While the world’s attention has been fixed on Iran, Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz, Gaza has quietly slipped from the headlines. That is unfortunate, because the territory is settling into a dangerous and potentially permanent limbo.

Except for the occasional exchange of fire, fighting between Hamas and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has stopped. What has replaced conflict is an armed truce with a deep mutual distrust preventing any progress on last autumn’s  peace plan.

The IDF still occupies more than 60 percent of Gaza with orders from Benjamin Netanyahu to increase that slice to 70 percent. The two million Gazans are crowded into a tent city on the beaches in the 30 percent which remains in Palestinian hands. There is chronic unemployment and the Gazans are totally dependent on aid for their survival.

The IDF occupation was—still is—billed as “temporary security buffers.” Nine months later, however, the ‘temporary’ zones contain fortified bases, permanent roads for armour, observation posts, logistics hubs and cleared fields of fire. They increasingly resemble the infrastructure of a long-term military occupation.

The IDF was meant to hand over control to a 20,000-strong International Stabilisation Force (ISF) which would oversee the final disarmament of Hamas and the training of a Palestinian Police. So far only 200 American soldiers have turned up, and they don’t appear to have a role. Several countries have been approached to contribute to the ISF, but all are frightened at being caught in the middle of an Israeli-Hamas crossfire.

The 15-member team of Palestinian technocrats who are supposed to run Gaza until elections can be organised has been appointed. It even has a chairman, former Palestinian Authority official Dr Ali Sha-ath. But the committee has yet to leave Cairo. They refuse to enter Gaza until the security situation improves. In their absence, Hamas continues to exercise political control.

Billions of dollars were supposed to transform Gaza into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East,’ as Donald Trump once described it. An increasingly frustrated Tony Blair has been touring Arab capitals in search of funds. But no Arab government is prepared to finance reconstruction while there is every possibility that Israeli bombs could reduce new buildings to rubble or that Hamas could divert materials to rebuild its military infrastructure.

The peace and prosperity that Trump talked about in his peace plan rests on the security issue. And the security issue is bedevilled by a deep mistrust.

Under the terms of the Gaza Peace Plan Hamas must disarm and forego any future role in the governance of Gaza. They must also destroy all their tunnels and military structures. When they have disarmed, Israel will immediately withdraw from most of Gaza and gradually withdraw from all of it as the ISF replaces it.

Hamas now says it will not disarm until Israel withdraws. Israel says it will not withdraw until Hamas disarms.

Neither side’s position is irrational. Israel fears that withdrawing before Hamas is disarmed simply recreates the conditions that led to 7 October. Hamas fears that surrendering its weapons before Israel withdraws would leave it politically and physically at Israel’s mercy. Israel also has a history of occupying territory in the face of international opposition—example, the West Bank.

Adding to the uncertainty is the influence of ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who openly favour permanent Israeli control and renewed Jewish settlement in parts of Gaza.

There is a further problem in that the current peace plan would assign Hamas to political oblivion. That is a fate which any political leadership would  desperately want to avoid. Furthermore, what influence Hamas has is based entirely on its military.

Next week Trump’s “Board of Peace” is expected to meet in Cyprus. The 15-man transitional committee will attend. Also in attendance will be Tony Blair. The meeting is likely to be an exercise in frustration. Trump’s peace plan has succeeded in ending large-scale fighting. It has not succeeded in making peace. Instead, Gaza risks becoming neither war nor peace: a devastated enclave divided by permanent military lines, sustained by foreign aid and paralysed by mutual distrust. If that happens, the Korean Peninsula may not be the only historical comparison. Gaza could become another frozen conflict, one that lasts for generations.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”