The sequence has become one of the most closely watched questions surrounding the Gaza framework: Will the conflict between Hamas and Israel’s positions over disarmament and troop withdrawal be resolved? On Monday, the Board of Peace offered its clearest answer yet, saying implementation requires Hamas to complete the decommissioning of its arsenal before the Israel Defense Forces withdraw beyond the Yellow Line, consistent with Israel’s position.
The clarification followed a meeting between High Representative Nickolay Mladenov, a Board of Peace delegation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their respective teams. In a statement posted on X afterward, the organization said Hamas had committed to mediators that Israeli withdrawal would begin only after light weapons, heavy weapons and the tunnel network had been decommissioned.
The discussions centered on implementing the Gaza framework, which is intended to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities, transfer authority to civilian governance and create what the Board of Peace described as a safer future for Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza. The organization called the talks “constructive and detailed” and said it and Israel remained aligned on the framework’s ultimate objective.
That objective, the statement said, is the complete removal of weapons from the Gaza Strip and the replacement of armed rule with civilian governance. Achieving it, however, will unfold in stages, with the next phase focused on defining how the transition will be carried out.
Oversight of the process will fall to the International Stabilization Force and the Implementation Verification Committee, whose members include representatives of both the United States and the Board of Peace. The organization added that continued progress depends on every party fulfilling its commitments under the agreed framework.
The clarification also addresses a point that had stalled implementation. Hamas previously said it would neither surrender its weapons nor carry out any phase of the agreement until Israel halted its airstrikes, met its humanitarian aid obligations and completely withdrew its military forces from Gaza.
Israeli officials have consistently maintained that military withdrawal would come only after Hamas had fully demilitarized and surrendered its arsenal. Monday’s statement places that sequence at the center of the implementation process, reaffirming that disarmament precedes any Israeli withdrawal beyond the Yellow Line.
