For almost three years, Israel and the United States have repeatedly claimed that the war in Gaza would end if Hamas laid down its arms. In July 2026, however, when Hamas agreed to decommission its weapons as part of the US-led Board of Peace roadmap, Israel attacked the movement’s decision. Israeli officials refused to move forward with the roadmap, which they called a “political October 7,” arguing that Hamas’s position was a deceptive tactical pause to regroup and not a genuine step toward ending the conflict.
Despite Israeli skepticism, Hamas’s concession marks a significant change of direction. The decision comes after years of entrenched opposition within the organization to the prospect of disarmament, as armed struggle has been a key element of Hamas’s strategy of resistance and political purpose. The movement’s acceptance of the July 2026 roadmap therefore reflects an important strategic calculation: Hamas seems to have conceded that armed resistance against Israel in Gaza has hit a point of diminishing returns.
Once decommissioning starts, it will be nearly impossible for Hamas to withdraw from the process or violate its roadmap commitments. Such a move would be akin to political suicide, as Hamas would give Netanyahu further justification to abandon the nominal ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump in October 2025, while once again blaming Palestinians. Furthermore, in accepting the roadmap, the movement agreed to relinquish its security control over Gaza and transfer all governing responsibilities to an independent technocratic Palestinian governing body that would oversee the collection of weapons and ensure compliance.
Crucially, accepting the roadmap should not be considered a surrender but rather a wager on Hamas’s part that decommissioning can be traded for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, resources for reconstruction, and a credible political path to Palestinian self-determination. Hamas has seemingly accepted a compromise that contradicts its founding ideology and hands its weapons over to a Palestinian body it does not control, precisely because the alternative is the permanent destruction of Gaza. Israel, by contrast, has refused the deal that it claimed to want.
In the end, decommissioning cannot survive this imbalance of power. If the process is to work, it must be embedded in a structure of mutual obligation in which Israel’s withdrawal is as verifiable and enforceable as Hamas’s decommissioning. Israel’s commitments under the roadmap should not be a favor granted after Hamas’s concessions on their weapons but rather a simultaneous and binding condition for all parties.
What the Roadmap Outlines
It took nearly five months of negotiations to produce the text of the Board of Peace roadmap. The most difficult issue appears to have been the precise sequencing of commitments.
Hamas had been refusing to negotiate the fate of its weapons until Israel had first ended its systematic violations of the ceasefire—which it agreed to in October 2025—and fulfilled its remaining obligations under phase one of the three-phase ceasefire deal. Hamas’s leaders had also demanded Israel’s withdrawal before they would begin decommissioning. For its part, Israel had been refusing to deliver on any of its commitments outlined in the ceasefire deal before Hamas disarmed.
The roadmap adopted a middle position, first securing Hamas’s acceptance of the principle of decommissioning to persuade Israel to recommit to Trump’s plan, and then linking Israel’s withdrawal to the collection of weapons. The agreement also obliged Israel to take basic steps to make decommissioning possible, including allowing the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) to enter the besieged enclave, take over government functions, and control the decommissioning process. In addition, Israel is expected to cease all military operations and hostilities in Gaza, while allowing 600 trucks per day including 50 trucks of fuel, lifting restrictions at the Rafah crossing on the movement of passengers in both ways, and withdrawing back to the “yellow line,” which demarcates the area of eastern Gaza under Israeli military control.
Israel’s compliance with the first phase of the deal is intended to demonstrate its seriousness and to build trust among the militants in Gaza to accept the decommissioning process. The entrance of the NCAG would also make it more difficult for Israel to resume strikes on Gaza or to stage a ground invasion west of the yellow line. Fulfilling these commitments would be required as a precondition to commencing phase two of the roadmap.
Why Did Hamas Agree to Decommission Its Weapons?
