Hamas to disarm.....

How it works: Under the agreement, an international stabilization force would help train the new Palestinian police, assist with weapons collection, and deploy between Palestinian-controlled areas and Israeli forces.

• A Board of Peace official said the agreement was designed around "zero trust" because Hamas and Israel each made clear from the outset that they did not trust the other side.

• The process would not advance from one stage to the next until monitors verified that both sides had met their obligations.

• The goal is to avoid a situation in which the technocratic government controls Gaza during the day while armed factions retain power at night, the official said.

The other side: Israel's withdrawal would proceed gradually under a timetable that is still being finalized.

• Trump said Israeli forces would withdraw as disarmament was completed and the international force and new Palestinian police assumed responsibility for security.

• Israel would also halt military operations and targeted killings in Gaza, except in cases involving an imminent threat.

• "All military activity in Gaza will have to cease — both from Israel and Hamas," the Board of Peace official said.

The intrigue: During a recent visit to Iran for the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a Hamas delegation met with senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.

• The IRGC officials urged Hamas not to rush into signing the agreement and to play for time, the source said.

• A senior U.S. official also claimed Iran tried to convince Hamas not to sign the deal, but said the group chose not to listen.

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/30/hamas-weapons-gaza-deal-israel-board-peace

Why it matters: If implemented, the agreement would represent a dramatic breakthrough in Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan and clear the way for reconstruction of the devastated enclave.

But the deal requires Hamas and Israel to complete a complicated series of reciprocal and independently verified steps over roughly seven to eight months.

Israeli officials remain deeply sceptical that Hamas will surrender its weapons, while comments from a senior Hamas official suggest the sequencing of disarmament and Israel's withdrawal could still be contested.

https://www.axios.com/2026/07/30/hamas-weapons-gaza-deal-israel-board-peace

WSJ, same article:

“In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s negotiating team, said the group agreed to place its weapons in a storage facility overseen by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a Palestinian-run technocratic group charged with the enclave’s political and security transition. “We didn’t say disarmament, we didn’t say handing over the weapons, and we didn’t agree on any Israeli involvement,” Hamad said, adding that the plan is contingent on Israel ending military operations in Gaza and allowing humanitarian aid in.”

Excerpt From
“U.S. Says Hamas Has Agreed to Broad Plan to Disarm”
Abeer Ayyoub, Alexander Ward, Philip Wegmann, Summer Said
The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/ASe8sJIRySWOGwHQ7s7vBdQ
This material may be protected by copyright.

I'll believe it when I see it.

From the Wall Street Journal:

“Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups agreed to a plan that, if followed, would see the groups disarm and lose power in the Gaza Strip as long as Israel withdraws from the enclave, U.S. officials said.
The officials, speaking to reporters Thursday evening, said the agreement is the start of an indefinite, multiphase process to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza and rebuild the enclave. The officials acknowledged many challenges ahead, such as verifying the Palestinian groups’ compliance and ensuring that a skeptical Israeli government doesn’t scuttle any progress.”

Excerpt From
“U.S. Says Hamas Has Agreed to Broad Plan to Disarm”
Abeer Ayyoub, Alexander Ward, Philip Wegmann, Summer Said
The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/ASe8sJIRySWOGwHQ7s7vBdQ
This material may be protected by copyright.

I find it more plausible that financial pressures have led Hamas to this point, as their funding sources have been cut off.

In the end it all comes down to money.

A member of Hamas’s negotiating team is claiming that the group are making “concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip, to save them from killing and displacement”.

But it's very clear they don't genuinely care about people in the Gaza Strip or they wouldn't have triggered a war there or taken so long to agree to disarm.

The Telegraph report that under the proposal, Hamas’s police will first hand over its weapons to a transitional body to be stored and decommissioned.

The militant group’s heavy weapons will then be surrendered in return for Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory.

Personal weapons left in the enclave will be handed over last, along with arms held by IDF-backed militias and other armed clans.

A Hamas official confirmed that a deal had been struck on Friday morning but stopped short of using the term disarmament. Egypt, which helped brokered the agreement, was also more cautious, describing the agreement as a “roadmap”.

Israel has not yet commented on the agreement, but a US official said the Jewish state was “very sceptical” about Hamas complying.

The terror group has promised to give up an inventory of weapons, military production sites and plans for its underground network of tunnels as part of the agreement, according to the BBC.

The weapons would then be stored under a new Palestinian administration, the broadcaster reported. They could not be transferred to Israel.

In recent months, negotiators had reportedly focused on cutting off Hamas’s funding sources. They now believe the mounting financial pressure pushed it to agree to the deal.

“We think we’ve managed to bring Hamas to a place where they can’t say no,” one source involved in the negotiations told Axios before Mr Trump’s announcement on Thursday.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/07/30/hamas-agree-to-disarm-gaza-strip/

I’m no fan of Hamas. But here is Israel behaving like a another death cult:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/29/they-targeted-us-directly-how-the-israel-lebanon-war-became-deadly-for-healthcare-workers

Wouldn’t that be amazing for the beleaguered people of the region. I don’t feel hopeful though. Would just leave a vacuum for the next group of militant Islamists with plenty of countries ready to pay for them to continue to attack Israel.
IRA makes a deal. Meet the ‘Real IRA’.