ByWASEEM ABU MAHADI/THE MEDIA LINE

AUGUST 3, 2026 14:17

Updated: AUGUST 3, 2026 14:19

Late on Saturday, Mohammad Dahlan, the ex-Fatah security leader now leading the Democratic Reform Current from the United Arab Emirates, posted on his official Facebook account that US special envoy Jared Kushner had informed him of an accord reached with Israel to end attacks on Gaza the next day.

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"Mr. Jared Kushner confirmed to us that he had agreed with the Israeli side to halt the attacks on Gaza beginning tomorrow morning," Dahlan wrote.

Within two hours Dahlan updated the post and removed both the reference to a firm agreement and the specific timeline. The new wording stated that Kushner had informed them of ongoing work with Israel to stop the attacks. Contacts with the US side would continue to ensure full and faithful implementation.

The updated message noted that success hinged on Israel committing fully to ending daily strikes. A Board of Peace official also retracted an earlier assertion that disarmament had already started.

"There is a clear Israeli rejection of the matter of storing the weapons," Mohamed Ibrahim, an Egyptian security analyst involved in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, told The Media Line. "This is the most important problem facing the agreement, and we will make a great effort to solve this problem, which could obstruct implementation."

Israel will continue striking Hamas, says MK Eli Cohen

Energy Minister Eli Cohen stated on Sunday that Israel would persist with operations in Gaza even after Hamas agreed to surrender its weapons. Speaking to Army Radio, the security cabinet member rejected any halt to the assault and supported a complete military takeover of the territory, of which Israel already controls roughly 70 percent. Cohen, who previously served as foreign minister and explored relocation options for Gazans with Rwanda and Congo, indicated movement toward full control "until we reach 100%."

Two people died in Deir al-Balah before the planned halt time. Medics reported nine deaths in Gaza on Sunday morning, rising to 13 by afternoon and at least 15 by evening according to Palestinian medical sources.

An Israeli helicopter hit an apartment in the Al-Mashaala area of Deir al-Balah, killing Kamal Abu Muailaq, head of Hamas administrative body in the city, and his wife. The Israeli military stated the strikes targeted two Nukhba force commanders.

In Gaza City a strike on an apartment in the al-Sousi tower killed Abdullah Adnan Abu al-Tayef, his wife Abeer and their son Azzam. Three members of the al-Hams family, including a child, died in al-Qarara northwest of Khan Yunis.

This marked the second consecutive day of airstrikes since President Donald Trump announced what he described as a historic deal for complete disarmament of Hamas.

Dahlan indicated that talks with Washington were ongoing and that responsibility now rested with Israel.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions accepted the roadmap on Thursday at El-Alamein on Egypt Mediterranean coast. The document designates one body to hold Hamas weapons, and it is not Israel.

Only the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza may hold, store or control weapons in Gaza, according to the text. No weapons may be transferred or surrendered to Israel or any non-Palestinian party. Palestinian factions would participate in identifying and storing them. An International Verification Committee would oversee the process, supported by an International Stabilization Force. Point two requires Israel to cease military operations fully and without delay.

President Trump refers to complete disarmament. Hamas officials avoid that term, as does Cairo.

Hamas would lose independent control of its arsenal. Yet nothing in the document requires weapons to go to Israel or leave Gaza, the two outcomes Israeli officials have deemed essential. Hamas has since submitted amendments to the weapons article and the clause on Gaza government employees. It seeks changes to the definition of military infrastructure to be dismantled, requesting wording that cannot be reinterpreted later. It awaits an Israeli response.

Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas negotiating team, said the movement was making concessions for the sake of people in the Gaza Strip to save them from killing and displacement. Weapons would move into storage only after Israel fulfills its obligations under the Sharm El Sheikh protocol: halting attacks, withdrawing forces, and allowing in aid and commercial goods.

Hamad, a member of Hamas political bureau, told Lebanon LBC TV in October 2023 that the group would repeat the Oct. 7 attack again and again until Israel was annihilated, and that Israel is a country that has no place on our land.

Hamas is demonstrating considerable flexibility and making substantial concessions in an effort to save the Palestinian people in Gaza, Mohammad Seyam, a Palestinian researcher from Gaza based in Doha and a professor of security and conflicts, told The Media Line, and at the same time deprive Israel of its pretexts.

A 15-point roadmap for disarmament

The 15-point roadmap categorizes Gaza arsenal and assigns each category a distinct path.

Police weapons come first. When the committee enters Gaza and begins duties, every police weapon transfers to its authority. Serving officers and new recruits undergo vetting. Hamas police force numbers about 10,000 officers, mostly unarmed and dressed in navy uniforms. Whether any join the new force remains unresolved: Hamas wants them included, while Israel rejects any officer with Hamas ties.

