‘Doesn’t fulfil requirements’: US says Egypt’s Gaza plan fails to meet Trump’s expectations

The Donald Trump administration of the United States has rejected a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip prepared by Egypt.

Earlier this week, Egypt presented a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza after the end of the war at a summit of Arab nations. The plan rejects Hamas’ control of post-war Gaza, rejects the displacement of Palestinians, and calls for the establishment of an interim administration of Palestinian technocrats.

The United States and Israel have rejected the Egyptian proposal. While the US Department of State said the proposal does not match Trump’s vision, Israel said that the proposal is unrealistic.

US says Egypt’s plan doesn’t fulfill requirements, Israel calls its unrealistic

Egypt’s proposal “does not fulfill the requirements, the nature, of what President Trump was asking for”, said US State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce.

“It does not meet the expectations…We need more discussion about it, but it’s a good-faith first step from the Egyptians,” said Bruce, according to AFP.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East Envoy, was more sober in his reaction. He said that Trump had succeeded in “now encouraging other people in the Middle East —Middle Eastern world— to present proactive proposals for what we might consider”.

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Israel has flatly rejected the proposal floated by Egypt, saying “fails to address the realities of the situation following 7 October 2023, remaining rooted in outdated perspectives”.

“Now, with President Trump’s idea, there is an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will. This should be encouraged! Instead, Arab states have rejected this opportunity, without giving it a fair chance, and continue to level baseless accusations against Israel,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry, as per BBC.

Separately, White House National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes said the Arab plan did “not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance”, according to BBC.

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What’s in Egypt’s Gaza proposal?

At a summit of Arab nations earlier this week, Egypt presented a plan that seeks to exclude Hamas from the governance of Gaza once the war ends and seeks to establish an interim administration led by Palestinian technocrats.

“With the help of its Palestinian brothers, Egypt has worked to create a Palestinian administrative committee of independent professionals and technocrats, who will be tasked with governing Gaza with the expertise of its members,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at the summit, according to CNN.

The Egyptian plan calls for the formation of an independent, technocratic Palestinian committee to govern Gaza for an interim six-month period “under the umbrella of” the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose members would have no affiliations to Palestinian factions, according to CNN, which said it accessed the proposal.

The PA is the internationally recognised de facto Palestinian government that partially governs West Bank under the Oslo Accords’ provisions. It is based in Ramallah, West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out the involvement of PA in Gaza’s governance after the end of the war.

The technocrats’ committee will be responsible for overseeing the relief process and governing Gaza for a “temporary period” in preparation for the return of the PA to Gaza, said Sisi at the summit, according to CNN.

The outlet reported that the proposal calls for the establishment of the post-war governance system in a way “that preserves the two-state solution” and “prevents the outbreak of new conflicts”. The two-state solution is a proposed way to resolve the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing two adjacent states for two peoples, the State of Israel for Jews and State of Palestine for Arabs.

In a plan that kills the two-state solution, Trump has announced that the United States will take over Gaza after the end of the war and expel all Palestinians living there in what amounts to state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.