jordan pulse -

By Ahmad Abdelbaset Rjoub
Researcher and Strategic Planner

The glare of the spotlight on the reception for U.S. President Donald Trump in occupied Jerusalem, and the cheers that momentarily drowned out underlying contradictions, proved to be a fleeting cover for a fragile agreement. Barely had Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded the celebratory welcomes and basked in the political "pardon" from his guest—which temporarily quieted his domestic opposition—before he began dismantling his commitments under the Gaza agreement, wielding the tools of siege to push the coastal enclave back toward confrontation.

Contrary to expectations, Netanyahu did not wait long. Mere days after the handshakes and speeches, he launched his practical reversal of the deal, finding an ideal pretext in the issue of repatriating the bodies of killed Israeli soldiers. The measures were swift and decisive: the closure of the Rafah crossing and the halving of approved aid trucks from 600 to 300. However, these steps were merely the spearhead of a broader strategy aimed at establishing new "rules of engagement" that would grant Israel a de facto veto over any future extension of the ceasefire.

This is a clear attempt to transform the agreement from a bridge to a lasting truce into a sword hanging over Gaza's neck, exploiting a sensitive humanitarian issue to secure lasting political and security gains, primarily setting the stage for a justified exit from its obligations later.

In the face of this pretext, a tragic reality emerges, revealing the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. United Nations sources confirm that retrieving the soldiers' remains, like those of thousands of Palestinian bodies, is a near-impossible task in the short term. They lie buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the Israeli bombardment—a bombardment Trump himself boasted of enabling by providing tons of munitions.

Here, a stark contradiction surfaces: while the Israeli side conditions the continuation of the agreement on the handover of the bodies, those very bodies are entombed beneath the ruins of its own war. Reaching them requires complex rescue operations and heavy machinery to lift millions of tons of rubble, a process that cannot be completed overnight. This effectively turns the humanitarian condition into a carefully driven nail in the coffin of the fragile agreement.

In Washington, President Trump appears to recognize that the obstacle of "disarming the resistance" is the genuine knot that could unravel his entire plan. His public threats to resort to a "forceful solution" betray an awareness of the impossibility of voluntary compliance, yet they simultaneously inflame the situation.

Trump's dilemma lies in the fact that the resistance factions might be prepared to discuss the weapons file, but not in a vacuum; only within the context of linking it to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. This linkage, which could garner broad Arab and Islamic support, corners both Trump and Netanyahu. Accepting it would mean dismantling a cornerstone of what is perceived as "Israeli security," while rejecting it would mean scuttling the agreement at its roots, rendering American threats hollow promises.

To counter this complexity, Trump is hastily promoting the idea of forming an international "trusteeship council" to administer Gaza, assisted by a board of Palestinian technocratic directors. But this plan, too, immediately hits a wall of Arab hesitation and reservation. Leaders of Arab and Islamic nations, including key mediation partners like Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, find themselves in a genuine predicament.

They realize that joining such a council, without "preparing the grounds for a Palestinian state" being a fundamental and explicit part of its mandate, is an untenable political gamble. In the eyes of their publics, it would resemble participating in the internationalization of the siege on Gaza rather than working to end the occupation. Conversely, Trump cannot incorporate this mission into the council's mandate without dealing a crippling blow to his partner, Israel, and his ally Netanyahu, whose government is founded on rejecting Palestinian statehood.

Thus, human tragedies and political complexities intertwine in Gaza's bleak landscape. The bodies of the dead, prisoners and civilians alike, are transformed from a living memory of injustice into bargaining chips in a larger game. Trump's threats of force collide with a geographical and political reality that does not lend itself to easy military solutions, while the American dream of a trusteeship evaporates in the face of Arab refusal to engage in a peace process emptied of its political essence.

It seems the Gaza agreement, born under bright media lights, is heading toward a dark fate, doomed to collapse under the weight of the contradictions that the reception speeches in Jerusalem tried to conceal. The crossing is closed, aid is halved, bodies remain under the rubble, and the issue of weapons remains the most difficult question. And at the heart of this vicious circle, Gaza once again searches for a glimmer of hope to pierce its suffocating blockade and the paralysis of politics.