HAMAS AGREES TO DISARM UNDER TRUMP-BACKED GAZA DEAL

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By ‘Sefiu Ajape

Hamas on Friday said it had agreed to a ceasefire arrangement announced by United States President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war in Gaza, including provisions for the group to hand over its weapons to a Palestinian governing committee and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.

Israel has yet to officially respond to the announcement. However, a political source told AFP “that there will be no withdrawal whatsoever” from Israeli forces’ current positions “unless Hamas undergoes a genuine disarmament.”

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir rejected the proposed agreement, describing it as “unacceptable” and saying it was “tantamount to agreeing to Hamas organising for the next massacre.”

Hamas’s weapons have remained one of the major obstacles to implementing the ceasefire reached in October. On Thursday, Trump announced that the agreement provides for Hamas’s “complete disarmament,” describing it as a key step toward establishing a new Palestinian administration in Gaza.

The Israeli political source also said “the issue of Gaza did not come up” during this week’s meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

Hamas officials told AFP that the process of storing the group’s weapons would be supervised by a committee established by Trump’s Board of Peace to govern Gaza.

The group said it expected mediators and the Board of Peace to ensure Israel fulfilled its obligations under the agreement, including the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Israel has consistently insisted that Hamas must be fully disarmed before its forces withdraw. Before the latest announcement, the political source had identified “the removal of weapons from Gaza and full demilitarisation of the Strip as a precondition for any process.”

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, said the movement was making “concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip, to save them from killing and displacement.”

“Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee is the body that will undertake this task,” he said, referring to the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG).

Despite the October ceasefire, hostilities have continued in Gaza. Health officials said Israeli strikes killed at least four people, including two children, on Thursday.

The Board of Peace confirmed 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,” the organisation wrote, adding the NCAG will “soon begin a phased transition toward full authority.”

In an earlier social media post, Trump said that once Hamas is disarmed, “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 neighbors.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s High Representative for Gaza, said on Friday that the agreement “took months of very difficult negotiations.”

“What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real,” Mladenov wrote on X.

“Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning,” he added.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas welcomed the agreement but cautioned that its success “depends on the full commitment of all parties.”

“A lot needs to fall in place for this to work,” Kallas said on social media. “Verifying Hamas’ compliance will be a significant challenge. Israel would need to eventually withdraw from Gaza.”

Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported on Friday that Cairo would soon host a meeting of the ceasefire mediators, including the United States, Qatar, and Turkey, to discuss the second phase of the agreement.

Earlier, a diplomatic source told AFP that the roadmap “offers a balanced and pragmatic path forward, with all weapons decommissioned and a phased transition of responsibilities” to the new authorities.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment publicly, said there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people.”

According to the source, the roadmap would establish “a process for the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons, and any weapons production facilities.”

The source added that a verification mechanism would be put in place to ensure compliance by both parties.

A Hamas source familiar with the negotiations had earlier told AFP 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 provisions in the roadmap presented by the Board of Peace.

Regarding the section dealing with weapons, the Hamas source said that “some points were removed, and alternatives were proposed.”