Last week, the Israeli Air Force restarted intense strikes on the Gaza Strip, ending a two-month cease-fire that some had hoped would evolve into a more stable truce. Israeli troops have slowly begun to recapture ground just inside Gaza’s borders.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how the cease-fire collapsed and what might happen next.

Why has fighting restarted?

It’s mainly because Israel and Hamas have incompatible visions of how this war ends. Israel wants Hamas to relinquish power, and Hamas wants to retain control of Gaza.

The sides were able to gloss over that fundamental difference in January, when they agreed to a weekslong truce in which Hamas released more than 30 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. But by March, Hamas wouldn’t release more hostages until Israel upheld its earlier pledge to hold talks over a permanent truce.

Israel refused. To break the deadlock, Israel broke the cease-fire — seemingly with President Trump’s blessing. In early March, Trump warned Hamas that there would be “hell to pay” if more hostages weren’t freed. After his call went unheeded, the Israeli strikes began.

US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff arrives at the Royal Palace in Doha on May 14, 2025. Photo by KARIM JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images.

A senior Hamas official told Drop Site that the group received a direct commitment from Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, that two days after the release of U.S. citizen and Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, the Trump administration would compel Israel to lift the Gaza blockade and allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory. Witkoff, according to the official, also promised that Trump would make a public call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for negotiations aimed at achieving a “permanent ceasefire.”

“It was a deal,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau who has previously engaged in direct talks with U.S. officials. He said the pledge was made by “Witkoff, himself.” In an interview with Drop Site, Naim said the agreement was: “If we release [Alexander], Trump will speak out thanking Hamas for its gesture, obliging Israel on the second day to open the borders and allow aid to come into Gaza, and [Trump would] call for an immediate ceasefire and to go for negotiations to end the war.”

“He did nothing of this,” Naim added. “They didn’t violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The release of Alexander, who was taken by Palestinian fighters on October 7, 2023 from the Israeli military base where he was stationed, was a significant event: He was the first male soldier freed by Hamas since the war began 19 months ago. Hamas said it freed him as a “gesture of goodwill” toward Trump and because it believed it had received a commitment Alexander’s release would result in the immediate delivery of food, medicine, and fuel into Gaza.

On Friday, as Trump wrapped up his tour of Gulf nations, he briefly addressed the Gaza war and the dire humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s full spectrum blockade of Gaza. For 76 days, Israel has banned all food, medicine, water, and fuel from entering Gaza. The siege has plunged the population into a state of forced starvation. Nearly the entire population of Gaza is facing severe levels of food insecurity and thousands of children are already suffering from acute malnutrition. These numbers are expected to rise dramatically in the coming months if the blockade is not lifted. “We’re looking at Gaza, and we got to get that taken care of,” Trump said at a public event in the United Arab Emirates. “A lot of people are starving. A lot of people. There’s a lot of bad things going on.”

Naim acknowledged Trump’s remarks about starvation in Gaza, but pointed out that, the day prior, Trump had once again raised the prospect of the U.S. seizing Gaza and saying he would be “proud” to “take” the Palestinian territory and “make it just a freedom zone.” In February, standing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Trump announced that he wanted to transform Gaza into a U.S.-owned “Middle East Riviera.”

“You are not dealing with steady, stable politics,” said Naim. Trump “can say what he wants. We are looking for actions. We are not looking for words or for statements. The humanitarian disaster has to end immediately, and this is an obligation, this is not a negotiation issue. And the war has to end.”

“If someone expects to achieve any other goals without de-escalating the situation in Palestine, in particular in Gaza,” Naim added, “I think he is—I cannot say he is hallucinating, but he is at least a big dreamer.”

Trump’s “Humanitarian” Plan

Both the U.S. and Israel have been pushing plans, which would not be linked to any ceasefire, to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip. The White House has said it would empower a newly created “non-governmental” organization to formally run the program alongside U.S. security contractors. This proposal for aid distribution involves a system of political vetting and calorie restrictions, and it would require Palestinians to travel long distances and pass extensive security checks to receive meager rations of food. Pre-approved representatives of families in Gaza would be permitted to pick up food supplies once every other week under the plan. While Israeli forces would not distribute the aid, the army would be involved with security.

