(AFP) – Hamas said Friday it had agreed to a deal announced by US President Donald Trump to end the war with Israel, which includes handing over its weapons to a Palestinian governing committee and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel did not immediately comment on the announcement, but shortly beforehand an Israeli political source had told AFP that the proposed agreement did not “satisfactorily” address Israeli demands for the full demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip. The source also noted that “the issue of Gaza did not come up at all” in this week’s meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump in Washington.
The Palestinian Islamist group’s weapons have been one of the key sticking points in implementing a ceasefire deal in place since October. However, Trump announced late Thursday an agreement for Hamas’s “complete disarmament,” calling it a critical step toward a new Palestinian government in Gaza. Hamas officials told AFP that a committee established by Trump’s Board of Peace to govern Gaza would oversee the process of storing the Islamist movement’s weapons. The group said it expected mediators and the Board of Peace to ensure Israel complied with the deal’s terms, which include Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
Ghazi Hamad, a member of the group’s negotiating team, stated that 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, violence has continued in Gaza, with Israeli strikes killing at least four people, including two children, on Thursday, according to health officials.
– Focus now on implementation –
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.” Trump, in an earlier social media post, stated that once Hamas is disarmed, “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.”
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, remarked on Friday that the deal “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.
– ‘No exceptions’ –
Egypt’s state-linked Al-Qahera News reported on Friday that Cairo will soon host a meeting of the truce mediators, which also include the United States, Qatar, and Turkey, focused on the second phase of the ceasefire plan. Earlier, a diplomatic source told AFP: “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, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter, emphasized that there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people. One authority, one law, one weapon.” The roadmap, the source explained, would create “a process for the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons, and any weapons production facilities.” A verification mechanism would ensure compliance by each side.
A Hamas source familiar with the talks told AFP earlier that the movement was “awaiting the Israeli response to the amendments we recently submitted to the mediators.” The source said the amendments concerned two articles in the roadmap presented by the Board of Peace. Regarding the article concerning weapons, the Hamas source noted that “some points were removed, and alternatives were proposed.”
Before the deal’s announcement, the Israeli political source told AFP: “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.”
acc-crb-glp-jd/dc/ser – Jay DESHMUKH
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