US President Donald Trump and his Gaza Board of Peace announced overnight that a deal had been reached for the complete disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
The agreement was described as "historic" by Mr Trump and the Board of Peace, but questions remain over the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire.
The final deal emerged after intense consultations between Hamas and mediators from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar. "It took months of very difficult negotiations to get here. There were several points when I did not believe we would make it," Nickolay Mladenov, Mr Trump's envoy to the Board of Peace, said on X.
"What the agreement says matters. What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real," he added. He thanked the UAE, the mediators and the US for support throughout the process.
By Friday afternoon, the Board of Peace published a roadmap for implementing Mr Trump's "comprehensive peace plan in Gaza," based on fifteen principles.
They include parties of the agreement aiming to secure "the complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza" and that Hamas and other Palestinian factions "agree that all civilian governance and security functions" are handed over to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which was established by the Board of Peace, to begin to administer the strip.
An Israeli political source told The National: "In response to various reports published this morning regarding diplomatic progress in the Gaza Strip, Israel has reiterated that there will be no withdrawal whatsoever of the [Israeli military] from the current yellow line unless Hamas undergoes a genuine disarmament."
What is the Board of Peace?
Mr Trump first proposed the board last September, when he announced his plan to end Israel's war on Gaza. He later said the board's remit would be expanded beyond the enclave to tackle other conflicts around the world, with the US leader as its chairman. Such efforts have traditionally been the role of the UN.
The board was initially conceived as a mechanism to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza and co-ordinate the reconstruction of the enclave. It grew out of Mr Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, which the UN Security Council endorsed with a two-year mandate in November last year.
What has been agreed to?
A “Palestinian party”, which has not yet been identified, is to carry out an initial inventory of Hamas's weapons. That party will then take delivery of the arms, as well as detailed maps of Hamas's underground tunnels and the locations of its weapon manufacturing sites, Palestinian sources said.
The transfer and storage of the weapons is to be supervised by representatives of the mediators and the International Stabilisation Force, authorised by the UN. The force is to consist of troops from several countries and will aim to maintain security in Gaza.
Mediators had drawn up a plan for the disarmament of Hamas that also envisaged Israel-backed militias in the enclave giving up their weapons. About 10,000 members of Gaza's Hamas-linked police force were also to be rehabilitated to enforce law and order in the enclave.
In return, Israel must announce a timeline for its withdrawal from Gaza in tandem with Hamas's disarmament. Israel is also to allow adequate humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and enable the arrival of Palestinian technocrats mandated to run the day-to-day affairs in the enclave.
Gaza governance
This month Hamas announced it was dissolving its governing authority in Gaza after almost two decades in power, paving the way for NCAG, a transitional technocratic body, to take over. The step marked a milestone in implementing the US-backed peace plan.
At a media briefing in Gaza, Ismail Al Thawabta, head of the Gaza government media office, announced that the head of Hamas's “government emergency committee” had resigned, the body had been dissolved and that its “powers have been transferred to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG)”.
The move paves the way for the administration, established under a UN Security Council resolution, to oversee the enclave during an interim period. The body was formed in January as part of the US-led plan, but Israel has said its members will not be allowed to enter Gaza until Hamas is disarmed.
What are Hamas and Israel saying?
Hamas said that it and other Palestinian factions approached negotiations "in a responsible and positive manner," in a statement released on Friday afternoon.
"The occupation's commitment to halting the killing and ending its attacks is the fundamental prerequisite and the first step in proceeding with the implementation, and towards establishing the framework and timetable for what has been agreed, whilst emphasising that the implementation of the second phase of the agreement is contingent upon the occupation's commitment to implementing all the provisions of the first phase," it continued.
There has not yet been any official reaction from Israel. Israeli media reported that the agreement does not address all of Israel's concerns.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a senior member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, said the agreement "is not acceptable to Israel".
"The targeted killings in Gaza must continue, encouraging emigration must happen, Israel must win," he added, in a post on X.
Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official involved in the negotiations, told Reuters it was a "comprehensive framework" that went beyond the issue of disarmament and would depend on Israel implementing the first phase of an agreement reached last year in Egypt.
Under that agreement, he said Israel was obliged to end its attacks in Gaza and withdraw its forces to where they stood in October, as well as increase the flow of goods and aid coming into the enclave.
Only then, he said, would Hamas agree to hand over its weapons to the new National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the technocratic body set up to run the enclave. "We insisted to the mediators that Israel must abide by the agreement," he added.
A Hamas source told Reuters that the "draft agreement" stipulates that heavy weapons will be stored and kept under the control of a Palestinian administration and cannot be transferred to Israel.
"We will not take any action regarding disarmament prior to Israel's withdrawal from the strip," Mr Hamad, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, said in a media report.
Axios, quoting a source, reported that Iran had tried to convince Hamas not to sign the deal.
Israel is reportedly demanding the complete disarmament of Hamas, including the removal of weapons from Gaza and the full demilitarisation of the enclave, as a precondition for any withdrawal. Hamas, on the other hand, has indicated that it won't disarm until after Israeli troops withdraw.
A US official on Thursday told reporters that Israel was "very sceptical that Hamas will disarm". But the official added that the US was "very confident" that Israel would adhere to the deal.
"If they don't, obviously President Trump would be very, very disappointed," the official said.
There are also questions about how long the process will take. A Board of Peace official estimated the timeline could be 200 to 320 days, but a US official played down such a suggestion.
Before Mr Trump's latest announcement, an Israeli official told Reuters that "the 15-point document in question does not provide a satisfactory response to [the country's] demands and Israel conveyed its objections".