“There’s a plan out there that’s been offered—that’s been criticized by some—but it allows people to get aid without Hamas stealing it. And we’ll continue to work toward that in ways that we think are constructive and productive,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday. “We’re open to an alternative if someone has a better one.”

The UN and dozens of international aid groups working in Gaza have denounced the proposal, saying it would weaponize access to food and other life-sustaining supplies. They have called for an immediate ceasefire followed by unrestricted aid flow into Gaza.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new Trump-backed group registered in Switzerland, said this week it had reached an agreement with Israel to begin operating in Gaza by the end of May. Israel has indicated that the aid distribution would be run from southern Gaza near the border with Egypt. UN officials have warned the plan could be part of Israel’s stated aim of driving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from northern and central Gaza to the south.

On May 4, the Israeli cabinet approved a plan code named “Operation Gideon’s Chariot” that it threatened to implement if Hamas did not capitulate to Israel’s demands by the time Trump finished his tour of the Gulf. Its explicit aim would be the “conquest of the Gaza Strip”: an open-ended occupation enforced by “wide-scale” attacks and the destruction of Gaza’s remaining infrastructure. Palestinians would be herded into the wasteland of what was once Rafah.

In the days leading up to Trump’s trip to the Gulf, Netanyahu authorized a dramatic escalation of Israel’s terror bombing of Gaza and began amassing troops along stretches of Gaza.

On Friday, more than 90 Palestinians were killed and over 200 wounded in Israeli attacks, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Nearly 3,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel resumed its relentless assault on March 18, with at least 250 killed in just the past two days. The Ministry’s Director General, Munir al-Barsh, described the attacks on the Strip as “the most heinous massacres of ethnic cleansing.”

The Israeli military has issued mass displacement orders for Beit Lahia, Jabalia, and other northern areas, causing panicked families to flee their homes with no safe haven to go to. “Whether you’re in shelters, tents or buildings… evacuate to the south immediately,” read leaflets dropped by the Israeli military over the areas. Footage obtained by Al Jazeera documented Israeli forces targeting and killing civilians attempting to flee with artillery fire. The forced evacuation orders came hours after 66 Palestinians were killed overnight in the north, according to staff at the Indonesian Hospital—where images uploaded by witnesses showed corpses lying on emergency room floors.

In northern Gaza, paramedic Mohammad Abu Louay reported over 15 airstrikes hitting densely populated residential zones, including Tal al-Zaatar and Jabalia camp. Entire families remain trapped or missing under the rubble. Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, described the assault as “a night of the horrors of the Day of Judgment.” He described Israeli forces intensifying indiscriminate bombings, striking inhabited homes without warning and targeting ambulance crews attempting to reach survivors.

Mass displacement from Beit Lahia following intensified Israeli military attacks in Gaza on May 16, 2025. Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images.

Hamas Says “Zero” Progress on Ceasefire

While Witkoff, according to Hamas, had promised the U.S. would facilitate the lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza two days after Alexander’s release, the U.S. appeared to completely abandon the agreement. On May 13, the day after Hamas freed Alexander, Israel launched a massive series of air strikes on the European Hospital in Khan Younis, killing 28 Palestinians and wounding dozens of others. Israel claimed the target of the strike was Mohammed Sinwar, the brother of the late political leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar. Mohammed Sinwar assumed command of Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, after Israel assassinated its previous commanders Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa.

Israeli officials have suggested that targeting Sinwar would soften Hamas’s stance in negotiations, claiming the Qassam commander was enforcing a hard line. Hamas has not confirmed Sinwar’s death, and Naim dismissed the idea that killing him would have any impact. “I think this is part of the Israeli strategy, but it has proven that this strategy is failing for 17 months. They have killed Yahya Sinwar, they have killed Deif, they have killed Marwan Issa. They have killed a lot of leaders and no one has witnessed a clear breakdown, not only in the negotiation, but also in the whole battle, the whole fighters, tactics and strategies,” Naim said. “The decision of the negotiations is not a one man show decision. This is decided by a lot of people inside Gaza and outside Gaza.”

Witkoff and Adam Boehler, the White House special envoy on hostages, held several meetings in Doha this week with Israeli negotiators, as well as with regional mediators from Qatar and Egypt. While both U.S. officials publicly expressed optimism this week that a deal could be on the horizon, Naim said there has been no progress. “Zero,” he said. “Big zero.”

