Hamas says it accepts disarmament plan; Israel withholds official response

Hamas announced on Friday that it had agreed to a deal involving the transfer of its weapons to a Palestinian administrative committee and the gradual pullback of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. The agreement is designed to advance the long-stalled second phase of the Gaza ceasefire arrangement brokered by US President Donald Trump. On Thursday, Trump hailed it as a path to Hamas's "complete disarmament" and called it a "major milestone".

Israel has not issued an official response, but a political source told AFP that there would be no withdrawal whatsoever from current positions unless Hamas carries out a genuine disarmament. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir rejected the deal as "unacceptable", saying it was akin to agreeing to Hamas planning another massacre.

The issue of Hamas's weapons has been one of the main obstacles to fully implementing the ceasefire in place since October. An Israeli source said the Gaza issue was not raised during this week's meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington. However, Trump told reporters at Camp David on Friday that Israel was very happy about the agreement.

Hamas said it expects mediators and Trump's Board of Peace to ensure Israel honours the terms, including a full withdrawal. Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas's negotiating team, said the movement was making concessions for the sake of people in Gaza, and that Israel would not interfere in the disarmament process, which would be handled by the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG), established under Trump's plan.

Despite the ceasefire, violence has persisted. Health officials said Israeli strikes on Thursday killed at least four people, including two children. The new agreement calls for an immediate halt to military operations and for an International Stabilization Force to separate Israeli troops from areas controlled by the NCAG.

The Board of Peace confirmed on X that Hamas agreed to a detailed roadmap for implementing the next phases of the ceasefire, adding that the NCAG will soon begin a phased transition to full authority. Under the roadmap, the NCAG will be responsible for internal security. Hamas officials said the committee overseeing the weapons storage process was established by the Board of Peace.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, said the deal had taken months of hard negotiations. He stressed that implementation and verification must be real, and that Israel's withdrawal must move in step with the decommissioning of weapons.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas welcomed the deal but cautioned that much still needs to align for it to work. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the announcement as a rare positive development. Egypt's state-linked Al-Qahera News reported that Cairo will host a meeting of mediators soon. A diplomatic source said the roadmap offers a balanced and pragmatic path, with no exceptions for certain weapons or people, and lays out a process for the NCAG to decommission and store heavy weapons, production sites, depots and tunnels. A new verification mechanism is to ensure compliance.