Hamas has its own disarmament vision as Gaza truce enters critical phase

The head of Hamas abroad, Khaled Meshaal, is trying to convince the United States administration to follow the Palestinian group’s own “vision” on how to deal with disarmament and its military arsenal, a major sticking point in the second phase of the group’s two-month ceasefire with Israel.

Speaking on Al Jazeera Arabic’s Mawazine programme on Wednesday, Meshaal said Hamas aims to “create a situation with guarantees that war does not return between Gaza and the Israeli occupation”, which included the group potentially handing over its weapons, though it wants input on the process.

“As we approach the second phase, the challenge is upon us; there are some parties who want to impose their will on us as they wish. Like what the Israeli prime minister says – to take our weapons in any way, even by force. This is rejected by our people,” Meshaal said.

“We want to have a vision in which we have guarantees that these weapons are hidden, kept, not used, and not paraded. And we offered a long truce of seven or 10 years,” he added.

Meshaal outlined ideas to sustain the fragile ceasefire, which Israel has violated more than 700 times since it began, according to the Gaza Government Media Office, as the first phase, involving prisoner and captive exchanges, comes to an end.

Israel has not allowed the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, in violation of the truce’s terms, as hundreds of thousands of people are suffering the brunt of Storm Byron with only makeshift tents for shelter.

The more contentious second phase of the ceasefire will address Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian disarmament and the formal end to the war.

Meshaal told Al Jazeera that mediators were in dialogue with the US on Hamas’s approach to disarmament, but cautioned that surrendering weapons on the ground would be akin to “removing the soul” of the organisation.

He suggested moving to the second phase and adopting Hamas’s disarmament plan was plausible, arguing that a more pragmatic US approach increased the chances of success.

“I believe that with the pragmatic American mindset, which aims to reach the same goal but without being hard on the means, and with the help of the mediators, our friends around the world, we will be able to create such a vision that can be agreed upon with the US administration and then imposed on Israel,” he said.

“The mediators are still discussing this with the US administration, and we hope we will succeed in reaching it,” Meshaal told Al Jazeera.

He added that Gaza was facing a threat from Israel, and not from Gaza’s fighters, “whose disarmament they demand”.

Hamas was founded in the late 1980s during the first Intifada, a widespread Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, was formed shortly afterwards and has been central to the group’s identity, fighting Israeli forces since the early 1990s. Hamas’s political wing has governed Gaza since 2007 after being elected in 2006.

A key element of the phased peace plan, brokered by the administration of US President Donald Trump and agreed in early October, calls for Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups to surrender their weapons to an international peacekeeping force, ending the group’s nearly two-decade rule over the enclave. Senior Israeli officials have described it as a crucial war aim, warning that failure to achieve it could cause the truce to collapse.

Though Israel has violated the agreement most days since the truce began – killing 377 people – the ceasefire has largely held, with Israel still occupying more than half of the devastated Gaza Strip. Over the course of Israel’s war, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 170,000 injured, according to records by Gaza health officials.

The body of only one captive abducted during the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel in October 2023 remains in Gaza, while hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including the remains of some who died in Israeli detention, have been returned.

Many of the returnees, including those who were deceased, have shown signs of torture, mutilation and execution, according to officials in Gaza.

Mediators have emphasised the need for a coordinated effort as the ceasefire enters what Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani called a “critical moment”.

A US official confirmed to Al Jazeera that intense negotiations are under way to move to phase two, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the first phase is nearing completion. Netanyahu added that he wanted to “achieve the same results in the second stage”.

The last ceasefire brokered by Trump earlier this year collapsed at the end of its first phase, after Israel abruptly violated the agreement and resumed military operations in Gaza, killing 400 people in the first day.

Hamas accepts idea of international stabilisation force

At the Doha Forum last weekend, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan cautioned patience in disarming Hamas, saying it would not occur immediately and emphasising that “we need to proceed in the correct order and remain realistic”.

Turkiye has expressed an interest in joining an international stabilisation force (ISF) to facilitate Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and help maintain peace between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. Israel has rejected any Turkish involvement.

Meshaal said Hamas is not opposed to the presence of international peacekeepers, such as United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) forces in Lebanon, despite criticising the UN Security Council’s endorsement of Trump’s plan, and he expressed confidence that the force could prevent “military escalation against Israel from inside Gaza”.

He also shared his vision for Gaza’s future governance, reiterating that Hamas would hand control to technocrats while emphasising that “we want the Palestinian to govern the Palestinian, and for he, himself to decide who governs him”.

He criticised Trump’s so-called “board of peace,” a body the US president said he hopes would supervise the territory’s governance, saying it was fraught with risks and would amount to “a form of guardianship” over the territory.

Meshaal told Al Jazeera that talks in Egypt had brought together various Palestinian factions to form a representative group for Gaza, with eight members selected, but added that the process was “being obstructed by Israel”.

Pro-Palestine movement

Meshaal also reflected on the global pro-Palestine movement, saying Israel’s conduct during the war had turned it into an “outcast state” and dealt a severe blow to its international reputation.

“The Palestinian issue today is standing at an unprecedented level of presence,” he said, “and is repositioning itself on the regional and international arena after it had been hidden and packed away in drawers.”

“Who before, among politicians and leaders, dared to criticize Israel? Today, Israel and Netanyahu are brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Israel today is an outcast because it belongs to a criminal entity that committed a holocaust and a genocide,” he said.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, two members of his security cabinet, and two Hamas leaders who Israel has since killed.

“It used to brag about how it is a democracy and part of Western values and a spearhead of Western civilization,” Meshaal said. “Now it has revealed its true ugly face.”