Two years have passed since the brutal war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, during which the war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not achieved a single goal approved by his War Council: he has not recovered a single prisoner under tremendous and continuous military pressure, he has not achieved an absolute victory, as he has always repeated, he has not eradicated Hamas, uprooted it from existence, and he has not eliminated its military and authoritarian authority in the Strip, despite occupying nearly 80% of its area and destroying nearly 70% of its buildings.

Faced with this situation, the international isolation Israel faced, and Netanyahu's own confusion and inability to make a decision regarding ending the war, the hand of the master of the White House reached out to rescue him from his confusion and forced him to accept the twenty-point plan—twenty-one in some accounts. The plan was overwhelmingly accepted by the majority of Israelis, including even the messianic extremists, the advocates of expansion and settlement, the merchants of death, and the bloodsuckers. It could be said that they eagerly embraced it, as if it were a lifeline. And it was indeed. Nevertheless, opinions were divided regarding it, and Israelis, as usual, argued about it. Some saw it as a reproduction of the Oslo Accords, but in a commercial and populist version, devoid of real political content, as Shimon Sheves says; Among them, Yoav Limor, pointed out that it shattered five dreams of Netanyahu and his coalition partners: expelling the residents of Gaza, renewing Jewish settlement in the Strip, permanently maintaining the Israeli army deep within the Strip, controlling its security, and vetoing the Palestinian Authority's participation in its governance. Limor also points out that the plan saved Israel, at the last minute, from a number of dangers, including: increasing international pressure, Arab pressure that threatened the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, and the Abraham Accords; the pressure on the Israeli army, which found it difficult to withstand the burdens and shortages of combat equipment and spare parts; and internal pressure within Israel, which created divisions within society. A right-wing faction believes that it imposes on Israel to withdraw from areas in the Gaza Strip that the Israeli army occupied with great effort and at a heavy cost, as Ariel Kahana says. He claims that these are not ordinary areas, but rather parts of what he calls the Land of Israel, which he claims belongs to the people of Israel according to the Torah. This faction did not accept the Trump plan because it aborts their dream of resettling the Strip, disavows the idea of Gaza's Jewishness, and brings the reality of Arab Gaza back to the table. A foreign body next to the state, according to Matti Tokhbald. On the other hand, Nadav Ha'etzini sees no achievement in the plan, which he calls vague, that would cause Israelis to rejoice, other than the return of the prisoners. Anything else is an achievement for Hamas: Aside from the joy of releasing the prisoners, there is no other reason to rejoice. According to the vague plan, not only did Hamas win and we were defeated. But the future is even more worrisome. Hamas has remained where it is, wounded but standing on its feet. What's more dangerous is that it will remain as it is and will continue to pose a threat to us. This is an absolute failure.

This view is consistent with the assessments of the Israeli military establishment, which indicate that Hamas has suffered a severe blow but is still standing on its feet and can restore itself without intensive, long-term Israeli military activity against it. This assertion that Hamas is surviving, despite what it has suffered, is an indication that the Israeli desire to subjugate it was exaggerated, and that excessive force against it caused greater harm than good, as Nahum Barnea says: The major problem is that we have not found a military way to subjugate Hamas without causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and a humanitarian catastrophe for millions. Perhaps we did not try hard enough; perhaps we went too far in our desire to subjugate Hamas. • • •

On the other hand, Nadav Haetzini criticizes the systematic campaign that portrays the return of the prisoners as a victory and a national accomplishment, saying: Politicians devoid of conscience and integrity, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, are falsifying an image of success, even an image of victory. We have achieved nothing except the return of the kidnapped soldiers, after more than 2,000 Israelis were killed, and about 30,000 were wounded, after suffering, terror, and trauma, and after tens of thousands of conscripts were recruited, and the ongoing damage to the economy. Israel will withdraw completely to the disengagement lines in order to obtain the bodies. It essentially agreed to a ceasefire, and it is clear that Hamas obtained American and international guarantees, as it requested. Then he asks, mocking the slogans raised by Netanyahu and his War Council: Where is the eradication of Hamas rule?! Where is the elimination of its military and authoritarian power?! Why have we failed to this extent?! But there are two points in the plan that bother him and, in his view, represent an existential threat to Israel: the internationalization of the conflict, and the inclusion, even if only implicitly, of the issue of a Palestinian state. When Israel agreed to internationalize the conflict, a multinational force dominated by Qatar and Turkey—our most bitter enemies—would presumably assume control of our borders. Furthermore, the inclusion of the Palestinian issue on the agenda calls into question the morality of the State of Israel's existence.

• • • In contrast to all these opinions, which view the Trump plan with suspicion and concern, Matti Tochbald, director general of the David Institute for Security Policy, believes that the plan has achieved significant gains for Israel, including the immediate release of all prisoners, without exception, something Hamas did not agree to before the complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and its reconstruction, and Israel's remaining in the Salah al-Din (Philadelphi) Corridor and supervision of the border crossings. He points out that the first stage of the agreement leads to an outcome completely different from what the movement demanded just a few months ago: maintaining Hamas's rule while conducting endless negotiations on the release of the remaining kidnapped Israelis.

Tochbald's opinion is consistent with what a high-ranking Israeli military official indicated in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, who said: Ending the war with all living prisoners in Israel's possession and the Israeli army present within the Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip is an extraordinary achievement; He emphasized that Israel's strategic balance has improved dramatically over the past two years, with the dismantling of the Shiite axis, the elimination of the Iranian threat, the defeat of Hezbollah, and the dismantling of the Assad regime. Another gain Tokhbald points out is that the plan, in his view, is about to fulfill Israel's dream of being a natural part of the region: Undoubtedly, Gaza is only a step toward a much larger regional strategic effort, led by the United States, as President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have stated: the establishment of an American-Israeli-Sunni alliance against Iran and its proxies. In this sense, closing the Gaza story, at least in a way that lays out a path to a settlement, will allow Arab leaders to step down from the tree and respond to Trump's demand. The entire regional security architecture is facing fundamental change, and Israel's position will improve significantly without the establishment of a Palestinian state, while achieving significant gains. Another view, which believes that the Trump plan has achieved gains for Israel, is that of Amit Segal, who believes that the return of the prisoners puts Hamas in a difficult position and puts time against it: The return of the living kidnapped soldiers and most of the dead will completely change the situation in Gaza. Time has been working against Israel since October 7; from now on, it will work against Hamas. The movement is besieged. The army surrounds it from every direction. Reconstruction in exchange for disarmament.

• • • However, there is a third view, between those who resent the plan and those who welcome it, which believes that each side got what it wanted from it. This view was expressed by Avi Issacharoff, who says: Each side can claim victory. The Israeli government has, in fact, succeeded in obtaining what seemed, until recently, impossible: the release of all the living kidnapped soldiers and some of the bodies without a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Strip, while the army continues to control approximately 53% of the Strip's area, including a very large buffer zone. In return, Hamas obtained a ceasefire and apparently international guarantees of the kind that Israel will find difficult to violate, as long as negotiations are underway regarding the remaining stages. It also received international aid to the Strip to restore its control over the territory, including authoritarian control. Above all, Hamas obtained international recognition it had never before enjoyed. Akiva Kahm sums up the matter by saying: Is the agreement complete? No. Does it include achievements? Certainly. Is it consistent with the war objectives announced by the cabinet at the beginning of the war? Yes and no. The kidnapped soldiers will return, but Hamas has not been destroyed. We are facing a contradiction in opinions regarding the Trump plan, caused by the ambiguity surrounding its provisions, especially regarding its subsequent stages. Therefore, expectations regarding its implementation, in its entirety, are open to all possibilities.