Since the groundbreaking 20-point peace plan in October 2025 brought home all remaining living and deceased Israeli hostages stolen by Hamas on October 7, one obstacle has loomed above all others when it comes to progress in Gaza: Hamas itself.
The central question has never simply been how Gaza should be rebuilt or governed. It has been whether an internationally designated terrorist organisation, armed and backed by Tehran, can continue to exist as a military force while any lasting peace and reconstruction takes root.
The answer has always been no.
That is why President Trump's announcement on Thursday that Hamas has agreed to disarm under the Board of Peace framework is so significant. If implemented, it would mark the most consequential diplomatic development in Gaza since the hostages were released and deserves genuine credit.
According to the framework, Hamas would surrender its weapons and governing authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Oversight of the disarmament process would fall to the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), whose deployment into Gaza was recently approved by Israel and is reported to include Moroccan, Albanian, Kazakhstani and Kosovan troops.
Credit is also due to Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's Director-General and High Representative for Gaza, whose persistent diplomacy has helped bring negotiations to this point.
The United States has likewise demonstrated a clear commitment to ensuring that any political settlement is inseparable from Israel's security. As last week’s White House meetings between Netanyahu and Trump underscored, Washington understands there can be no durable peace while Hamas retains the capacity to wage war.
This latest breakthrough also highlights something else. Although President Trump's broader peace initiative was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803 last November, it has been the Board of Peace – not the United Nations itself – that has emerged as the principal forum driving tangible diplomatic progress in Gaza. Once again, an alternative international institution appears to be accomplishing what the UN has struggled to achieve in one of the world's most combustible conflicts.
As longtime UN correspondent Pamela Falk told me, "The Board of Peace is a last-ditch effort by Washington to have an organisation that can make multilateral decision-making, drawing from a wide distribution of regional voices, while making the tough decisions that could potentially bring a more lasting peace – and much-needed security from terror – to the Middle East.” She added that whether it succeeds will depend heavily on the back-channel talks and a rebuilding plan, coordinated in large part by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Falk is right. While diplomatic frameworks matter, on-the-ground implementation matters far more. There is, therefore, every reason to welcome this breakthrough while remaining wary about the challenges ahead.
Hamas has repeatedly used negotiations to buy time, to deceive and to regroup and rearm. It has made commitments before that were never matched by action. That history is precisely why Israeli scepticism is warranted. Three challenges stand out.
The first concerns ideology. Nothing suggests Hamas has suddenly disavowed its founding commitment to Israel's destruction. A terror group that has spent decades amassing hidden caches of rifles, rockets, explosives and tunnels is unlikely to surrender that arsenal voluntarily. Painstaking verification, rigid implementation and sustained international pressure will matter far more than press releases or declarations of intent.
Sequencing is the second challenge. Hamas has reportedly conditioned its disarmament on an Israeli military withdrawal, an ordering dispute that may be the single biggest determinant of whether this disarmament breakthrough survives contact with reality. Israel is unlikely going to withdraw before disarmament has begun and has been verified.
The third challenge involves broader regional dynamics. Countries like Qatar and Turkey continue to maintain relationships with Hamas that raise legitimate questions about whether every regional actor shares Washington's objective of permanently dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities.
Still, diplomacy deserves recognition when it produces genuine movement. For Israelis exhausted by nearly three years of war and for Palestinians seeking a future free from both Hamas rule and perpetual conflict, the prospect of a truly demilitarised Gaza governed by civilian institutions is one worth pursuing.
The true measure of this breakthrough will not be whether Hamas says it is prepared to disarm. It will be whether it actually does.
Jonathan Harounoff is an award-winning author, British journalist covering the Middle East, and Israel’s former international spokesperson at the United Nations
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