Trump’s Team Pitches Israel ‘Peaceful’ Way to Disarm Hamas – Report
Israeli soldiers take up positions next to an entrance of a tunnel which the military says Hamas militants used in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Trump administration has floated a plan to Israel aimed at getting Hamas fighters to give up their weapons voluntarily, reports Axios, citing US officials.The idea is to use the ongoing standoff with Hamas militants trapped in tunnels behind Israeli lines in Gaza—particularly in the city of Rafah—as a “test case” for disarming the group, says the publication, citing US officials.The proposal is that fighters in the tunnels surrender, hand over their weapons to a third party (Egypt, Qatar, or Turkiye), and get amnesty from Israel—in return, they will be transferred back to Hamas-controlled areas while their tunnels are destroyed. Precisely, the plan was presented last week, when Hamas fighters in Rafah were offered 24 hours of safe passage across the “yellow line” dividing zones of control. Hamas hesitated — then agreed — but by then Israel said the window had closed. Now, American officials, with a little help from Turkiye’s Intel Chief Ibrahim Kalin, are reportedly scrambling to salvage the idea. This model “could possibly be expanded later to other areas in Gaza,” one US official is cited as saying, while another added: “The Israelis are being maximalist as usual, but we are in the middle of negotiations.” Getting Hamas fighters to voluntarily drop their weapons is the trickiest piece of Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Furthermore, amnesty for the militants is a political red line for Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition.
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