After nearly 10 months of stop-start negotiations over the second phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, Washington says Hamas has accepted a phased disarmament roadmap. The announcement has altered the diplomatic balance, but not life inside the enclave. Israeli strikes killed six Palestinians on Thursday, while Gaza’s residents continue to endure attacks despite the ceasefire declared last October.
Nor is there yet a completed agreement. Israel has not publicly accepted the roadmap, and Hamas describes it as a draft. Mr Trump’s claim of “complete disarmament” also runs ahead of the reported terms. Hamas has agreed in principle that heavy weapons would be inventoried and placed under a new Palestinian administration. Israeli troops would withdraw in stages as an international force verified compliance.
Nevertheless, Hamas says it will not surrender its arsenal before Israel leaves Gaza, fearing that it would discard its remaining leverage while Israeli forces remain free to resume the war. Israel says it will not withdraw until Hamas has genuinely disarmed, arguing that an early pullout would allow the movement to regroup.
That is why Mr Trump’s decision to announce the breakthrough before Israel endorsed it deserves attention. Hamas is now publicly committed to discussing the weapons question. Mr Netanyahu can no longer say that disarmament is absent from the negotiating table. Rejecting the plan would place Israel in the awkward position of opposing an arrangement advertised by its principal ally as a gain for Israeli security.
Whether Washington will sustain that pressure is another matter. American diplomacy has traditionally described Palestinian obligations in measurable terms and Israeli obligations in the looser language of security requirements.
The contradiction is already visible. Mr Netanyahu has spoken of extending Israeli control to 70 per cent of Gaza, an ambition difficult to reconcile with a roadmap built around withdrawal and Palestinian administration. The European Union is therefore right to insist that Israel must eventually leave for verification to carry meaning. An international force cannot credibly supervise Palestinian disarmament while Israeli troops retain the power to redraw Gaza or restart large-scale operations.
Reconstruction presents the next danger. A Palestinian committee accountable mainly to donors and foreign envoys may restore services, but it cannot substitute indefinitely for representative government. Gaza must not be rebuilt as a detached protectorate, separated politically from the West Bank and administered above the heads of its people.
As for the ordinary Gazans, they say they will believe the glad tidings when crossings open, aid arrives and the bombing ends. Disarmament may remove one barrier to peace. It will not be peace if Gaza is left occupied and politically voiceless. That would merely replace warfare with an externally managed and permanently unequal political order.
