Eurasia Press & News
Hamas leaders and mediators from Egypt, the US, Qatar and Turkey are engaged in wide-ranging discussions in Cairo to iron out potential hurdles in the next phase of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, sources told The National on Tuesday.
They said topics under discussion include Hamas’s disarmament, the mandate of a proposed international peacekeeping force to be deployed in Gaza and the 15-member committee of Palestinian technocrats who would run the day-to-day affairs of the enclave.
The remit of the talks underlines the number of difficulties that lie ahead, as mediators strive for a permanent end to the two-year conflict, which has killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and laid waste to most of the territory’s built-up areas.
The war was triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel has been accused of committing genocide in Gaza and starving the strip’s 2.3 million residents, charges it denies.
The war was paused on October 10 when the US and its three close allies brokered a ceasefire under the plan presented by Mr Trump.
Israel and Hamas have enacted a hostages-for-prisoners swap, with the militant group freeing 20 living captives and the remains of most of 28 others who died while in captivity.
In return, Israel freed about 2,000 Palestinians who had been incarcerated in its prisons, as well as the bodies of more than 300 others.
Disarmament fears
The sources, who are familiar with the deliberations, said the mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey have shared concerns with their US counterparts about the chances of resolving thorny issues that could derail the entire peace process.
One concern, they said, was the disarmament of Hamas. The group, according to the sources, has agreed to lay down, decommission and store its heavy weapons under Egyptian or international supervision but insists on its fighters keeping firearms for self-defence.
Many of Hamas’s heavy weapons, the sources said, are buried in underground tunnels destroyed during the war and virtually impossible to retrieve. Moreover, Hamas has been left with little ammunition or parts for those weapons, which include rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machineguns, they said.
However, the sources added, allowing Hamas fighters to keep their firearms would involve compiling an inventory of their serial numbers as well as the amount and type of ammunition they would be allowed to keep.
“Hamas is concerned that this process will reveal the exact, or near exact, number of its fighters,” said one of the sources. “It wants this information to be available only in confidence to the mediators.”
The sources said Hamas was also prepared to hand over maps of its elaborate underground tunnels, from which it had used to plan and launch attacks on Israeli troops for years, but most of which have now been destroyed.
The discussions in Cairo are also dealing with clarifying the mandate and operational mechanisms of the proposed International Stabilisation Force, whose establishment was endorsed by a UN Security Council resolution sponsored by the US and adopted this month.
The Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators oppose forcibly disarming Hamas, fearing this would lead to clashes that undermine the force’s mission.
Another fear is that Israel could derail the process or at least jeopardise it by targeting individual Hamas leaders in a manner similar to its actions in Lebanon after a ceasefire ended its war with Hezbollah last year.
The mediators also want reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, also part of the second phase of President Trump’s plan, to involve the entire enclave and not merely one area, said the sources, citing reports that Israel wanted the rebuilding to start in the south, thus attracting Palestinians from throughout the strip to move there.
