The U.S.-led Board of Peace and the mediating countries of Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States announced Thursday that Hamas had agreed to a detailed roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire, including the group’s disarmament. In a statement, the Board said, “For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”
President Donald Trump praised the announcement as a “HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas,” adding that “as disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors.”
But despite its promotion by the Trump administration as a “major milestone” and “monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” some details of the purported agreement remained unclear, and questions persist over whether each side shares the same understanding of the agreement and its timeline.
Shortly after the agreement was announced, Hamas said that any discussions over its heavy weapons would be conditional on a permanent end to Israeli attacks, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the dismantling of Israel-backed armed militias, and progress toward Palestinian self-determination and an independent Palestinian state, among other terms.
The Hamas negotiator Ghazi Hamad told Al Jazeera that the group would not take any disarmament step before Israel pulled back to the phase one line, and would not act at all if Israel failed to meet its obligations.
Israeli forces currently occupy roughly 64 percent of Gaza, while implementing phase one’s “yellow line” would reduce Israel’s presence to about 53 percent of the strip.
Documents obtained by Drop Site News show that Hamas agreed to give up its heavy weaponry only after Israel ends its attacks, withdraws its forces from Gaza, and allows the entry of life essentials like medicine and food.
Israel, likewise, did not immediately endorse the deal, with a spokesman for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling NBC News that “Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts. The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel’s positions.” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Friday more openly rejected the leaked agreement, writing on X that “the draft agreement published by the ‘Peace Council’ is not acceptable to Israel.”
On Monday, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Missions Minister Orit Strock called on the government to hold a new vote on the Board of Peace, criticizing its mechanism for an International Stabilization Force. Further complicating matters, Smotrich also called for the construction of three new Israeli outposts on the Gaza border. Defense Minister Israel Katz recently called for similar settlements.
Egypt meanwhile said Friday that Hamas had agreed to disarm in a “gradual and sequenced” process and hand its weapons to a new committee called the “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.” That body was created in January 2026 and is currently headquartered in Cairo but, as the Financial Times reports, “has been unable to enter the enclave” at all.
The latest disagreement relates to a controversial authority granted to the Trump administration on November 17, 2025, by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which states that the IDF will withdraw “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the United States,” but without direct input from Palestinians in Gaza. Resolution 2803 also allows Israel to keep a “security perimeter presence” in Gaza until the strip is “properly secure from any resurgent terror threat,” but it notably does not define that condition or set a timeline for it. On the question of Palestinian statehood, the resolution says that “the conditions” for “a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination” and statehood “may finally be in place” once the Palestinian Authority’s reform program is “faithfully carried out.”
Pro-Palestinian analysts argue that this resolution undermined the UN’s own record on Palestine, noting the absence of the UN’s typical preamble recalling the governing law on the matter: that Gaza is “occupied territory” and that Israel is obligated by international law to withdraw.
Despite a ceasefire deal signed last October, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,230 people, according to Gaza health authorities. As Hamas says it will not disarm until Israel withdraws from Gaza and fulfills its obligations, as Israel refuses to withdraw until Hamas disarms, and as Israeli cabinet officials continue to call for resettling parts of Gaza, it remains to be seen whether the U.S.-led Board of Peace will fulfill the hopes its name has inspired.
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