UN Security Council Backs Gaza Plan, Opening Door to ‘Credible Pathway’ for Palestinian Statehood

The United Nations Security Council has signed off on the most consequential piece of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace architecture so far, approving a resolution that creates a transitional administration and an International Stabilization Force (ISF), and, for the first time in years, gestures explicitly toward Palestinian statehood.

The vote passed 13-0 on Monday, with Russia and China abstaining. Arab and Muslim countries had made clear they wouldn’t contribute troops without a UN mandate, and Washington secured their support by sharpening the language on Palestinian self-determination.

That amended text now says “conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” once the Palestinian Authority implements reforms and Gaza’s reconstruction moves forward. It was enough to get the draft over the line, but it infuriated Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated Sunday that Israel’s opposition to a Palestinian state “has not changed one bit,” vowing that Gaza would be demilitarised “the easy way or the hard way.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir went further, calling for Palestinian Authority officials to be assassinated if the UN “backs Palestinian statehood.”

US Ambassador Mike Waltz framed the vote as an inflection point. The resolution, he said, “represents another significant step that will enable Gaza to prosper in an environment that will allow Israel to live in security.”

Algeria’s ambassador Amar Bendjama publicly thanked Trump for his “personal engagement” in sustaining the ceasefire, but reminded the council that “genuine peace… cannot be achieved without justice, justice for the Palestinians who have waited for decades for the establishment of their independent state.”

The plan’s core is the ISF, an international force authorised to “use all necessary measures” while working with vetted Palestinian police, Israel, Egypt, and regional contributors to secure borders, protect civilians, and facilitate humanitarian corridors. It also tasks the force with overseeing the “permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”

Hamas immediately rejected the resolution, calling it a blueprint for “international trusteeship” that ignores Palestinian rights and demands. The movement reiterated that it will not disarm, the very condition the ISF is designed to enforce.