President Trump’s Board of Peace has presented Hamas with a detailed proposal for how the Palestinian militant group could relinquish its weapons, officials say, a potentially crucial step in securing a lasting cease-fire in the devastated Gaza Strip.
According to the U.S.-backed proposal, Hamas and other armed factions would be expected to gradually hand over all of their arms and Israeli forces in Gaza would withdraw.
Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace is a new international body established to oversee the cease-fire in Gaza. Nickolay Mladenov, the board’s high representative for Gaza, discussed the proposal with senior Hamas leaders last week in Cairo.
The board’s proposal, which was first reported by National Public Radio, shows that the Trump administration is seeking to cement the cease-fire in Gaza even as global attention has shifted to the war between the United States, Israel and Iran.
Details of the proposal and Mr. Mladenov’s meetings were described by seven people, including five officials, briefed on or involved in the talks. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The Times did not see the proposal itself and some aspects of it remain unclear. Hamas would be expected to give up its heavy weapons, like rocket launchers, and share maps of its underground tunnel network. It is unclear how or to whom Hamas would hand them over.
Neither Hamas nor the Israeli government responded to requests for comment.
After Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in October, disarmament has been a major sticking point in the negotiations to create a durable peace.
Much of Gaza was destroyed over two years of war. The United States and Israel have said that rebuilding the enclave is conditional on Hamas giving up its weapons.
Hamas’s ideology is rooted in armed resistance to Israel, and many of its members view giving up their weapons as tantamount to surrender. It is unlikely that the group would accept the proposal as it stands, analysts said.
“It’s basically calling for the end of Hamas as we know it: a group resisting Israel with weapons,” said Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist originally from Gaza. “And it’s not even going to get a Palestinian state.”
Hamas was expected to respond to the proposal as soon as next week, several of the people familiar with the talks said, presumably after Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday, which ends on Sunday. Mr. Atallah said Hamas would likely make a counteroffer that would buy the group time and avoid a return to full-blown war.
The establishment of a Board of Peace was first mentioned in Mr. Trump’s ambitious 20-point peace plan for Gaza, which stipulated an end to Hamas rule in Gaza and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.
Mr. Mladenov, the Board of Peace official who met with Hamas to discuss disarmament last week in Egypt, previously served as a United Nations Middle East envoy. On Thursday, in a post on social media, he hinted at the talks — which were not publicly disclosed — writing that a proposal was “on the table” that could “unlock” the reconstruction of Gaza.
“It requires one clear choice: full decommissioning by Hamas and every armed group, with no exceptions and no carve-outs,” Mr. Mladenov wrote.
Implementing the Board of Peace’s proposal, including the process of disarmament, could take up to eight months, officials involved in the effort said. Israel has long said that Hamas should disarm all at once but, under U.S. pressure, it has recently agreed to a phased approach, two of the people familiar with the proposal said.
In the initial phase, Hamas would hand over governance to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a Palestinian body that was appointed by the Board of Peace in January to run the territory. Its responsibilities are expected to include overseeing hospitals, schools and trash collection, though the administration’s leaders have yet to enter Gaza.
At that point, Israel would allow a greater volume of humanitarian aid and commercial goods into the enclave, according to the plan. Hamas would be expected to relinquish heavy weapons and share maps of its tunnel network within 90 days, and gradually hand over its assault rifles, several people briefed on the proposal said.
The Palestinian administration has already begun recruiting for a new Palestinian police force, which would be deployed throughout Gaza and help collect the remaining weapons in the territory, all of those briefed on the talks said.
They added that Palestinians who served in the Hamas-controlled administration in Gaza would be allowed to become police officers as long as they successfully completed a vetting process. It was unclear how they would be vetted.
Once Hamas has relinquished its weapons, the Israeli military would pull back and the international peacekeeping force would fully deploy in the enclave.
Hamas has yet to give any suggestion that it is willing to accept full disarmament. In talks with Arab mediators, Hamas officials have said that their members need personal weapons to protect themselves against retribution from other Palestinians in Gaza.
Many people in Gaza hope Hamas will reach an agreement to hand over its weapons so that rebuilding can begin, said Maher, a Gazan resident who requested that his last name be withheld, fearing retribution from the group.
Yet, in practice, Maher said, Gazans were seeing “the exact opposite” as armed Hamas security personnel were out in force on the streets, leaving little hope for change.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
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