly incorporated language into the resolution from Trump’s 20-point peace plan, including the terms for Israel’s gradual withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a reference to “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
The U.S. delegation did not necessarily make such considerable alterations solely to please the government of Algeria. Although the resolution could have passed over an Algerian “no” vote, it could not survive a veto by China or Russia. Thus, the changes may have served to nudge those hostile powers out of a veto and into an abstention.
Whatever the calculus made, what is clear is that anti-Israel nations watered down Israel’s interests in the resolution. This was always a predictable outcome to win U.N. support. However, it was seen as a necessary prerequisite to create an ISF in Gaza. With Israel’s consent, Indonesia was selected to play a major role in leading the ISF, and Indonesia insisted on official U.N. approval of the mission.
Although they did not block the final resolution, China and Russia both criticized it. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya complained that the Security Council was “giving its blessing to a U.S. initiative on the basis of Washington’s promises,” and “giving complete control over the Gaza Strip to the Board of Peace and the ISF, the modalities of which we know nothing about so far.” A Chinese diplomat claimed that, “it seems Palestine is barely visible in it, and the Palestinian sovereignty and ownership are not fully reflected.”
Israeli and Palestinian Responses
After the vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement to “applaud President Trump and his tireless and devoted team.” The statement praised their work, which has “helped bring home all of the living hostages and most of the deceased ones” and predicted that “President Trump’s breakthrough leadership will help lead the region to peace and prosperity and a lasting alliance with the United States.”
The statement stopped short of fully endorsing the U.N. resolution. Instead, Netanyahu focused on the statement’s positive aspects. “The United Nations Security Council fully endorses President Trump’s 20 Point Plan, and the appointment of the Board of Peace to be led by President Trump,” he said. “We believe that President Trump’s plan will lead to peace and prosperity because it insists upon full demilitarization, disarmament and the deradicalization of Gaza. True to President Trump’s vision, this will lead to further integration of Israel and its neighbors as well as expansion of [the] Abraham Accords.”
The statement concluded by citing Israel’s expectation that the international partners will now “begin the process of disarming and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip and ending Hamas’ rule over Gaza” and inviting “all our neighbors” to “normalize relations with Israel and join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region.”
Instead of dwelling on the pronouncements for Palestinian statehood (which can be found a-dime-a-dozen in U.N. declarations), Israel has chosen to focus on the positive effects the resolution can achieve in the near-term. “The demilitarization of Hamas is a basic condition of the peace agreement,” Israeli envoy to the United Nations Danny Danon said. “There will be no future in Gaza as long as Hamas possesses weapons.”
This has not prevented right-wing figures in Netanyahu’s coalition from criticizing the prime minister over the statement’s apparent endorsement of Palestinian statehood. So sharp was the criticism that Netanyahu issued a curt reply on Sunday, “Our opposition to a Palestinian state in any territory has not changed. Gaza will be demilitarized and Hamas will be disarmed, the easy way or the hard way. I do not need affirmations, tweets or lectures from anyone.”
Unsurprisingly, Hamas rejected the resolution that called for their disarmament, endorsed destruction of their “military, terror, and offensive infrastructure,” and referred to them only as one of multiple “non-state armed groups.”
“The resolution imposes an international guardianship mechanism on the Gaza Strip, which our people and their factions reject,” the terror group complained, 25 months after they began the war with an unprovoked assault on both Israeli military installations and civilians, resulting in 5,000 wounded, 1,200 killed, and 250 kidnapped. “Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favour of the occupation,” Hamas argued.
Yet Hamas is the party prolonging the conflict. Israel is willing to withdraw, yielding in time to an international peacekeeping force. Hamas is not. For them, the only acceptable outcome is Israel’s annihilation. Instead, the deal they got demands their disarmament, and Hamas is determined not to go down quietly.
“The White House has got to have a consistent attention to the details,” urged Rubin. “Otherwise, Hamas and some of its backers (Turkey and Qatar) are going to try to avoid this Hamas disarmament.”
“That said, if Hamas doesn’t disarm,” he added, “what you’re going to have is a zone in Gaza where it’s going to be free of Hamas … under this International Security Force governance, and that’s going to be where the development occurs. And those areas that Hamas controls — they’re going to basically wallow in their own misery without the international aid, which Hamas once hijacked.”
However, the U.N. resolution strangely plays favorites among radical Palestinian groups. While the deal kicks Hamas to the curb, it names the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the favored heir, even though the PA in no way deserves the attention and is just as guilty of promoting jihadist terrorism against Israel.
Naturally, while the deal’s passage melted Hamas into a tantrum, the PA on Friday praised the draft resolution with all the smug satisfaction of a six-year-old boy about to win a lifetime supply of all-you-can-eat ice cream vouchers.
“The State of Palestine” — how self-important! — “underscores the importance of this effort to establish a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire, accelerate the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance, ensure the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, and move immediately toward reconstruction in a manner that restores normal life, protects our people in the Strip, prevents displacement, halts the undermining of the two-state solution, and prevents annexation,” the group proclaimed. “We welcome the statement’s affirmation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and to establish their independent State of Palestine, and to advance toward peace, security, and stability between Palestinians and Israelis, reaffirming that it must be in accordance with international law and international legitimacy.”
But then the PR experts truly jumped the shark. “We also reaffirm the readiness of the State of Palestine to assume its full responsibilities in the Gaza Strip,” the PA added. The PA has played no role in governing Gaza since 2007, when Gazans elected Hamas to rule them after Israel’s withdrawal, and Hamas overthrew any semblance of cooperation with the PA in a bloody coup. More recently, both the Trump peace plan and the U.N. resolution acknowledge the reality that the PA is not at all prepared to rule a Palestinian state without major — some would argue improbably transformative — reforms.
Despite the PA’s impotence, the U.S. continues to court the mirage of a two-state solution. In a statement after the vote, Ambassador Waltz said, “The adoption of this resolution today demonstrates the overwhelming support for the President’s vision for a stable Gaza where Palestinians determine their own destiny, free from terrorist rule and violence.”
Of course, there is already a political entity in the region in which Palestinians “determine their own destiny,” as free from terrorism and violence as possible under the circumstances. That entity is the state of Israel, where Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs (who comprise 20% of the population) live side-by-side in peaceful coexistence. In Israel, Arab citizens enjoy equal rights and even elect members to the Knesset.
Creation of ISF Peacekeepers
Notwithstanding its foolish assent to a two-state solution, the most significant, immediate effect of U.N. Resolution 2803 will be the creation of the BoP and the ISF, entities that will provide credible governance and security to Gaza in the absence of Hamas.
“The path to prosperity, colleagues, requires security first,” as Waltz explained. “Security is the oxygen that governance [and] development needs to live and to thrive. The International Stabilization Force will stabilize the security environment — support the demilitarization of Gaza, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, decommission weapons, and maintain the safety of Palestinian civilians.”
“When we look at the actual resolution, what we see is we get the International Stabilization Force. The United Nations isn’t front and center, and that’s important given how corrupted the United Nations has been by Hamas,” Rubin reckoned. “The fact that you now have an International Stabilization Force, and likely countries like Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates are going to take part, actually doesn’t bode well for Hamas.”
The parties must still work out the details — such as which countries will send how many troops, and how committed this international body will be to forcibly taking territory and weapons from Hamas fighters — but official U.N. sanction gives the Trump administration and its partners the green light to proceed.
