Mediators have drawn up a new proposal for the disarmament of Hamas that includes Israeli-backed militias in Gaza giving up their weapons and the rehabilitation of about 10,000 members of the territory's Hamas-linked police force to continue maintaining law and order in the war-devastated enclave.
Hamas has cited the threat from the militias as one of the reasons for refusing to fully disarm, along with Israel's failure to provide adequate humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory under the terms of US President Donald Trump's peace plan.
Sources briefed on the details of the new proposal said Hamas and representatives of other Palestinian factions will discuss it with the mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey in Cairo this week.
Egypt’s intelligence chief Hassan Rashad and his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kallin, met Hamas leaders Khaled Meshaal, Khalil Al Hayya and Mohammed Hassan in Cairo on Tuesday, according to an official Egyptian statement.
The sources said the latest proposal, while showing a large degree of flexibility, was unlikely to be accepted by Israel, which insists on Hamas's unconditional and complete disarmament and has made clear it has no plans to withdraw from Gaza.
However, close US allies Egypt, Turkey and Qatar will be looking to Mr Trump to pressure Israel to reciprocate their proposal's flexibility so that his Gaza plan moves closer to fruition, according to the sources. The US President views the peace plan as a milestone achievement for his administration.
The sources said the successful implementation of the Trump plan is also linked to the outcome of the continuing peace negotiations between the United States and Iran. These talks include the future of Tehran's support for regional proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
But more immediately, the sources said, the mediators are concerned about what they see as the hardline stance on Hamas taken by Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative of the Trump-led Board of Peace supervising the plan's implementation.
Under the first phase of the Trump plan, a ceasefire went into force last October, pausing two years of war between Israel and Hamas that devastated Gaza, killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, displaced most of its 2.3 million residents and created a humanitarian crisis.
In the first phase, Israel also released thousands of Palestinian detainees in exchange for dozens of hostages held by Hamas since its October 2023 attack that killed 1,200 people and ignited the war.
The sources said the mediators' latest proposal provides for timetabled phases of disarmament, beginning with the collection, inventory and storage of the weapons.
They said the timetable allows Hamas to extract weapons and other military hardware from underground tunnels and bases destroyed by Israeli strikes during the war.
The proposal stipulates that Israel must withdraw further from Gaza with the completion of each phase, allowing reconstruction of the territory to begin. Israel must also ensure a sufficient flow of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory – a provision of the Trump plan that residents and aid agencies say is not being met.
The proposal includes a committee comprising representatives of the three mediating nations along with two public, Gaza-based Palestinian figures, to be identified later, to oversee the disarmament process.
A UN-sanctioned committee made up of non-partisan Palestinian technocrats to run Gaza's day-to-day affairs will take delivery of the weapons under the new proposal.
The Palestinian committee, whose creation is part of the Trump plan, was formed in January but Israel has not allowed its members to enter Gaza until Hamas disarms.
The committee, according to the new proposal, will also take over the group's “infrastructure” – a reference to bases, weapon manufacturing sites, underground tunnels and maps detailing their location.
Previously, the mediators had proposed that another UN-sanctioned component of the Trump plan – the International Stabilisation Force, which is yet to be formed – would oversee the delivery of the weapons to storage sites.
As stated in a proposal put forward by the mediators in early June, the disarmament of Hamas is also conditional on Israeli assurances that it will allow reconstruction to start and stop targeting the group's senior members, according to the sources.
The new proposal also seeks the inclusion of an estimated 10,000 members of Gaza's Hamas-created police force into the strip's new security force after their rehabilitation, the sources said. Israel views the existing police force as an integral part of Hamas, which it is seeking to dismantle completely.
Mr Mladenov, said the sources, has taken a stand similar to Israel's on the entry of the Palestinian committee into Gaza, saying all weapons held by Hamas and other Gaza-based Palestinian groups must be surrendered before Israel begins a gradual withdrawal and allows reconstruction.
He also shares Israel's view that Hamas and others must not be allowed to keep firearms for personal protection, dismissing the group's fears that without them they would be easy prey for Israeli-backed militias in Gaza, they said.
“The mediators see the insistence of Israel and Mladenov on the complete disarmament of Hamas as a recipe for Palestinian-on-Palestinian strife in Gaza,” said one of the sources. “They are counselling Hamas not to cave in because they see tragic events in Gaza if they do.”