The same commission is tasked with rebuilding Gaza civil registration and identity systems and coordinating with the Palestinian Authority, Israel and international partners on a unified population registry. Israel has controlled that registry since Oslo; births, marriages, deaths and address changes all require Israeli approval.

Heavy weapons follow through a gradual, sequential process covering heavy arms, production facilities, depots and tunnels. The text calls for decommission and store. It does not specify location, guards, inspector access, or whether items will be destroyed.

Personal weapons include rifles and pistols held by individuals, families and clans rather than factions. Under the roadmap they fall under Palestinian law, with the committee alone registering and licensing them, revoking licenses and enforcing rules. Civilians could sell privately owned weapons, and the roadmap calls on factions, clans and other parts of Palestinian society to cooperate.

No published estimate exists of how many such weapons are in Gaza. Large clans have been heavily armed for decades. Hamas tried and failed to disarm the Doghmush family of Sabra in Gaza City repeatedly after the movement founding in the 1980s, in clashes that continued through last October. Armed groups outside Hamas now field roughly 3,000 fighters across the Strip, according to Sky News Data and Forensics Unit.

Militias outside Hamas are covered too. Their weapons go into committee storage, and their members are barred from the new police and security services. Israel has armed and supported anti-Hamas groups inside Gaza.

Dahlan called on all Palestinian factions to abide by the agreement, end all armed activity and refrain from any actions that could give Israel a pretext to undermine it.

The stabilization force would not police Palestinians. It deploys between Israeli troops and committee-run areas, watches the ceasefire, trains Palestinian police, guards aid convoys. Internal security stays with the committee. The verification committee decides when the process moves from one stage to the next. The roadmap does not name its members, does not say what happens if they disagree, and does not say what follows if anyone blocks an inspection.

Establishing a stabilization force without clear command structures, UN oversight, and the privileges and immunities established through the United Nations is particularly worrisome, said Susan Akram, a clinical professor at Boston University School of Law, who added that it remains unclear whether the mission is peacekeeping or peace enforcement.

The roadmap makes each stage conditional on the last, and Israel controls the first one.

On Thursday, Netanyahu office said the proposal did not meet Israel demand for the complete demilitarization of Gaza. On Sunday, Doron Spielman, spokesperson for the Prime Minister Office, said Israel had raised serious security concerns with Washington.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called the roadmap unacceptable and said Israel should keep killing Hamas leaders. Ben-Gvir, convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organization, has said the only path to victory is the full conquest of the Gaza Strip, a complete halt to the so-called humanitarian aid, and the encouragement of emigration. Netanyahu himself has not commented publicly.

Israel position is that the weapons leave Gaza, said Nimrod Goren, president and founder of Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, and that Israel signs off on the decommissioning before it moves.

It is essentially an Israeli stamp of approval that it was done according to the expectations, Goren told The Media Line. Only then Israel will move to withdrawal.

When Israeli and Egyptian officers met in Cairo in early July, Egypt said it was willing to take Hamas weapons if they are handed over.

If Israel does not accept the agreement formally, the ground will be prepared for further tension, and we could return to a state of war, Ibrahim said. Egypt will step up coordination with the mediators and the United States in order to pressure Israel into accepting the agreement in full.

The Egyptian state trusts the American administration completely, he said. Without bilateral coordination between Cairo and Washington, he added, Trump original 20-point plan could not have been reached.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke with Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace high representative for Gaza, and with US envoy Steve Witkoff the same day.

There should be simultaneous steps - a gradual Israeli withdrawal against a gradual resolution of the weapons problem, the inventory and storage of the weapons, Ibrahim told The Media Line. If the two parties commit to the principle of simultaneity, the agreement will succeed. The opposite is also true.

Mladenov, the architect of the phased approach, wrote on X that implementation and verification mechanisms must be real and effective, and that the Israeli withdrawal must proceed in parallel with the dismantling of weapons.

Israel narrowly approves the ISF with minor flexibility

What Israel has given Washington is narrow approval for the stabilization force to enter, some flexibility for a partial entry, and a decision not to attack the agreement publicly, Goren said.

All of these smaller operational things, or symbolic or statement-related things, are not really impacting the way the Israeli presence in Gaza looks like, he said. And then he will avoid anything that can bring political backlash during a campaign season.

Israelis vote on October 27. The disarmament sequence runs six to eight months.

The 14-day clock may not have started. The roadmap does not give Hamas two weeks to empty its depots. It gives the parties 14 days to write the implementation timetable, and only after all sides approve the document. The verification committee can extend even that.

There is no real debate on the practicalities, Goren said. This whole discussion about this process is so detached from the debate in Israel.