The United States worked to gradually secure an Arab-Palestinian consensus that would produce a UN resolution granting international legitimacy to the comprehensive twenty-point plan presented by the US president to end the war in Gaza. UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025) was adopted on 17 November, paving the way for the implementation of the second phase of Trump’s comprehensive plan, which he announced on 29 September to stop the war. A ceasefire was indeed achieved under that plan and entered into effect on 10 October, and it was later celebrated and endorsed at the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit on 13 November. The provisions of the resolution can be interpreted within the framework of the American twenty-point plan, together with an annex to the latest Security Council resolution, along with the official US statements.

The United States circulated the initial draft of the resolution on 3 November, focusing on the establishment of a temporary international force to secure stability and safety in the Gaza Strip. The draft authorised this force to use all necessary measures to achieve its mandate and granted it a two-year period to finish the job. It also provided the same mandate to a proposed Peace Council that the draft called for to administer governance in Gaza. The American side indicated that Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Turkey would later join the United States in this framework. On 10 November, a revised draft was released outlining criteria for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, linking it to the disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian factions. It also specified that semi-annual progress reports on the implementation of the resolution should be submitted to the Security Council. On 13 November, another revised draft was circulated, adding a provision referencing the conditional possibility of Palestinians attaining the right to self-determination and establishing their own state, contingent upon reforms within the Palestinian Authority. Notably, the draft assigned no major role to the Palestinian Authority in either the Peace Council or the security force, except for a police force suburban to the International Stabilisation  Force ISF during the transitional period extending until the end of 2027, with the possibility of renewal. This amended draft was presented to the Council for a vote on 17 November, where it was adopted with 13 votes in favour out of 15, while China and Russia abstained. Achieving this outcome was considered a US success.

This latest amendment came one day before the release of a joint statement issued by the United States and key Arab states laying out the groundwork for supporting the vote on the American draft resolution. In that statement, the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan expressed their collective support for the draft. Although the statement claimed that this process would pave the way toward Palestinian self-determination, statehood, and broader peace and stability, not only between Israelis and Palestinians but for the entire region, the reference to these outcomes in the final adopted resolution was brief, lacking emphasis, and appeared in a late section of the text, and was conditioned upon reforms within the Palestinian Authority. It also remained uncertain, using phrasing suggesting that the process “may lead to the realisation of the right to self-determination and the establishment of a state.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz had met with Palestinian diplomats in New York on 5 November to discuss the US draft Security Council resolution, an unusually rare interaction between the United States and the Palestinian Authority regarding post war plans for Gaza. The meeting came within the broader American efforts to rally support for the US draft resolution.

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