Hamas said it agreed to a board of peace deal for complete disarmament in Gaza after Donald Trump said the body had reached an agreement. The reported shift pushes the Gaza ceasefire plan into its second phase, with weapons surrender now tied to the wider transfer of authority.
Trump said the arrangement was for “complete disarmament” and called it “a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government.” A senior Hamas official told the that Hamas had agreed to a plan to completely disarm in Gaza, and the official said an announcement would follow soon. The said this was the first time Hamas had said it would completely disarm.
Cairo and the mediators
Cairo will host a meeting soon between the Gaza peace plan mediators, with Egypt, the US, Qatar and Turkey expected to take part. Al-Qahera News said the gathering is meant “to confirm the commitment of all parties concerned to implementing the terms of the agreement.” A US and Board of Peace official described the next stage as an “implementation verification committee” that will watch how the process moves forward.
The official said the process would begin with Hamas's police in Gaza surrendering weapons to the transitional authorities. It would then move into a “very technical process” of decommissioning heavy weapons, shutting down tunnels and depots, and standing down the fighters who operate those facilities. The same official said storing the collected weapons safely would be one of the key questions.
Israel's response
Israel has yet to comment on the plan, even as US officials said Trump would be very disappointed if Israel did not withdraw as part of the agreement. Trump said Israel would withdraw from Gaza “as disarmament is completed,” linking the military pullback to the pace of the handover on the ground.
Rushdi Abualouf reported from Cairo on the latest development, while Helen Sullivan and the have described the disarmament pledge as a major break with Hamas's previous position. The next test is whether Hamas's reported agreement is turned into a public statement and then into the sequence of weapons handover, verification and withdrawal that the plan now requires.