The deal’s usage of the word “decommissioning” rather than “disarmament” is significant. The term “decommissioning” is borrowed from the 1998 Northern Ireland peace agreement, in which militant groups agreed to put their weapons out of use not as a sign of surrender or admission of defeat but rather as a transition to a political process. Under the Board of Peace plan, Palestinian factions would transfer their heavy weapons and control over military production sites, tunnel facilities, and weapons depots to the NCAG. The weapons would then be stored by the administration rather than destroyed, handed over to a third party, or moved outside Gaza. Militants could retain personal defensive weapons that would be licensed and registered by the NCAG. Under the terms of the deal, Israeli-backed militias in occupied Gaza would also be disarmed and banned from participating in the new police force. Militia members with blood on their hands might face trial, while others could also be offered social support and reintegration.
In the 356 days since Israel signed the October 2025 ceasefire, its military forces have violated virtually every term of the agreement.
In the 356 days since Israel signed the October 2025 ceasefire, its military forces have violated virtually every term of the agreement, with near daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza. And yet Hamas and other militant factions have not fired a single rocket at Israel in retaliation, even when Israel killed the movement’s top militant leaders.
Hamas’s unusual restraint throughout this period likely reflects two calculations. First, if Hamas were to militarily retaliate, Israel could exploit such attacks to collapse the ceasefire under the pretext of self-defense. Second is the view that military force will no longer move the needle at this stage in terms of the struggle for Palestinian self-determination. As Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, stated in a December 2025 interview, Gaza “has done more than its share” and “given everything it could” for the Palestinian cause. In other words, armed resistance in Gaza has accomplished the movement’s goals by putting Palestine on the world’s agenda, showing Israel’s true face, and collapsing any notion that Israel is simply managing the conflict.
The groundwork for Hamas’s decision to decommission its arms was laid in 2024, when some of the movement’s leaders expressed an openness to the idea of suspending armed activities in Gaza and limiting their military capabilities as part of a deal that would establish a Palestinian state.
In December 2025, Hamas representatives again reportedly signaled their willingness to relinquish their heavy weaponry, though Israeli officials claimed that 90 percent of the movement’s rockets and production sites had already been destroyed. Nevertheless, Israel has been using Hamas’s heavy weapons as a pretext to continue bombing Gaza and renege on its commitments under the Trump-negotiated ceasefire plan.
Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority’s decision toparliamentary elections in November 2026 may have also contributed to the decision of the various armed Palestinian factions—including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine—to accept the July roadmap as a middle ground, on the assumption that it would be a final, nonnegotiable text. In accepting the roadmap, these factions may be signaling that the priority is rebuilding the Palestinian political system, achieving unity, and resolving internal Palestinian affairs. Importantly, the roadmap’s requirement to surrender weapons to a Palestinian government to store rather than destroy does not necessarily imply that decommissioning in Gaza forfeits the Palestinian right to armed resistance elsewhere.
What Does Implementation Look Like?
Hamas has called on the mediators and Board of Peace representatives to compel Netanyahu to approve the roadmap. Once he does, negotiations would then unfold over 14 days—with the possibility of an extension—to agree on a timetable for the next steps.
Hamas appears to favor a phased disarmament linked to Israeli withdrawal. Decommissioning might be implemented first in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in the north of the Gaza Strip. Once verified, Israel would then also withdraw to the south, allowing people to return to the disarmed zone through NCAG-run security checkpoints to ensure they were carrying no arms. The same could then happen in Jabaliya, followed by Gaza City, the central camps, Deir Al-Balah, Khan Younis, and finally Rafah.
Hamas appears to favor a phased disarmament linked to Israeli withdrawal.
Board of Peace representatives, however, have suggested a very different vision of the roadmap, with the process unfolding from the south to the north, preceded by a smaller pilot project in Rafah. Their understanding chimes with reported plans for a construction project to house Palestinians outside Hamas control in eastern Rafah, which the Israeli government reportedly authorized in August 2026. Known as “Green Rafah,” the plan effectively proposes a caged residential zone next to the Egyptian border—an idea that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert described as amounting to a “concentration camp.” The inhabitants of this new Rafah would be cut off from the rest of Gaza and would live in prefabricated trailers under constant dystopian surveillance. Israel could then use the settlement as a kind of Potemkin village, giving the façade of progress in a limited area that it would then exploit to violently “finish the job” in the rest of Gaza, as Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said.