“They returned back to talking about the Israeli proposal or the Israeli-Witkoff proposal, as if nothing happened during the last one or two weeks, including the release of Alexander, who was released within the context of direct talks with the Americans,” Naim said. “They are insisting on gradual or partial deals. They are talking about partial deals to release some of the prisoners for a temporary ceasefire, and then to go for open negotiations without any commitment to end the war.”

Israeli news outlets reported Friday that no breakthroughs had occurred in Doha this week. YNet reported that after two days of meetings, Witkoff “has given up and is letting Israel make the decisions.” The Times of Israel reported that in the face of Netanyhau’s refusal to make any concessions, “Witkoff has told other mediators that Washington doesn’t plan to force Israel to end the war in Gaza.”

In the talks this week, Naim said that mediators have not presented any substantial changes to the so-called “Witkoff draft” circulated by Egyptian mediators in April and obtained by Drop Site. The short-term Witkoff proposal scrapped crucial elements of the framework from the original 3-phase deal signed by Hamas and Israel in January, which would have brought a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the declaration of a “permanent ceasefire.” The Witkoff draft included significant changes that Hamas has said it would not accept, including the total demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

Under the original deal, Israel was to begin a full withdrawal of its forces at the end of phase one. Under the Witkoff plan, however, Israel would only reposition its forces to where they stood on March 2, leaving them entrenched in various positions in Gaza with no clearly defined timeline for a total withdrawal.

The regional mediators have told Hamas that Israel remains entrenched in its position that it will only engage in short-term agreements that free Israeli captives from Gaza without making any clear commitments to withdraw its forces or to end the war. Hamas has maintained it will not release any more captives unless a deal framework includes a clearly defined path to Israeli withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire consistent with the terms of the original agreement signed in January. “Handing over the [Israeli] prisoners will happen only after we have seen the total withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a clear declaration of end of the war,” Naim said.

Naim, who was one of two senior Hamas officials that met directly with Boehler in February and has been a central figure in the ongoing direct and indirect communications with U.S. officials, said the Trump administration has often sent contradictory messages. “Sometimes we hear a positive reply or something indicating forward progress in their vision, but suddenly they go back to the same Israeli narrative, to the Israeli conditions,” Naim said. He described the process of trying to discern the Trump’s administration’s positions as less about assessing diplomatic strategy and more like monitoring a financial portfolio. “Like the stock markets, you have to keep watching minute for minute to be sure that you are going to win something at the end. As you know, the stock market in the morning is in one mood, and in the middle of the day in another mood, and the end of the day in a third mood. I think this is one of the biggest challenges.”

The mediators, Naim said, suggested that if no long-term deal was reached by the end of the short-term truce, it could be extended for another period during which more captives would be released.

“This means that you can be 100% sure: we will not succeed to reach a final agreement. At the end of the 45 days [Israel] will say, ‘We have failed,’ as Netanyahu has already done in the original deal, and say after 45 days, ‘In order to extend the negotiations, we want to get more prisoners, otherwise we go back to war and starvation,’” Naim asserted. “We will be in the same position as today, which means that in one session or at maximum two sessions, you have handed over all the prisoners.” He added: “I don’t think that any rational or wise negotiator would accept such a deal.”

Netanyahu has made no secret of the fact that he intends to do precisely what Hamas suspects. “Maybe Hamas will say, ‘Wait, we want to release 10 more [captives].’ Fine, bring them. We’ll take them. And then we’ll go in. But there will be no situation where we stop the war,” Netanyahu said at a gathering of wounded Israeli soldiers on Monday.

Naim said he is not optimistic a deal will be reached unless Trump forces Israel’s hand “If [Netanyahu] still enjoys impunity from the Americans and the Western countries, and the feeling in the international community is that he can” violate agreements, Naim said, then negotiations are pointless. “As long as Israel has a free hand and behaves as a spoiled boy, as a rogue state, they can do it again and again.”

Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report.

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Hamas makes hostage pledge but demands changes to US Gaza ceasefire plan

Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Photo: 30 May 2025

Hamas said it had submitted its response to the US draft proposed by Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East.

It was neither an explicit rejection nor a clear acceptance of the US terms, which Washington says Israel has accepted.

