A newly announced US-brokered bid to end the war in Gaza hinges on Israel first fulfilling earlier commitments, a senior Hamas official said, underscoring how the latest breakthrough remains tied to conditions on the ground.
US President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that a “major milestone” had been reached toward ending the conflict, declaring that his ‘Board of Peace’ had secured an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups.
Media outlets, citing Hamas officials, have reported that Hamas has agreed to the plan, though the movement has not issued an official statement.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official involved in the negotiations, described the deal as a “comprehensive framework” that extends beyond disarmament. He said moving from announcement to action would depend on Israel carrying out the first phase of an agreement concluded last year in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Under that earlier agreement, he said, Israel must halt attacks in Gaza, pull its forces back to the positions they held in October, and expand the flow of goods and aid entering the enclave.
Only after those steps, Mr Hamad said, would Hamas hand over its weapons to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the technocratic body established to manage the territory.
“We insisted to the mediators that Israel must abide by the agreement,” he said.
An Israeli official said yesterday that Israel would not withdraw behind the so-called Yellow Line until Hamas is disarmed and Gaza is demilitarised.
Hamas officials said a committee formed by Mr Trump’s Board of Peace to oversee Gaza would supervise the storage of the Islamist movement’s weapons.
The group said it expected mediators and the Board of Peace to ensure Israel complied with the terms of the deal, including Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
US President Donald Trump called the move a ‘monumental step’ toward lasting peace
Even with an October ceasefire in place, violence has persisted. Health officials said Israeli strikes killed at least four people yesterday, including two children.
Gaza medics also reported that several Palestinians were wounded in an Israeli airstrike carried out hours after Mr Trump announced the deal.
Focus now on implementation
The Board of Peace said in a post on X that Hamas had “agreed to a detailed Roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire”.
“Our focus now turns to implementation,” it wrote, adding that the NCAG will “soon begin a phased transition toward full authority”.
Mr Trump had said in an earlier social media post that once Hamas’s disarmament is completed, “Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilisation Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbours”.
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, said the agreement came after “months of very difficult negotiations”.
“What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real,” Mr Mladenov wrote on X.
“Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning,” he added.
Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported early today that Egypt is expected to host a meeting “soon” of the Gaza truce mediators — the United States, Qatar and Turkey — to concentrate on the second phase of the ceasefire plan.
‘No exceptions’
Earlier, a diplomatic source said: “We continue to advance the implementation roadmap that offers a balanced and pragmatic path forward, with all weapons decommissioned and a phased transition of responsibilities taking place to hand over full authority to the technocratic government.”
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly, said there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people. One authority, one law, one weapon”.
The roadmap would, the source said, establish “a process for the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons and any weapons production facilities”.
The same source said a verification mechanism would be put in place to ensure each side complies.
A Hamas source familiar with the talks said earlier that the movement was “awaiting the Israeli response to the amendments we recently submitted to the mediators”.
The source said the amendments related to two articles in the roadmap presented by the Board of Peace.
Under the 20-point plan, the second phase of the ceasefire was to involve Hamas’s disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory
On the article dealing with weapons, the Hamas source said that “some points were removed, and alternatives were proposed”.
Before the announcement, an Israeli political source said the proposed agreement did not address Israeli demands “satisfactorily”.
“Israel demands the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and full demilitarisation of the Strip as a precondition for any process,” the source said.
The source also said that “the issue of Gaza did not come up at all” during the meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Trump in Washington this week.
Meanwhile, the Middle East Director of the International Communities Organisation said the overnight announcement is a very good development, noting that many have argued Hamas would never agree to disarm.
‘Hamas had little choice’ – Expert
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Dr Gershon Baskin of the International Communities Organisation said the details would be decisive, and the agreement itself has not yet been seen.
“Hamas had little choice and very little leverage,” he said.
“Hamas was under enormous pressure from the mediators – Egypt, Qatar and Turkey – as well as from two million Gazans, who feel that they have been held as hostage to Hamas refusal to disarm, while Israel continues to occupy most of the Gaza Strip, encroaching into deeper zones when more than a thousand Gazans have been killed by Israel since the official end of the war.
“There will be disagreements in interpretation between Israel and Hamas,” he said, adding that Israel is three months from elections and Mr Netanyahu was under a lot of pressure.
“He’s not doing well in the polls, and he’s unlikely to pick a fight with President Trump, who’s his main calling card on his relationship with the US government.”
He said, however, that Mr Netanyahu could face intense pressure from his political base over the deal.
Asked whether Israeli military activity in Gaza would cease, Mr Baskin said Mr Netanyahu would face “enormous American pressure” to stop the military activity there.
