Afrasianet - The Islamist Resistance Movement (Hamas) has agreed on a roadmap to move to the next phase of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.
The map includes the start of the group's gradual abandonment of its military structure in exchange for a phased Israeli withdrawal, and the transfer of the administration of the Strip to a Palestinian committee of technocrats, supported by a reconstituted Palestinian police force, and an international stabilization force.
The arrangements include the dismantling of heavy weapons, the dismantling of manufacturing sites and warehouses, and the unveiling of the tunnel network, in phases subject to an international verification mechanism.
This measure also requires the cessation of Israeli military operations, the establishment of a binding timetable, and the withdrawal of the occupation forces in parallel with the movement's implementation of its commitments.
In a statement last Friday, US President Donald Trump praised the "understanding" reached with Israel to start implementing the peace agreement in Gaza, stressing that Hamas' announcement of agreeing to give up its weapons is a "great historic achievement" that allows for an end to the war and the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, but this optimistic statement once again revealed the difference in US priorities with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, as Washington pushes for simultaneous implementation Israel has informed the Peace Council of its objection to three main items: keeping the collected weapons stored rather than destroying or removing them from the Strip, the participation of Qatar and Turkey in the verification mechanism, and the denial of the IDF "freedom of military action" in the areas that will be transferred to the international force and the Palestinian police.
These objections show an open Israeli desire to maintain its direct security control over the Gaza Strip, and to try to exclude Turkey and Qatar from the implementation measures, and they also reveal Israel's ongoing plan to dismantle any Palestinian administration of the Strip and nullify the political consequences it wants to impose with war.
At the Arab and international levels, the approval was seen as an opportunity to stop the extermination of the residents of the Gaza Strip, resume the entry of aid, launch the reconstruction process, and restore the Palestinian administration of the Strip, while the movement has been criticized by Palestinians for now accepting arrangements it had rejected In parallel with the well-known official mediations.
The central role attributed by the British newspaper "Daily Telegraph" to Mohammed Dahlan, a Palestinian politician and leader expelled from Fatah and an advisor to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who persuaded Hamas to accept its disarmament as the only way to maintain its political presence, and if this role is true, it reflects an Emirati attempt to expand its influence In the upcoming Gaza arrangements, through a Palestinian figure who has Arab and American relations and influence within the Strip, which may make the future of Gaza an area of regional competition within the dynamics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Hamas's agreement, in this context, expresses a shift for the movement from trying to maintain its rule and weapons together to negotiating the terms of its political survival after the war, after the administration of Gaza became a great burden on it, its military capabilities were depleted, and its regional options were narrowed. Its decision, in this sense, is its attempt to adapt to stay within the thorny equations that are trying to reshape the region and the world.
One of these questions that will be contested is: who owns the Palestinian decision, who controls the weapons, who guarantees the Israeli withdrawal, and who manages the reconstruction?
In the historical balance, the value of this new trend for Hamas will be determined by its ability to engage in the struggle of the Palestinians, as a people and political institutions, as well as their allies in the world, to end the war in the Gaza Strip, and to open a path that stops genocide and ethnic cleansing, and restores Palestine's place on the map of nations.
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