The leadership of the Palestinian Hamas movement is convinced that the US administration could approve the retention of weapons by the radicals in the Gaza Strip and convince Israel of this.
“The Palestinian people do not agree with the disarmament of Hamas, and our allies can formulate a solution that would allow the movement to retain its weapons and which would be approved by the US administration. If this goal is achieved, the US could impose this condition on the Israeli side as well“, said the leader of the organization abroad, Khaled Mashal.
The text of his statement was published on Hamas's Telegram channel. He explained that in his opinion the militants may “not use or show their weapons“, but they need them to prevent a sharp escalation by Israel. “Disarming the Palestinians will lead to their death”, the member of the Hamas politburo believes.
He stressed that the movement's leadership considers the idea of peacekeepers entering Gaza unacceptable, they should remain exclusively on the border of the enclave. Mashal is confident that if a peacekeeping contingent enters the Gaza Strip, it “will immediately become an occupying force indistinguishable from the Israeli“.
On November 26, Sky News Arabia reported that mediators at a meeting in Cairo had discussed the possibility of temporarily detaining the light weapons of Hamas supporters “for a certain period”. The proposal provides for Hamas members to "then hand over their light weapons to international security forces," which, according to the plan presented by US President Donald Trump, should be deployed in the Palestinian enclave.
The main obstacles to the implementation of the second phase of the Gaza agreement, according to the Egyptian television channel Al-Qahira al-Ikhbariya, are the disarmament of Hamas paramilitary groups and the deployment of international forces in the enclave. Representatives of the radical movement refuse to hand over their personal weapons to any of the parties, citing the need for self-defense for their supporters. As for the deployment of international forces in Gaza, which, according to Trump's plan, would consist mainly of contingents from Islamic countries, these countries are extremely reluctant to accept such an initiative. According to their representatives, they still have difficulty understanding how militaries from Islamic, including Arab, countries would oppose Palestinian Arabs who support the Islamic Resistance Movement, as Hamas is known.
On October 9, Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt, Qatar, the United States and Turkey, agreed to implement the first phase of the peace plan presented by Trump. The ceasefire in Gaza came into effect on October 10.