Ever since Donald Trump unveiled his 20-point Gaza peace plan ten months ago, Israel has insisted that the next step must be full Hamas disarmament. Hamas expressed a willingness to put some weapons in temporary storage, but has resisted calls for the demilitarisation of Gaza.
The attempts to move to phase two of the Gaza ceasefire have been deadlocked over this fundamental difference ever since. This explains the sceptism in the region that greeted Trump’s announcement that agreement has been reached for Hamas to disarm, to be followed by an Israeli troop redeployment.
It took until Friday evening for an official Israeli response.
Danny Danon - Israel’s ambassador to the UN - said Israel was “looking forward to implementing it” but expressed suspicion over Hamas’s motives, adding that it may seek to “play games” by moving weapons around and not getting rid of them.
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A member of Hamas’s negotiating team said the group agreed to hand over its weapons for storage in a facility run by the US-backed transitional government, but stressed that that the handover is linked to Israel stopping its attacks and allowing more humanitarian aid into the enclave.
Hamas negotiator Ghazi Hamad told the Wall Street Journal that the group agreed to hand over its weapons to the “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza”, also known as the Gaza technocratic committee, but denied reports that Hamas agreed to disarm.
“We didn’t say disarmament, we didn’t say handing over the weapons, and we didn’t agree on any Israeli involvement,” he said.
The devil is in the detail of the Gaza agreement: the timing, sequencing, monitoring, verification and implementation all have to be hammered out. The potential pitfalls are clear and trust between the sides is nonexistent.
The experience of recent attempts in the region to secure ceasefires does not bode well. The memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran lasted barely three weeks before fighting resumed. It took months of talks between Israel and Lebanon for Israeli forces to redeploy from a single Lebanese village.
Much may depend on how much time and energy the Trump administration is willing to invest to ensure a successful outcome. With little sign of a lasting agreement with Iran on the horizon, Trump badly needs a foreign policy achievement in advance of midterm elections in November.
On the other hand, Binyamin Netanyahu faces an election in October and any agreement that keeps Hamas in control of Gaza, with international backing, would undermine repeated promises he has made to the Israeli public ever since the traumatic attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023.
He may be forced to choose between accepting an unpalatable deal from Israel’s perspective and incurring the wrath of Trump, considered by many analysts as Israel’s last remaining ally after almost three years of never-ending wars.
