By Ghassan Khatib

The second phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza is not moving forward, and most probably will not. The recent wave of high-level American visitors to Israel, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, failed to achieve any progress. This is contrary to the first phase of the ceasefire, which — despite being implemented after two years of excruciating inaction — has gone relatively smoothly. The reason is that phase one met at least one of the main objectives of each side — releasing the hostages and stopping the genocide — dosed with a lot of US pressure to make it palatable.

Despite their deep differences, all the Palestinian factions — and indeed many of the convened Arab governments, especially Egypt — agree that they have three problems with the second phase of Trump’s plan. The first is that the plan isolates the two geographical regions of the Occupied Territories, the West Bank and Gaza, from each other: in progress, policies and leadership. This is a consolidation of the separation enforced by Israel in its effort to fragment the Palestinian body politic. Palestinians expect the two territories to fall under........

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