President Trump announced a deal for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all armed groups in Gaza, a phased agreement that, if implemented, would mark the most consequential diplomatic breakthrough in the region since the October 7 attack.
Trump posted the announcement Thursday on Truth Social, calling the agreement a "monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY." The deal, brokered with mediation from Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, commits Hamas to surrender its weapons and end all military activity and recruitment. In return, Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza in phases as disarmament milestones are met.
The Board of Peace, a panel chaired by Trump, confirmed that Hamas agreed to a "detailed Roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire," Breitbart reported. Under the terms, Hamas would hand its weapons over to the National Committee for Administration of Gaza, a U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic body. An International Stabilization Force and a new Palestinian police force would then assume security responsibility for the territory.
Senior Hamas officials confirmed the deal's broad outlines. A senior Hamas official told AFP, as Newsmax reported, that "an agreement has been reached regarding the issue of weapons" and that "an agreement has been reached on a gradual withdrawal of (Israeli forces)." Hamas framed the concessions as being made "for the sake of our people in Gaza."
The agreement comes weeks after Hamas dismantled its own government in Gaza to make way for a new governing panel established by the Board of Peace, a step that signaled a willingness to cede political control that few observers expected.
The disarmament process is not a single event. Board of Peace officials told reporters that the surrender of heavy weapons and the decommissioning of Hamas's tunnel network could take between 200 and 350 days, AP News reported. Hamas police weapons would be transferred first to the U.S.-backed Palestinian technocratic committee, with heavier armaments and underground infrastructure addressed in later phases.
Trump laid out the sequencing in his post, writing that "the agreement will be carried out in carefully structured phases." He added:
"As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors."
That phased structure, tying Israeli withdrawal to verified disarmament, is designed to address Israel's core security demand: that Gaza never again serve as a staging ground for the kind of mass-casualty attack carried out on October 7. Trump made the point directly: "The threat that emerged from Gaza on October 7 will NOT be allowed to rebuild!"
The president's broader Middle East posture has leaned heavily on projecting strength and demanding compliance from all sides. His administration pressured Iran to halt strikes in a separate confrontation, and Trump has framed the Gaza disarmament deal as part of a wider 20-Point Plan for regional stability.
AP News noted that "significant implementation challenges remain, including Israeli skepticism and political complications." Israel has not publicly endorsed the disarmament timeline, and the question of whether the Israeli government will accept a phased withdrawal linked to milestones set by the Board of Peace is unresolved.
Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's High Representative for Gaza, acknowledged the gap between agreement and execution. "What happens next matters even more," Mladenov said. "Implementation and verification have to be real."
The Board of Peace itself posted on X that "our focus now turns to implementation", a signal that the panel views the agreement as a starting point, not a finish line.
Trump, for his part, showed no such hesitation. Just The News reported that the president also wrote: "CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL ON THIS AMAZING DEVELOPMENT, THAT EVERYBODY SAID COULD NEVER BE ACHIEVED!" The announcement date was July 30, 2026.
The path to Thursday's announcement began last October, when Trump worked to secure an initial ceasefire and peace agreement between Israel and Hamas. At the time, Hamas did not move to disarm itself, and skeptics dismissed the ceasefire as a pause rather than a turning point.
Earlier this month, Hamas took the unexpected step of dismantling its own government in Gaza, clearing the way for the Board of Peace-approved governing panel. That decision removed one of the largest political obstacles to a disarmament framework, Hamas's insistence on retaining both political and military authority in the territory.
Trump described the agreement as "a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people." He added: "Under this agreement, Gaza will finally be in the hands of a new Palestinian government that serves its PEOPLE."
The identity, composition, and mandate of that new Palestinian government remain undefined in public statements. So does the makeup of the International Stabilization Force. Those details will matter enormously as the 200-to-350-day disarmament window opens, and as both sides test whether the other is acting in good faith.
Trump's record of demanding results from reluctant partners in the region has drawn both praise and criticism. His administration pushed back on critics who questioned American readiness during the Iran confrontation, and the broader White House posture has been to treat diplomatic leverage as inseparable from military credibility.
The Washington Examiner reported that Trump thanked Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey for their mediation roles, an acknowledgment that the agreement required buy-in from regional powers with their own interests in Gaza's future.
The announcement lands in a political environment where Trump's foreign policy authority has been a flashpoint on Capitol Hill. Just days earlier, Senator John Fetterman cast the deciding vote to preserve the president's authority on Iran, a rare bipartisan moment that gave the White House room to operate without congressional interference in the Middle East.
That political breathing room may prove essential. A disarmament deal that stretches across nearly a year of implementation will face constant pressure from skeptics in both parties, from Israeli coalition politics, and from Hamas factions that may resist surrendering their last source of leverage.
Hamas is expected to surrender all weapons within "weeks" and end all military activity and recruitment, according to Just The News, a timeline that, if accurate, would move far faster than the 200-to-350-day window cited by Board of Peace officials for heavy weapons and tunnels. Whether those two timelines describe different categories of arms or reflect genuine disagreement about the pace of compliance is not yet clear.
The White House has been active on multiple fronts simultaneously, and the Gaza deal adds another layer of complexity to an administration already managing confrontations with Iran and internal political dynamics.
Trump called the agreement "a major milestone in the implementation of the Trump 20-Point Plan." The full contents of that plan have not been publicly released, and the disarmament deal is the first component to receive a formal announcement of completion.
Agreements are easy to announce. Disarming a group that has spent two decades building tunnels and stockpiling rockets is the part that matters, and the part that everyone who has tried before has failed to deliver.
