Three Gazas: an annexed strip, a 'red zone' and a 'Gaza of Peace' (Wilf, 2026)
Split the Strip in three: a small symbolic area annexed to Israel, a Hamas-run 'red zone' for those choosing continued war, and an IDF-run 'Gaza of Peace' whose entrants renounce UNRWA refugee status — cutting the refugee card in a public ceremony — before reconstruction money flows.
What happens to Israeli Jews
Security first: reconstruction is tied to renouncing the claims that, in this view, keep the war going; the 'Gaza of war' stays under military pressure.
What happens to Palestinians
Those who choose the peace part get reconstruction and new documents, at the price of the refugee claim their families have held since 1948; those who don't get neither.
What it requires
- A small, symbolic area annexed to Israel
- A Hamas-run 'red zone' for those who choose continued war
- An IDF-run 'Gaza of Peace'; entry requires renouncing UNRWA refugee status, 'cutting the refugee card in a public ceremony'
- Reconstruction money only for the Gaza of Peace; new documents and a new flag there
- Reading the Board of Peace's twenty-point framework so that 'Gaza will not be a threat' means 'ideological disarmament' (as the Post summarises her)
Who supports it
Proposed by Einat Wilf — writer, former member of the Knesset (Labor, then Ehud Barak's Independence faction, 2010–13) who calls herself a leftist, and in 2026 third on the Reservists–New Economic Party list — in a Jerusalem Post interview, September 2026. Wording from the Post's article summary and its video description (pasted by the site's maker); the interview itself not transcribed here.
What history says
- The 2025 Gaza plan it reinterprets (see 'The Gaza plan: Board of Peace and a technocratic Gaza')
- Conditioned-return ideas in refugee packages, here pushed to renouncing return altogether (see 'A refugee package')
Where this can lead
Each outcome holds only under its conditions. The label is how likely those conditions look on the record, by the weakest of them; set your own in the builder.
A transition that leads to self-government — unlikely on the record
if enough Gazans choose the Gaza of peace, the armed part is contained and the guarantors stay (Gazans would formally renounce refugee status and the right of return in exchange for reconstruction; Rearmament could be prevented during a long truce; An outside guarantor would stay and act when tested)
An outside or technocratic administration runs the territory for a set period, rebuilds, disarms, and hands over to an elected local government.
- Kosovo and East Timor — mixed. UN-supervised transitional administrations ahead of self-government (see 'The Gaza plan').
What it can slide into: If the handover never comes: an interim that lasts; if disarmament fails: war.
An outside administration that loses legitimacy — possible on the record
if Gazans refuse the renunciation and see the scheme as imposed (not: Gazans would formally renounce refugee status and the right of return in exchange for reconstruction)
The appointed authority governs, but the population treats it as occupation by other means; armed groups recruit on that.
- Iraq 2003–04 — failed. A foreign-appointed authority governing an occupied population, with lessons about legitimacy (see 'The Gaza plan').
What it can slide into: Insurgency, or a hasty handover to whoever is strongest.
A truce that ends in war — likely on the record
if the Gaza of war rearms (not: Rearmament could be prevented during a long truce)
The truce buys time; one or both sides use it to rearm; it ends early, in a war fought from better positions.
- The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah (628) — ended early. The classic model of a hudna: a ten-year truce that ended within two years.
- Israel–Hamas ceasefires in Gaza (2008–2021) — collapsed. Each followed by a rebuilt arsenal and another war.
What it can slide into: The next war, and less belief on both sides that any truce is real.
The hard questions
- The interviewer's questions: who carries out the logistics, what do Qatar and Turkey do, does reopening a signed agreement read as reneging, and what about Hamas saying it would do it all again?
- Annexing even a small area is annexation: how does it square with the rule against acquiring territory by force, and with the 2025 plan's commitments?
- Is tying reconstruction for a devastated population to a political renunciation a choice or coercion?
- Who decides where the line between the two Gazas runs, and can people move between them?
- Does renouncing return in Gaza settle anything for refugees elsewhere?
What stands in the way
- A state as staging post ↔ security as permanent control — The peace zone is IDF-run, which is the Palestinian fear of permanent control; the Hamas-run 'red zone' is the Israeli fear of a staging post, kept alive next door.
- Majority as safety ↔ return as justice — It settles the return question by demanding its renunciation up front — as a condition of entry and of reconstruction — which is exactly what the other side experiences as giving up justice.
- Recognise the Jewish state ↔ recognise the Nakba — Cutting the refugee card in a public ceremony asks Palestinians to renounce the claim that carries their memory of 1948, while nothing comparable is asked of the other side.
- Distrust as premise — Gazans must trust that renouncing their refugee status brings real reconstruction and freedom; Israelis must trust that the peace zone won't become a front.