Everyone Has a Plan For Gaza. None of Them Add Up.

Under President Trump’s plan, the United States would govern Gaza and expel its residents. Under the Arab plan, Gaza would be run by Palestinian technocrats within a wider Palestinian state. By one Israeli proposal, Israel would cede some control to Palestinians but block Palestinian statehood. By another, Israel would occupy the entire territory.

Since the opening weeks of the war in Gaza, politicians, diplomats and analysts have made scores of proposals for how it might end, and who should subsequently govern the territory. Those proposals grew in number and relevance after the sealing of a cease-fire in January, increasing the need for clear postwar plans. And when Mr. Trump proposed to forcibly transfer the population later that month, it fueled a push across the Middle East to find an alternative.

The problem? Each plan contains something unacceptable to either Israel or Hamas, or to the Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia who some hope will fund and partially oversee Gaza’s future.

“The devil is in the details, and none of the details in these plans make any sense,” said Thomas R. Nides, a former United States ambassador to Israel. “Israel and Hamas have fundamentally opposed positions, while parts of the Arab plan are unacceptable to Israel, and vice versa. I’m all for people suggesting new ideas, but it is very hard for anyone to find common ground unless the dynamics change significantly.”

The central challenge is that Israel wants a Hamas-free Gaza whereas the group still seeks to retain its military wing, which led the October 2023 attack on Israel that ignited the war.

Mr. Trump’s plan would satisfy many Israelis, but it is unacceptable both to Hamas and to the Arab partners of the United States, who want to avoid a process that international lawyers say would amount to a war crime.

The Arab alternative — which was announced last week in Egypt — would allow Palestinians to stay in Gaza, while transferring power to a technocratic Palestinian government. But it was hazy about how exactly Hamas would be removed from power, and it was conditional on the creation of a Palestinian state, which a majority of Israelis oppose.

The upshot is that, despite the flurry of proposals since January, Israelis and Palestinians are no closer to an agreement about Gaza’s future than they were at the start of the year.

In turn, that raises the risks of renewed war.

The cease-fire agreed to in January was technically meant to last just six weeks, a period that elapsed at the start of March. For now, both sides are maintaining an informal truce while they continue negotiations — mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States — for a formal extension.

But that goal seems distant because Hamas wants Israel to accept a postwar plan before releasing more hostages, whereas Israel wants more hostages released without an agreement over Gaza’s future. While some Israelis could accept any deal that secures the return of 59 hostages still held in Gaza, of which 24 are said to be alive, key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government would not.

For now, all sides are projecting a sense of momentum.

A Hamas delegation visited Egypt over the weekend to discuss Gaza’s future. An Israeli delegation was set to arrive in Qatar on Monday for further mediation. And on Sunday night, Israeli networks broadcast interviews with Adam Boehler, an American envoy, in which he reported “some progress” from a “baby-steps perspective.”

Mr. Boehler, who has broken with years of U.S. policy to negotiate directly with Hamas, said some of the group’s demands were “relatively reasonable” and that he had “some hope about where this could go.” Mr. Boehler also conceded that any breakthrough was still weeks away.

A senior Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzouq, said in a recent interview with The New York Times that he was personally open to negotiations about Hamas’s disarmament, a move that would increase the chances of a compromise. But the Hamas movement quickly distanced itself from his remarks and said they had been taken out of context.

The longer the impasse lasts without any hostages being released, the likelier it is that Israel will return to battle, according to Israeli analysts.

Absent a breakthrough, Israel would either have to accept Hamas’s long-term presence — an outcome that is unacceptable to many ministers in the Israeli government — or return to war to force Hamas’s hand, said Ofer Shelah, a former lawmaker and a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a research group in Tel Aviv.

“Given the current situation, we are on a path leading to an Israeli occupation of Gaza, making Israel responsible for the fate of two million people,” Mr. Shelah said. That would have lasting consequences not only for the Palestinians in Gaza, he said, but also for Israel itself, which would probably get bogged down in a costly war of attrition in order to maintain its control of the territory.

Lia Lapidot contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.