The group repeated its demands for a permanent truce, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and guarantees for the continuous flow of humanitarian aid. None of these are in the deal on the table.

Hamas responded to a US ceasefire proposal by saying it is prepared to release 10 living Israeli hostages and 18 dead hostages in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners, while requesting some amendments to the plan.

In a statement, Witkoff said: “I received the Hamas response to the United States’ proposal. It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.

“That is the only way we can close a 60-day ceasefire deal in the coming days.”

A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “While Israel has agreed to the updated Witkoff outline for the release of our hostages, Hamas continues to adhere to its refusal.”

Hamas, a proscribed terror group in the US, UK and EU, said it was insisting on a “permanent ceasefire” and “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.

The group demanded a sustained flow of aid for Palestinians living in the enclave, and said it would release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in exchange for “an agreed upon number” of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

But Hamas now finds itself in the most complex and difficult position it has faced since the war began.

Under intense pressure from 2.2 million people living in the worst conditions in their history and from the mediators, the movement is unable to accept an American proposal that is, by all accounts, less generous than previous offers it has rejected multiple times, the most recent being in March.

At that time, senior Hamas official and head negotiator Khalil al-Hayya stated unequivocally that the movement would not agree to partial deals that fail to secure a complete and permanent end to the war.

Yet, Hamas also finds itself unable to reject the latest US offer outright, fully aware that Israel is preparing to escalate its ground offensive in Gaza.

The movement lacks the military capacity to prevent or even seriously resist such an assault.

Caught between these two realities, Hamas, in effect, responded to the US proposal not with an answer – but with an entirely new counterproposal.

The full details of the US plan have not been made public and are unconfirmed, but these key points are reportedly included:

A 60-day pause in fighting

The release of 28 Israeli hostages – alive and dead – in the first week, and the release of 30 more once a permanent ceasefire is in place

The release of 1,236 Palestinian prisoners and the remains of 180 dead Palestinians

The sending of humanitarian aid to Gaza via the UN and other agencies

The terms on offer were the ones Israel could accept – the White House made sure of that by getting Israel’s approval before passing the proposal to Hamas.

It is unlikely that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be willing to negotiate the changes Hamas wants.

He is under pressure to bring the hostages home and has said he is willing to accept a temporary ceasefire to do so.

But the Israeli government has always insisted on the right to return to hostilities, despite Hamas’s core demand for guarantees that the temporary truce be a path to ending the war.

Netanyahu has said the war will end when Hamas “lays down its arms, is no longer in government [and] its leaders are exiled from the Gaza Strip”.

Defence Minister Israel Katz was more blunt this week. “The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff Deal’ for the release of the hostages – or be annihilated,” he said.

Responding to Witkoff’s latest comments, Hamas official Basem Naim told the BBC the group had last week come to an agreement with him on a proposal “which he deemed acceptable for negotiation” – but that the Israeli response “disagreed with all the provisions we had agreed upon”.

“Why, each time, is the Israeli response considered the only response for negotiation?” he said.

“This violates the integrity and fairness of mediation and constitutes a complete bias towards the other side.”

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, President Trump announced a plan for the United States to take over Gaza.

When President Trump announced his proposal for the United States to take ownership of Gaza on Tuesday, he shocked even senior members of his own White House and government.

While his announcement looked formal and thought-out — he read the plan from a sheet of paper — his administration had not done even the most basic planning to examine the feasibility of the idea, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

It wasn’t only the Americans who were scrambling; the announcement came as just as much of a surprise to Mr. Trump’s Israeli visitors. Soon before they walked out for their joint news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump surprised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by telling him he planned to announce the Gaza ownership idea, according to two people briefed on their interactions.

Inside the U.S. government, there had been no meetings with the State Department or Pentagon, as would normally occur for any serious foreign policy proposal, let alone one of such magnitude. There had been no working groups. The Defense Department had produced no estimates of the troop numbers required, or cost estimates, or even an outline of how it might work.

There was little beyond an idea inside the president’s head.

Unlike major foreign policy announcements with past presidents, including Mr. Trump, the notion of the United States controlling Gaza had never been part of a public discussion before Tuesday.

But privately, Mr. Trump had been talking about U.S. ownership of the enclave for weeks. And his thinking had accelerated, according to two administration officials, after his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, returned from Gaza last week and described the horrific conditions there.

