Eurasia Press & News
The second convening of President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace in Washington on February 19 was intended to highlight progress toward a post-war vision for Gaza. The event featured detailed presentations on reconstruction, governance mechanisms, and timelines. Yet two core issues remained conspicuously vague: how Hamas will be disarmed, and who exactly will staff the newly proposed Gaza police force.
In the days leading up to the White House conference, senior Israeli officials suggested that Washington might issue a 60-day ultimatum for Hamas to disarm. The implication was clear: failure to comply would trigger the resumption of Israeli military operations, this time with explicit international backing.
No such ultimatum was announced. Instead, Ali Shaath, head of the Board of Peace-appointed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), declared that 5,000 newly trained Palestinian police officers would be “deployed” within 60 days. Nickolay Mladenov, director-general of the Board of Peace, welcomed what he described as a surge in police applications, asserting that this new force would “ensure that all factions in Gaza are dismantled and all weapons are put under the control of one civilian authority.”
Can a Gaza Police Force Be Created Without Hamas?
Mladenov’s statement raises more questions than it answers.
Egypt and Jordan have for months indicated they are training Palestinian personnel — including some from the West Bank — for a future role in Gaza. These officers would reportedly be paid by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a development that conflicts with Israel’s long-standing opposition to reintroducing the Ramallah-based PA into Gaza’s governance.
Even taking Cairo’s pledges at face value, public reporting suggests that, as of late last year, only “hundreds” of officers had completed training. If 5,000 officers are to be deployed within two months, the majority would likely need to be recruited locally inside Gaza.
That presents a fundamental personnel challenge. A two-month preparation window is a fraction of typical training timelines in the United States, Britain, or Israel.
If these recruits are not properly trained, they will be ill-equipped to confront Hamas. If they are already experienced in “maintaining order” in Gaza over the past two decades, their backgrounds naturally warrant scrutiny since, during that period, the institutions capable of exercising force in Gaza were dominated by Hamas, affiliated factions, or criminal networks.
The publicly circulated recruitment notice reportedly describes candidates only as needing to be “qualified,” without explicit exclusion criteria regarding past affiliation with Hamas or other terrorist groups. In a territory where Hamas has governed since 2007 and maintains an estimated 10,000 armed operatives in almost half of the coastal enclave’s territory, vetting standards are not a bureaucratic detail — they are the linchpin of any credible transition.
Disarming Hamas: A Goal Without a Mechanism
At the Board of Peace event, speakers reiterated the objective of disarming Hamas but did not articulate a mechanism for achieving it. Hamas has publicly rejected consensual disarmament. It is therefore unclear whether the new police force is expected to confront Hamas directly, coexist with it, or quietly absorb elements of its infrastructure.
The U.S. should energetically back any insistence from Israel on rigorous, transparent security vetting for every member of the proposed Gaza police. This may slow deployment and create short-term staffing gaps, but expediency cannot substitute credibility. A force compromised by infiltration or collusion would undermine both reconstruction and security.
If the emerging international policy for Gaza is indeed intended to lead to Hamas disarmament, that objective should be stated clearly. The success of any post-war governance plan will ultimately depend less on timelines and ceremonies than on whether armed factions are truly dismantled — and whether those tasked with enforcing order are committed to a different future.
