Israel has approved a pilot project to collect Hamas weapons in the Gaza Strip, under which members of a US team will enter Rafah and Khan Younis to conduct field inspections and identify compounds where Palestinian militants can go to hand over their weapons.
Project forms part of Trump's plan to disarm Hamas
The project is part of the main stages of US President Donald Trump's peace plan, which calls for Hamas to give up its weapons and for the Gaza Strip to be demilitarised. The US team's activities will focus on the Rafah and Khan Younis areas in the southern Gaza Strip, both of which are under Israeli control. The inspections aim to select sites that militants can reach safely to hand over their weapons.
The arrangements include providing a form of protection by the Israeli army as the militants make their way to the compounds identified under the project. Under the plan of the “Board of Peace” established by Trump, Israel will not begin its phased withdrawal from areas free of militants until Hamas lays down its weapons. Responsibility for administering those areas will then be transferred to a technocratic government, in the sequence set out by the plan.
The mechanism for handing over the weapons has not yet been determined, nor has it been decided how the militants will be able to move within the Gaza Strip without posing a threat to the Israeli forces deployed there. The move comes about a year after an agreement to end the Gaza war, while Israel continues to carry out attacks almost daily. Meanwhile, the provision on disarming Hamas set out in Trump's plan has not yet been implemented.
