By Martin Kear
US President Donald Trump has announced that Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza have agreed to disarm. He’s calling it a “critical step” toward lasting peace and security in the strip.
Trump said Hamas’ disarmament would allow for a Palestinian committee to take over governing in Gaza and Israel’s military withdrawal from the enclave, as mandated under his 20-point peace plan, to which Hamas and Israel agreed last October.
Hamas officials say they have agreed to the process, though a member of the negotiating team cautioned that its disarmament was dependent on Israel’s full withdrawal from Gaza.
So, is this a major step forward, or are there still too many questions left unresolved?
Hamas’ legitimacy
If Hamas does agree to a complete disarmament, this would be an enormous concession by the movement in its nearly 40-year resistance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Hamas was launched in 1987 with the dual goals of resisting Israel’s occupation and challenging the Fatah party’s domination of Palestinian politics.
In its 2017 charter, Hamas said it “rejects any attempt to undermine the resistance and its arms”. It added that “armed restistance … is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people”.
Additionally, Hamas’ armed resistance lies at the heart of its legitimacy among Palestinians. And for Palestinians, this resistance is linked inextricably with the advancement of efforts to attainment statehood.
This means that while Palestinians may not necessarily support Hamas politically or agree with its Islamist agenda, they do respect the movement. Many view its continued armed resistance to Israel’s occupation as either advancing efforts to achieve statehood or inhibiting Israel’s efforts to make its occupation permanent.
In the most recent polling of Palestinians by the People’s Company for Polls and Survey Research (PCPSR) in October 2025, 60% of respondents (66% in the West Bank and 51% in Gaza) were satisfied with Hamas’ performance and 69% (87% in the West Bank and 55% in Gaza) were opposed to the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Given this, it is hard to believe Hamas will risk this level of support among Palestinians.
Details are vague
According to initial media reports, Hamas’ disarmament would consist not only of surrendering its weapons, but also the dismantling of its military infrastructure in Gaza. This would include its tunnel network, heavy weapons, production facilities and weapon depots.
Given the wholesale destruction of the Gaza Strip, it is unclear how much of this infrastructure still exists.
It’s also unclear how many weapons its military wing actually has. Recent reports suggest it may have tens of thousands of automatic rifles and heavy weapons like anti-tank rockets, but it could be far fewer now.
Other details also remain unclear: who would undertake the task of disarming Hamas and how it would be confirmed? A US official told the BBC a third-party committee would be responsible for this, without elaborating.
Also, Hamas does not just exist in the Gaza Strip – it has a presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, too. It’s unclear whether the disarmament would extend to those elements of the group.
Given the continued violence being perpetrated by radical Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it is not inconceivable that members of Hamas or other Palestinian armed movements may seek to resist this violence with their own.
Agreeing to disarm and give up its administrative responsibilities in Gaza could very well be a strategic move on the part of Hamas. It could enable the group to recover organisationally from the severe battering it took from Israel, while still retaining its resistance agenda among the broader Palestinian population.
What will Israel do?
Israel’s response to the agreement is the other major challenge. Initial reports suggest the government is objecting to Trump’s plan.
According to an Israeli official quoted by the Times of Israel:
There will be no Israeli withdrawal from the Yellow Line in the Gaza Strip before Hamas is disarmed and the Strip is fully demilitarised.
Just two weeks ago, Israel’s far-right defence and finance ministers also proposed the creation of three “nahal” outposts in northern Gaza.
These types of outposts combine a military presence with agricultural and community activities. Historically, they have been the precursor for permanent Israeli settlements.
This opposition from Israel is where the agreement could likely break down, unless Trump can put suitable pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow the peace process to continue. This pressure was already starting to mount on Friday, with a US official saying Trump would be “very disappointed” if Israel stood in the way.
Martin Kear is Lecturer at the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney.
Merrill Shapiro says
“Hamas was launched in 1987 with the dual goals of resisting Israel’s occupation and challenging the Fatah party’s domination of Palestinian politics.”
Here are the final three sentences of Article 7 of Hamas Covenant 1988, The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement
18 August 1988
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
It looks like “resisting Israel’s occupation” means killing Jews, does it not? Check it out at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
Jake From State Farm says
Thanks for adding what the author conveniently left out. Hamas is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent civilians. If they want to fight, stop hiding behind the skirts of the women and amongst the children and innocents and fight. Oh and how is that open door with Egypt? Are the innocents fleeing into Egypt? None wants the Palestinians. Not Egypt, not Lebanon, Not Jordon…… They are used for fodder and Propaganda by Iran. Cut off the head of the snake.
