A Palestinian newspaper said that the Hamas movement has agreed to hand over weapons in exchange for the leaders being allowed to leave the Gaza Strip and the organization moving to pure political activity.
According to sources, Hamas has handed over part of the weapons and maps of the underground tunnel network to the US through an undisclosed mechanism.
In return, Washington pledged to allow Hamas to continue participating in political activities in Gaza, and agreed to allow some administrative and police officials of this force to work in the new management apparatus, provided they pass a joint security check between Israel and the United States.
The agreement is also said to include Hamas leaders being allowed to leave Gaza. The US ensures that Israel will not take actions against them abroad in the future. So far, neither Hamas nor the US has made official comments on this information.
Israel has also not responded, although sources confirm that Tel Aviv is hesitant, especially regarding the clause allowing Hamas to continue its political role in Gaza. Throughout the 2-year conflict in this area, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly declared that he would "completely destroy" Hamas.
The news was released just hours before Donald Trump signed the decision to establish a mechanism called the "Peace Council". This mechanism was initially designed as a group of technocrats, mainly from Arab countries in the Gulf, to oversee the reconstruction and governance of Gaza. According to the charter, the organization has expanded into a large international structure, headed by "President Trump".
Countries are invited to participate as members for three years. Russian President Vladimir Putin received the invitation and proposed contributing 1 billion USD from Russian assets frozen in the US, regardless of whether Russia joins or not.
To date, 22 countries have participated in this mechanism. The Charter of the "Peace Council" does not mention the word "Gaza", raising criticism that this is an effort to build a competition organization with the United Nations.
Mr. Donald Trump recently also announced the second phase of the 20-point plan to resolve the conflict in Gaza, with a focus on Hamas's disarmament and handover of regional control to the National Committee for Gaza Management, consisting of 15 Palestinian experts. This committee held its first session in Cairo.
Although Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire, the two sides continuously accused each other of violating the agreement, causing hundreds of deaths.
