White House announces Hamas disarmament, Israel refuses
The Board of Peace has signed off on the full disarmament of Hamas, with Washington setting implementation at 200 to 300 days, while Benjamin Netanyahu's office says Israel cannot accept the proposal.
US President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on July 30 that the Board of Peace had reached an agreement on the complete disarmament of Hamas and every other armed group in the Gaza Strip. Within hours, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could not accept the proposal Hamas had signed off on.
Disarmament is the clause that had held the process up for nine months. The first phase of the US-brokered truce, the ceasefire and the exchanges, moved quickly. The second phase, covering weapons and the reconstruction of Gaza, never got off the ground. The last time srpske.rs covered this story, Israel had just approved a limited ground offensive in Gaza, which is to say the framework was coming apart rather than advancing. This is the first time the Palestinian movement has accepted the package whole instead of trading concessions piece by piece.
“Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY.”
In the same post Trump described the deal as the route to a new Palestinian government running Gaza in close cooperation with the Board of Peace, and said the threat that emerged from Gaza on October 7 would not be allowed to rebuild itself.
What the agreement actually sets out
The document is built as a sequence of trades rather than a single handover. As disarmament advances, Israeli forces pull back from the corresponding stretches of territory, and only then does the next step begin.
Responsibility is split three ways:
- heavy weapons, depots and the tunnel network go to the International Stabilization Force, or ISF
- personal weapons are not confiscated wholesale but regulated under Palestinian legislation
- the ISF works alongside a new Palestinian police force that still has to recruit and vet its officers
All of it sits inside Trump’s 20-point plan, with the Board of Peace formally established earlier this year as the body supervising delivery. Egypt, Qatar and Turkey mediated, the same three channels that have carried every workable message to the Hamas leadership so far.
How long is implementation meant to take?
White House officials put full implementation at 200 to 300 days, which lands the process somewhere in the first half of 2027 if nothing slips. A much shorter clock is already running: a 14-day window to fix the exact schedule, meaning what is handed over first, who receives it, and in what order Israeli units move.
That short deadline is the real test. A disarmament deal without an agreed calendar is an announcement rather than an obligation, and the calendar is precisely where every attempt to open phase two collapsed over the past nine months.
Why Israel is saying no
The Israeli response came fast and without hedging. Netanyahu’s office said Israel cannot accept the disarmament proposal Hamas approved. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had made the same argument publicly after Hamas moved to dissolve its government.
“As long as Hamas keeps its weapons, any civilian government will operate the way Hamas dictates.”
Hamas announced this month that it was dissolving its government and handing interim authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. Jerusalem read that as a new sign on the door rather than a new chain of command.
Washington’s reply was unusually direct for a message aimed at an ally. A US official said Trump would be very disappointed if Israel obstructed the plan.
The numbers behind the talks
Roughly 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and about 250 were taken hostage. The Hamas-run health ministry puts the death toll in Gaza since then at more than 73,000. Those two figures sit behind every clause of this agreement and explain why neither side can treat it as a technical document.
The shooting has not stopped
The announcement did not pause operations. Hours after Trump’s post, Israeli strikes in Gaza wounded several Palestinians. On Tuesday the Israeli military killed Ahmed Hussein Mohammed Kafina, the Mujahideen Brigades commander for central Gaza, in an air strike.
That split screen, signatures in one place and strikes in another, defined the first phase of the truce as well. What has changed is the argument. Until now Israel had a formal reason to keep going, because Hamas had not accepted the framework. Since July 30 that reason no longer sits where it used to, and the burden of proof has moved toward Jerusalem.
The next date that carries weight is the expiry of the 14-day window in mid-August. By then it will be clear whether the Board of Peace has a schedule or only a statement.