The roadmap envisages that after decommissioning, Hamas would then immediately and fully hand control over security in Gaza to the NCAG, whose police force and courts would then be authorized to take action against non-compliant militants. Once decommissioning begins, Hamas would not be able to halt the process without giving Israel a pretext to relaunch military operations.
What is Needed for Decommissioning to Work
Decommissioning is a long and fragile process that requires delicacy, patience, context awareness, and strong incentives. In the case of Northern Ireland, it took seven years after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for the armed groups to completely decommission their weapons. In the case of Gaza, dismantling the tunnels alone might take more than a decade.
There are numerous practical, diplomatic, and financial constraints. Israel has yet to allow vetted NCAG police recruits to travel to Egypt for training, which would then take several months with no guarantee that they would be permitted to re-enter Gaza. To pay their salaries, NCAG needs a billion dollars for the first six months alone. They also need headquarters, offices, and accommodations—which Israel has still not allowed to be built.
Israeli restrictions have also made it impossible for Palestinians to import the 60,000 mobile homes to Gaza provided for in the October 2025 ceasefire deal. The problem is made worse by the fact that Israel does not allow new trucks, spare parts, or even engine oil into Gaza. There are now fewer than 300 operational trucks in Gaza, which are also needed to transport aid across the enclave.
The disarmament verification committee and international stabilization forces should include states such as Turkey and Qatar, which have cultivated deep trust among the various Palestinian factions and population through their years of political and economic support. These countries have proven to be reliable mediators during the ceasefire and roadmap negotiations, demonstrating an ability to bridge the gaps between Israelis and Palestinians. However, Israel has repeatedly expressed opposition to these countries helping to implement the roadmap.
There must be a clear incentive structure for militants to see that their compromise will help lift Israel’s siege on the enclave.
Decommissioning also requires enormous sensitivity to avoid any implication of surrender or humiliation to mitigate the risk of non-compliance, defection, spoilers, or hardline splinter groups. Hamas has already had experience with such dangers. In 2006, hundreds of Hamas members defected and joined a radical group, Jaljalat, in protest of the movement’s participation in the parliamentary elections of the Oslo-produced Palestinian Authority.
Armed militants in Gaza need to be assured that handing over their heavy weapons will not merely restore Gaza’s pre-October 7, 2023, status quo, which was largely unlivable. There must be a clear incentive structure for militants to see that their compromise will help lift Israel’s siege on the enclave and create a genuine, irreversible pathway to Palestinian self-determination.
Conclusion
The US-led Board of Peace has been unduly accommodating towards Netanyahu. It has publicly misrepresented key elements of the roadmap, including Israel’s expansion beyond the yellow line, claiming its withdrawal would only happen after Hamas decommissioned all its weapons in Gaza. Hamas leaders have argued that Board of Peace High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and US adviser Jared Kushner have privately justified their statements in favor of Israel as a tactical move to make it easier for Israel to join the roadmap, while demanding that the Palestinians be sensitive to Netanyahu’s political position going into an election in October 2026.
But the “no daylight” approach of avoiding any visible public disagreements between the US and Israel has already spectacularly failed. One mediator reportedly said that the only way forward was to drag Israel to the roadmap “kicking and screaming.”
Hamas will not disarm unless laying down arms buys Palestinians in Gaza more than a slightly less violent occupation. Decommissioning is a political bargain which will collapse if only one side pays the price. The collection and storing of weapons will only work when the process is reciprocal, verifiable, and rewarded. A process built on Palestinian compliance and Israeli impunity will fail—just as every lopsided deal before it has proven to be unsustainable and ultimately doomed.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Gagarin Iurii