But nobody — not in the White House, not the Israelis — expected Mr. Trump to roll out the idea on Tuesday until shortly before he did so. The idea was met with immediate opposition from the Arab world, including from Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally. And in comments to reporters on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to soften some of Mr. Trump’s statements.

Image Palestinians returning to their homes in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, on Sunday. Mr. Trump questioned on Tuesday why Palestinians would want to return to Gaza after its devastation by the Israeli military. Credit… Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

While Mr. Trump had questioned why Palestinians would want to return to Gaza after being relocated and suggested the area could become a haven for tourists, Ms. Leavitt maintained that Mr. Trump simply wanted Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians “temporarily.” And she minimized the idea of U.S. financial investment, despite Mr. Trump positing a “long-term ownership” interest.

She also said the president had not committed to putting boots on the ground, although Mr. Trump had said: “We’ll do what is necessary. And if it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump previously discussed the matter in any detail with the Israelis. A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy did not respond to a message seeking clarity.

His presentation left more questions than answers, such as: How would this work? How many U.S. troops would be required to clear out Hamas and the mountains of rubble, and defuse all the unexploded ordnance? What would it cost to rebuild a demolition site the size of Las Vegas? How would seizing Palestinian territory be justified under international law? And what would happen to two million refugees?

In the hours after the announcement, senior administration officials were notably short on substantive answers. The reason for their evasiveness soon became clear: No actual details existed.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, appeared on “CBS Mornings” to sell the Gaza idea. But it was clear from the conversation that this was less a plan than “concepts of a plan,” as Mr. Trump described his ideas for health care policy during the 2024 campaign. That plan never materialized.

“The fact that nobody has a realistic solution, and he puts some very bold, fresh new ideas out on the table, I don’t think should be criticized in any way,” Mr. Waltz said. “I think it’s going to bring the entire region to come with their own solutions if they don’t like Mr. Trump’s solution.”

Mr. Trump has been publicly pressuring the Jordanians and Egyptians for weeks to take in people from Gaza, but so far both countries’ leaders have refused. Forcibly removing the Gaza Palestinians would violate international law, but Mr. Trump said in his news conference on Tuesday that he expected they would be eager to leave the land because it was uninhabitable. Perhaps they could return eventually, he said.

He said all of that while standing beside Mr. Netanyahu, whose military campaign had obliterated much of Gaza after the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — creating the very conditions Mr. Trump was referring to.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out.”

Image Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appeared pleased during the news conference with Mr. Trump on Tuesday. Credit… Eric Lee/The New York Times

Mr. Netanyahu, who has been trying to clear Hamas from Gaza since the Oct. 7 massacre of more than 1,200 people, looked pleased as Mr. Trump spoke.

Other U.S. officials were less thrilled about the proposal. Two people close to Mr. Trump insisted it was his idea alone; one said they had never heard him mention the involvement of U.S. troops before Tuesday.

Several senior officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions, told The New York Times that they were still trying to figure out the genesis of the idea, and considered it fantastical even for Mr. Trump.

The concept is difficult to square with Mr. Trump’s criticisms of previous presidents for nation-building in the Middle East. His proposal that America take responsibility for one of the world’s worst disaster zones also came as he was shutting down the primary federal government agency responsible for foreign development assistance, U.S.A.I.D.

But Mr. Trump’s impulses have never been as anti-interventionist as the isolationists in his party would like them to be. When the Iraq war began, he initially cheered it before condemning it. In 2011, when he considered running for president, he said the United States should “take the oil” from Iraq, and he has promoted the idea of the U.S. military extracting critical minerals from overseas war zones.

In his second presidential term he has put his imperialist impulses on display. He has said he wants the United States to buy Greenland, refusing to rule out military force despite the existence of a U.S. base there. He has said he wants to take back the Panama Canal and that Canada should become America’s 51st state. He has said he thinks the United States should be entitled to Ukraine’s natural resources as repayment for all the military aid America has sent to help the Ukrainians defend themselves against the Russians.

Mr. Trump views foreign policy as a real estate deal maker. He has never cared about international law, never lectured autocratic leaders about human rights as other U.S. presidents have done.

