Hamas agrees to a roadmap to disarm, faces challenges in deal
Hamas reached an agreement to disarm, officials told on Friday, a significant move that could help end the war in Gaza — but one that will face many hurdles and could take a long time to achieve, if at all.
The group agreed to a road map as long as Israel also makes concessions, including ending hostilities and withdrawing its troops from the Palestinian territory, according to a Hamas official and a regional official.
Israel has not commented on the deal, which US President Donald Trump announced hours earlier.
It comes nine months after a US-brokered ceasefire to end the fighting between Israel and the group was signed. That 20-point ceasefire plan calls on the militant group to surrender its weapons and destroy its vast network of tunnels. It also envisions Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza, the arrival of a new technocratic Palestinian Government, the deployment of a security force known as the International Stabilization Force and the rebuilding of the battered Palestinian enclave. But negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the implementation of the next phase of the ceasefire deal had largely deadlocked — and disarmament was a major sticking point.
Disarming would represent a sea change for Hamas, whose founding charter calls for armed resistance against Israel, and which sees its arsenal, including rockets, anti-tank missiles and explosives, as lying at the heart of its identity.
“The agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases,” Trump said on social media. “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 neighbours.”
A copy of the agreement obtained and verified by The Associated Press said that all police weapons will be transferred to the US-backed Palestinian technocratic committee, known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, upon its arrival in the enclave. It’s not clear when that would happen since it is contingent on other steps.
A process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites and tunnels will begin after the arrival of the Palestinian committee and the deployment of the ISF. The process will be linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases, from the areas under its control in Gaza, according to the agreement.
In a statement Thursday, an Israeli official said that there will be no Israeli withdrawal from the areas it holds in Gaza - which account for about 60 per cent of the territory - before the militant group is disarmed and the strip demilitarised. The statement was made on condition of anonymity in line with Government protocol.
