A month into the fragile ceasefire, Gazans are experiencing a brief respite from violence and the continuing release of Israeli hostages and imprisoned Palestinians. But debate over the future of Gaza reflects the agendas of states with a stake in the ongoing crisis — rather than the grim day-to-day reality Gazans face on the ground.

Once the ceasefire got underway, Gaza faded from the headlines — until Trump reignited the debate when he declared that the U.S. would occupy Gaza, relocate its residents, and transform it into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

“We’re going to take it,” he proclaimed just last week. “We’re going to hold it.”

This is an outcome not even the Israeli government believed it could achieve. Although early in the war, it had broached the idea that Egypt and Jordan could accept some Gazan refugees, the government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had settled on a policy of internal displacement for the Palestinians, moving large sectors of the population within the enclave to facilitate the IDF’s mapping and destruction of tunnels and to carry out attacks on remaining Hamas fighters.