The Gaza ceasefire and the disarmament of Hamas
The ceasefire rests on a text that ties Israeli withdrawal to a disarmament the text itself leaves to monitors it never names, and after the July 2026 agreement the two sides still disagree about which comes first.
The Gaza ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025. It rests on a document, the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, which President Donald Trump published on 29 September 2025 in twenty numbered points. The Security Council endorsed it on 17 November 2025 in resolution 2803, by thirteen votes to none, with China and Russia abstaining. The resolution attached the plan as an annex, so the twenty points are now the operative text of a Council decision.
The plan creates the Board of Peace, a transitional administration chaired by Trump and given international legal personality by the resolution. It supervises a technocratic Palestinian committee that runs Gaza's administration, sets the framework for reconstruction, and gives strategic guidance to an International Stabilization Force. Its authorisation runs to 31 December 2027 and it owes the Council a written report every six months. Forty countries attended its inauguration in February 2026. No Palestinian sits on it.
What each side owes is set out in points 13 and 16. Hamas and the other factions give up any role in governance, their tunnels and weapons plants are destroyed, and their weapons are put permanently beyond use through decommissioning and a funded buy-back, all of it verified by independent monitors. Israeli forces withdraw in stages against standards, milestones and timeframes linked to demilitarisation. Those standards are to be agreed between the Israeli army, the stabilisation force, the guarantors and the United States.
Two things the plan never settles are the whole argument now. It does not name the independent monitors, and no Palestinian body is on the point 16 list that settles the withdrawal timetable. The disarmament agreement of 30 July 2026, a copy of which the news agency AP obtained and verified, fills in a sequence: police weapons pass to the Palestinian committee on its arrival, heavy weapons are decommissioned and stored after that, and the process is tied to phased Israeli withdrawal. Israel was not in those talks.
On 4 August 2026 Netanyahu said Israel had not agreed and would not move until Hamas was fully disarmed. Hamas says Israel must first finish the ceasefire's first phase. The killing has not stopped: Gaza's health ministry counted 1,209 people killed between 10 October 2025 and 29 July 2026. The UN humanitarian office reports operations near what it calls the so-called Yellow Line, which it says has moved. It does not say where that line runs, or whether it is the withdrawal line the plan's point 3 froze.
”He should exercise pressure on Israel to connect to the ceasefire and stop bombarding Gaza, and begin the process of withdrawing from Gaza instead of expanding their occupation”
The numbers
What the comparison shows
Where they agree
Resolution 2803 was adopted without a single vote against, and its first paragraph records that the parties have accepted the plan and calls on them to implement it in full. Russia, which abstained, told the Council that Ramallah and many Arab and Muslim states had spoken in favour of the text. What each side now demands is a different order of steps inside that plan, not a different plan. The aim is not in dispute either: Hamas is not to govern Gaza, the heavy weapons are to go, and an international force is to hold security until a vetted Palestinian police force can.
Where they split
The argument is about sequence and verification. Israel demands complete disarmament before any withdrawal; Hamas demands that Israel first complete the ceasefire's first phase. The 30 July agreement, as AP describes the copy it obtained and verified, links the decommissioning process to a phased Israeli withdrawal. Verification is contested just as hard. AP reports, citing a person familiar with the deal, that the Israelis raised two points: that Qatar and Turkey not be involved in verifying the stages, and that the weapons be destroyed after confiscation. The vetted international force meant to take the weapons has not been stood up, NPR reported on 31 July 2026. Russia objected as early as November 2025 that the board and the force can act with no Palestinian say.
What nobody is saying
Point 16 leaves the standards, milestones and timeframes for withdrawal to be agreed between the Israeli army, the stabilisation force, the guarantors and the United States. No Palestinian body is on that list. Point 16 does put the handover of territory itself into a separate agreement with the transitional authority, and the resolution places a Palestinian technocratic committee under that authority. But no Palestinian body is party to the standards, milestones and timeframes themselves. Point 16 also lets Israeli forces stay in a security perimeter until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat, naming no body to decide when that is reached. The resolution sets no completion date for demilitarisation or withdrawal, while the Board of Peace's own authorisation expires on 31 December 2027.
Who says what
Disarmament comes first and withdrawal follows it. He presented the 30 July 2026 agreement as a historic breakthrough to be carried out in carefully structured phases.
”As disarmament is completed, 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”As disarmament is completed, 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
Israel is not a party to the agreement and will not withdraw from its current positions until Hamas is completely disarmed. His spokesperson Doron Spielman told AP on 2 August 2026 that disarming means physically giving up the weapons, nothing less. Netanyahu's own statement came in a Hebrew-language video on his Facebook page on 4 August 2026, rendered in English by The National.
”President Trump thinks, or his team thinks, that they can get Hamas to disarm and demilitarise Gaza. We are looking into it. They sent us a draft. We did not agree to it”President Trump thinks, or his team thinks, that they can get Hamas to disarm and demilitarise Gaza. We are looking into it. They sent us a draft. We did not agree to it
Trump announced the disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups. On 31 July 2026 the movement disputed that this was so, called the deal as described inaccurate, and entered reservations against the form of it then circulating.
”We have reservations regarding it in the currently circulated form”We have reservations regarding it in the currently circulated form
He says the deal took months of very difficult negotiations, and his warning comes from inside it: the text was the easy part, verification has to be real, and withdrawal has to track decommissioning step by step.
”What the agreement says matters. What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real. Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning”What the agreement says matters. What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real. Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning
The sticking point is sequencing, and the pressure has to fall on Israel. He told NPR on 31 July 2026 that Trump should demand the bombing stop and the withdrawal begin, rather than the occupation expand.
”He should exercise pressure on Israel to connect to the ceasefire and stop bombarding Gaza, and begin the process of withdrawing from Gaza instead of expanding their occupation”He should exercise pressure on Israel to connect to the ceasefire and stop bombarding Gaza, and begin the process of withdrawing from Gaza instead of expanding their occupation
He abstained and attacked the whole construction. Beyond the words quoted, he told the Council that the force's mandate is so extensive that the mission may turn into a party to the conflict, and that the text gave no clarity on when control of Gaza passes to the Palestinian Authority. He spoke in Russian on 17 November 2025, and the quotation is the official English of the verbatim record of the Council's 10046th meeting.
”the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force, which, pursuant to the text of the resolution adopted today by the Council, will be able to act absolutely autonomously, without any regard for Ramallah's position and opinion”the Board of Peace and the International Stabilization Force, which, pursuant to the text of the resolution adopted today by the Council, will be able to act absolutely autonomously, without any regard for Ramallah's position and opinion
Our coverage
- Netanyahu rejects US-backed Hamas disarmament plan, refuses to pull troops backWednesday, 5 August 2026
- Israel raises serious security concerns over the disarmament deal with HamasMonday, 3 August 2026
- Israeli strike destroys the medicine stores at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-BalahSaturday, 1 August 2026
- Trump announces a deal to disarm Hamas, while Hamas insists Israel withdraw firstFriday, 31 July 2026
- Hamas says it has agreed to disarm after Trump announces the Board of Peace dealThursday, 30 July 2026