Instead, for decades, he has viewed the world as a collection of countries that are ripping America off. He is preoccupied by the question of how to gain leverage over other nations, whether they are allies or adversaries. And he searches for ways to use American power to dominate other countries and to extract whatever he can. Mr. Trump does not believe in “win-win” diplomacy; all deals, whether in business or foreign affairs, have a clear winner and a clear loser.

Image Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East, spoke to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday. After he returned from Gaza last week, he described horrific conditions there. Credit… Eric Lee/The New York Times

Like Mr. Trump, his Middle East envoy, Mr. Witkoff, is a real estate developer and investor who has done business in the region. And Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, another real estate investor who worked the Middle East portfolio in his first term, riffed last year about the incredible development opportunities presented by the Gaza waterfront.

Several advisers to Mr. Trump said they expected the Gaza ownership idea to die away quietly as it became clear to Mr. Trump that it was unfeasible. And that already seemed to be happening by Wednesday afternoon.

But Daniel B. Shapiro, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama, and more recently at the Pentagon, said even just floating the idea risked provoking more extremism: “This is not a serious proposal. The U.S. taking over Gaza, at massive cost in dollars and troops, is about as likely as Mexico paying for the wall or the United States seizing Iraq’s oil.”

“The danger is that extremists within the Israeli government and terrorists of various stripes will take it literally and seriously, and start to act on it,” he said. “It could imperil the further release of hostages, put a target on the back of U.S. personnel and undercut prospects of a Saudi-Israel normalization deal.”

When the Trump team hears warnings like this from former Democratic administration officials, they counter that Obama officials (although Mr. Shapiro was not among them) incorrectly warned that the Middle East would descend into violence after Mr. Trump moved the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2017. They also point out that it was Mr. Trump who delivered normalization agreements between Israel and four Muslim-majority states in his first term — an effort, known as the Abraham Accords, that the Biden administration tried unsuccessfully to expand upon.

Mr. Trump’s Gaza takeover idea delighted many on the hard right in Israel and some within America’s pro-Israel community. Many in the Israeli government have effectively called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to ensure that the land cannot be used to launch terrorist attacks against Israel.

Image An Israeli soldier manning a guard post in the West Bank in 2023. A torn poster in Hebrew reads: “Returning to the Gaza Strip. Only settlement will bring security.” Credit… Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

David Friedman, who served as Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Israel in his first term, was taken by surprise by the announcement but called the president’s idea “brilliant and out of the box creative and frankly the only solution I’ve heard in 50 years that has the chance of actually changing the dynamics in that troubled part of the world.”

Mr. Friedman said in an interview that the challenge his team had faced in the first Trump term was that “we never could answer the basic question, which is, is there anybody who can rule over Gaza that will not be a threat to the people in Gaza as well as to Israel?”

He said it was intolerable for Hamas or the Palestinians who supported it to remain in Gaza. Asked who would live there instead, Mr. Friedman said that after 15 years of rebuilding it would be a “market-driven process.”

“I know I’m sounding like a real estate guy,” he said, but he could not help but imagine the possibilities presented by “25 miles of sunset-facing beachfront.”

As Israel prepares for the return of hostages, medical staff say they’re concerned about how long people have been in captivity.

Six hospitals throughout the country are preparing to receive the hostages. “Our main concern is the long time … they are probably held in very very bad conditions, lack of nutrition, lack of hygiene,” said Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the medical directorate at Israel’s health ministry.

Around 100 hostages, a mix of civilians and soldiers, remain captive inside Gaza. They include around a dozen foreign nationals from Thailand, Nepal and Tanzania. The military believes at least a third of the remaining hostages — and up to half of them — are dead.

Under phase one of the ceasefire, 33 hostages are set to be released as early as Sunday.

Dr. Mizrahi said staff are also preparing to assist people with their mental health and have had training sessions recently on how to deal with the various situations that could impact the hostages.

Meanwhile families and friends of the hostages are waiting anxiously for their loved ones to return.

In a Tel Aviv square now known as Hostages Square because it’s become a gathering place for families and supporters, dozens of people gathered Friday to hear the families speak, chanting “you are not alone!”

“I’m really happy, but it also breaks my heart, because it’s already been 15 months,” said Yael Danieli, a 60-year-old real estate agent from Tel Aviv who has been active in the campaign to return the hostages.

No one thought they’d be abandoned for so long, she said.