Hamas accepts Gaza roadmap with disarmament and phased Israeli withdrawal

Hamas says it has agreed to a deal to end the war with Israel that includes provisions on disarmament and a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.

Agreement covers weapons and withdrawal, group says

Hamas announced on Friday that it had accepted a deal intended to end fighting in Gaza which includes measures addressing the movement’s weapons and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces. The group’s disarmament had been a major obstacle to advancing a ceasefire arrangement that has been in place since October, the report said.

How disarmament would be handled

According to the report, US President Donald Trump said the agreement provides for the “complete disarmament” of Hamas and described it as a critical step toward a new Palestinian government in Gaza. Hamas officials told AFP that a committee set up by Trump’s Board of Peace would oversee the process of storing the movement’s weapons.

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, was quoted as saying the movement was making “concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip, to save them from killing and displacement”. On the role of the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG), he said: “Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee is the body that will undertake this task.”

Focus shifts to implementation and verification

The Board of Peace confirmed on X that Hamas had “agreed to a detailed Roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire” and said: “Our focus now turns to implementation.” It added that the NCAG will “soon begin a phased transition toward full authority.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, wrote on X that the deal “took months of very difficult negotiations” and warned that “What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real.” He added: “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.”

Mediators, verification and remaining diplomatic work

Trump said in an earlier social media post that once Hamas’s disarmament is complete, “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 neighbors.”

The report said Egypt is set to host a meeting of the Gaza truce mediators which include the United States, Qatar and Turkey focused on the second phase of the ceasefire plan.

An anonymous diplomatic source told AFP that the implementation roadmap 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 said there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people. One authority, one law, one weapon” and that the roadmap would create “a process for the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons and any weapons production facilities.”

Responses and outstanding issues

The report noted there was no immediate statement from Israel. It also quoted an Israeli political source saying the proposed agreement did not “satisfactorily” address Israeli demands and that Israel demands “the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and full demilitarization of the Strip as a precondition for any process.”

AFP also reported that, 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.