The latest diplomatic push over Gaza has exposed a single, structural fault line: whether Hamas must be fully disarmed before Israel withdraws, or whether disarmament and withdrawal should proceed in parallel. After Jared Kushner’s shuttle visits to Egypt and Israel, the US‑backed roadmap remains formally alive, but the sequencing dispute has hardened into a near‑total deadlock. This analysis examines why Israel’s “disarm first, withdraw later” logic is strategically coherent for Jerusalem, how it clashes with Palestinian demands, and what this means for the broader peace process and the role of international actors, including the United Nation system.
The roadmap’s promise and the reality of sequencing
The plan under discussion is the 15‑point
“Roadmap for Completing the Implementation of President Trump’s Comprehensive Peace Plan in Gaza”,
presented by the Board of Peace on 30–31 July 2026 and led by its high representative, Nickolay Mladenov. It envisages a phased decommissioning of Hamas’s arsenal alongside a gradual Israeli military withdrawal, the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), and the transfer of civilian administration to a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a technocratic Palestinian body.
Under the original design, once both sides accepted the roadmap, Israel was to halt attacks on Hamas‑controlled areas, pull back to the pre‑existing “yellow line” marking permanently occupied zones, and implement outstanding commitments from the October 2025 ceasefire. A 14‑day window would then be used to agree a detailed timetable for phased disarmament and withdrawal. In practice, however, acceptance has not translated into movement on the ground. Hamas has repeatedly said it is “committed to this agreed‑upon process”, yet insists that
“the Israeli side has not given the mediators clear approval of the roadmap.”
The group is
“waiting for mediators to start the 14‑day negotiation period to work out a timetable for implementation”,
a period that
“requires all parties’ approval of the road map to begin.”
Why Israel insists on disarmament before any withdrawal
From Jerusalem’s perspective, the “disarm first” line is not just maximalist rhetoric; it is a risk‑management strategy shaped by recent history. After the 7 October 2023 attacks, Israeli planners are determined to avoid any scenario in which Hamas retains the capacity to rearm and reconstitute its military infrastructure while Israeli forces pull back. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made this explicit, telling Donald Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner that
“there can be no progress on the stalled Gaza ceasefire deal or an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal strip until Hamas first disarms.”
He has publicly rejected the roadmap as previously framed, insisting that Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed.
This position is reinforced by agreements reached in meetings with the Board of Peace and US officials. Israeli security officials have accepted that demilitarisation should start with a Hamas weapons handover supervised by an American military general, and that there would be no Israeli redeployment or reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas is fully disarmed. As one senior Israeli official described the understanding: weapons handed over by Hamas will be transferred to both the NCAG and the ISF, with US Maj‑Gen Jasper Jeffers, head of the ISF, overseeing the process. The logic is straightforward: Jerusalem sees any premature withdrawal as creating a security vacuum that Hamas or other armed groups could exploit, especially given doubts about the ISF’s capacity to fill that gap. As one regional analysis notes,
“Israel has said its forces will not fully withdraw until Hamas has disarmed, believing that the ISF will not be capable of filling the security vacuum left by an Israeli withdrawal.”
Hamas’s conditions: no disarmament without verified withdrawal and an end to attacks
Hamas’s counter‑logic is equally clear: it will not disarm unless Israel first halts its military operations, begins to withdraw, and allows Palestinian and international actors to assume governance and security roles. A senior Hamas official and negotiator, Ghazi Hamad, said implementation
“depends on Israel carrying out its commitments under the first phase of the ceasefire, including ending military operations, withdrawing its forces from Gaza and allowing the entry of the NCAG and international forces.”
In a formal statement, Hamas stressed that
“the fundamental prerequisite and the first step”
is Israel’s commitment to “ending the killing” and ceasing its war on the Strip, and that phase two remains
“contingent upon Israel fulfilling all of its obligations under the first phase of the October ceasefire agreement.”
Hamas has demanded that Israel withdraw to the “yellow line” and halt attacks before disarmament begins, while seeking guarantees that weapons will be handed to the NCAG and ISF, not to Israel. As one Hamas official put it, the group wants mediators to “compel Israel to accept the peace plan” and clarify that its disarmament will be “genuine” and linked to a complete relinquishment of governance in Gaza. A Hamas official reiterated that the group demanded Israel halt its attacks on Gaza and withdraw to the “yellow line” before beginning implementation. Without those steps, Hamas sees disarmament as unilateral surrender.
The US and Board of Peace: adjusting sequence to keep the deal alive
The US and the Board of Peace have tried to bridge the gap by adjusting the sequence while keeping the end state unchanged: a demilitarised Hamas and a stable, rebuilt Gaza under Palestinian technocratic rule. Kushner has signalled that progress on disarmament could begin “in as little as 30 days”, with weapons removal and tunnel‑filling starting within that window and more substantial work over 60–90 days. He told Fox News:
“We could be seeing progress… in as little as 30 days, hopefully starting to take some of the weapons out, and hopefully, you know, filling in some of the tunnels as well.”
At the same time, Washington has moved closer to Israel’s sequencing concerns. The Board and Israel now
“agree on the end state, which is a demilitarised Hamas”,
and have accepted that Israel does not need to start withdrawing from Gaza until full disarmament, effectively walking back earlier expectations of a tightly coupled phased pullout. Kushner has also stressed that the US will not restrict Israel’s right to defend itself against “imminent threats” in Gaza even as the peace process proceeds. Yet the US still speaks of a parallel process in principle. The proposed mechanism calls for
“the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza to proceed in parallel”
, with each stage subject to verification:
“At each stage, Hamas would have to render part of its arsenal inoperable before Israel is expected to carry out its corresponding commitments.”
In practice, however, the emphasis has shifted toward disarm first, withdraw later, with reconstruction explicitly tied to demilitarisation.
The cost of sequencing: a deal that works on paper but stalls on the ground
This creates a classic commitment problem: Israel will not withdraw without verified disarmament; Hamas will not disarm without verified withdrawal and an end to hostilities. The result is a diplomatic breakthrough on paper but renewed uncertainty on the ground, as one regional analysis put it:
“Diplomatic breakthroughs in Gaza… are being followed by renewed uncertainty as Israel refuses to implement them on the ground.”
Meanwhile, violence continues: since the 10 October 2025 ceasefire, at least 1,265 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli operations in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry, while the Israeli army reports five deaths in its ranks over the same period. Gaza health ministry figures are operating under Hamas authority but are considered reliable by the United Nation system and other international bodies, underscoring the human cost of the diplomatic impasse.
Where the process could still move: narrow pathways and political constraints
Despite the deadlock, there are narrow pathways forward. Both sides have accepted, at least in principle, a 14‑day negotiation window to craft a workable timetable once the roadmap is fully approved. The presence of a US general overseeing weapons transfer and the involvement of the ISF and NCAG offer technical mechanisms that could, in theory, allow small, verified steps: limited weapons handovers in specific zones, matched by limited Israeli redeployments or attack halts.
But every such step requires political cover. For Netanyahu, that means being able to show that no meaningful withdrawal is happening before real disarmament. For Hamas, it means being able to show that attacks are ending, withdrawal is beginning, and governance is shifting to Palestinians, not remaining under Israeli military control. Without that, the “disarm first, withdraw later” formula will remain a logically sound but politically unimplementable strategy. This analysis suggests that unless sequencing is reframed to allow reciprocal, verified micro‑steps, the roadmap risks becoming another document that defines the end state but fails to map a viable path to reach it.