Pogo says
Thank you.
Pierre Tristam says
Very good Merrill, quoting from 1988. You might as well quote John Brown. But let’s move up the clock a bit to the present reality, and to who is doing the actual killing, who is committing genocide and explicitly inciting it, defending it, executing it.
“On October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Gazans would pay a “huge price” for the actions of Hamas, and that the IDF would turn parts of Gaza’s densely populated urban centers “into rubble.” On October 28, citing Deuteronomy, he added, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you.” As most Israelis know, in revenge for the attack by Amalek, the Bible calls to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings.” This deeply alarming language did not end there. On October 9, Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly,” a statement indicating dehumanization, which has genocidal echoes. The next day, the Israeli army’s coordinator of government activities in the territories, Major General Ghassan Alian, who is Druze, addressed the population of Gaza in Arabic: “Human animals must be treated as such,” he said, adding, “There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.” The same day, retired Major General Giora Eiland wrote in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth: “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in … Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.” In another article he wrote, “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Apparently, no army representative or politician ever denounced this statement. I could quote many more.” (Omer Bartov, Israel: What Went Wrong? )
Of course if you’d like to go back to the 1980s Merrill, we can. Menachem Begin once said that “Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs,” while former IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan referred to them as “drugged roaches in a bottle” and also said that “a good Arab is a dead Arab.” Another former chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, referred to the Palestinian threat as like a “cancer” on which he was performing “chemotherapy.” And both Begin and Eitan and Sharon massacred 18,000 Lebanese in 19 weeks in the 1982 invasion, which looks like a skirmish now compared to Gaza.
During the 1982 massacres, two targets in particular seemed to interest Sharon’s army, Thomas Friedman reported. One was an archive of old Palestine— books, land deeds, photographs of Arab life, and maps that marked every Arab village that stood before the State of Israel was created. Friedman observed the graffiti the Israeli soldiers left behind in the room where the archives had been kept: “Palestinian? What’s that?” And “Palestinians, fuck you,” and “Arafat, I will hump your mother.”
You know what Netanyahu and the IDF call the daily massacres in Gaza, Merrill? On the record, and proudly so? “Mowing the law.” Mowing the fucking lawn. Because Palestinians are less than human, less than vermin, not worth a blade of weed.
Go ahead. Quote away from Hamas’s charter. The only ones who have actually pulled off anything close to the charter are the Israelis, with your tax dollars and your continued apologias. How inexcusably sad. You of all people. A humanist if there ever was one. Was.
Pogo says
Ugly. Period.
Related
https://www.google.com/search?q=lawnmower+of+the+skies+iran
Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
— George Orwell
EC: File
JC says
MMMM, Hamas is the official government of Gaza.
Also, keep talking about why the Palestinians are discriminated against in Lebanon and also treated like second class citizens there. We know the reason, but of course you will never bring it up since you continue to lust for your Israeli hate (I didn’t say Jew hate here, just Israeli hate). As I said on this website before since you are Lebanese, go to the various Lebanese run businesses up in Jacksonville and talk about the Pro-Palestinian slant you have. You would not only embarrass yourself but you would get kick out of their businesses.
Jack Howell says
Sorry, I find this difficult to believe. Given the history of Hamas and Israel this is nothing more than the old “smoke and mirrors” tactic. Further, anything that Trump has negotiated in the Middle East has ended in failure. What the hell does Kushner and Whitkoff have as credentials to deal with the diplomatic skills to negotiate with, Iranians, Hamas, or the Palestinians? Where they trained by the State Department? What’s in it for them personally? Me thinks the fox is in the hen house!
Pogo says
Thank you.
BillC says
Same old story:
In 2 Kings 10:18-28, King Jehu orchestrates the systematic destruction of Baal worship in Israel through a deceptive military and religious purge. Posing as a devotee, he declares that he will serve Baal more than his predecessor Ahab, tricking all prophets, priests, and worshippers into gathering at the temple in Samaria.
Jehu and his ally Jehonadab son of Rechab ensure the temple is filled exclusively with Baal’s followers, then station 80 men outside to prevent any escape. Once the sacrifice is complete, Jehu orders the guards to kill everyone inside, burning the sacred pillars and tearing down the temple, which is subsequently converted into a public latrine to symbolize its defilement.