On Monday of next week Prime Minister Netanyahu is expected to meet President Trump in the White House. Based on Trump’s social media post he is expected to tell Netanyahu that the war in Gaza must end and all of the hostages must come home. From what we know (I know from first sources) Hamas has four demands: (1) a permanent ceasefire also known as ending the war; (2) withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza; (3) release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons (including those who have killed Israelis); and (4) significantly increased humanitarian aid to Gaza. In exchange, Hamas is prepared to free all of the hostages (50 in number including all of those alive and all of the bodies of those no longer alive); and Hamas is prepared to transfer the governance of Gaza to a Palestinian civilian professional technocrat government. Hamas has not committed itself to disarmament, transferring its weapons to the new Palestinian government, or having its armed personnel or some of them leave Gaza with their families. That is the deal that can be done next week – first when Trump tells Netanyahu to make the deal, and then when Witkoff with Qatar and Egypt tell Hamas to make the deal and then they can all agree on the implementation plan. The war in Gaza could theoretically be over in one to two weeks from now.
My assessment is that once there are no longer Israeli soldiers in Gaza, the armed Hamas personnel will no longer have targets. Hamas does not have the ability or the motivation to continue to shoot rockets and mortars into Israel, once the war is over. They may feel that they need to protect themselves against angry Gazans and may want to continue to hold their arms until they feel more secure or until they are prepared to leave Gaza. The disarming of Hamas will take more time and must be completed by a new (albeit temporary) Palestinian legitimate government in Gaza which is not Hamas. The new Palestinian government will be able to invite Arab forces to come to Gaza to assist in establishing law, order, and governance. They will come, according to what they have said, but only coordinated with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
What needs to happen now is that President Abbas must appoint the head of the temporary Gaza government or a list of names of people to run the government in Gaza. A list of 15 names was published by the Palestinian Authority with the support of Egypt way back in the beginning of March of this year. Most of those names are acceptable to most of the Palestinian people – at least that is what I have been told. Different names can be selected as well. The main point is that this must happen now. There is absolutely no reason for Abbas to wait even one day longer in announcing either the head of the temporary government or the list of names of what was called the “Gaza Support Committee”.
Since Israel prevented a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Turkey from taking place, Abbas should call for a meeting of all of the foreign diplomats based in the Palestinian Authority and Israel to come to Ramallah to voice their opinion, and hopefully support for the Palestinian plan for taking control of Gaza when the war ends. Abbas will receive the support of most of the international community which is essential for having a concrete plan for deal with the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
Taking over Gaza and reuniting Palestinian governance is a Palestinian interest first and foremost and requires Palestinian pro-active decisions right now. If this were to happen now, the Franco-Saudi summit which may be rescheduled to take place in Paris at the end of this month, or in September at the meeting of the UN General Assembly in the framework of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two States Solution (which includes more than 90 countries) would then have a much more concrete agenda for the reconstruction of Gaza and for moving forward in advancing the two states solution.
The international community would be able to push forward to implement the commitments addressed by Abbas in his letter to President Macron from June 10, 2025 which include the disarming of Hamas, the deployment of international forces to protect the Palestinian people with a UN Security Council Mandate, a full peace agreement with Israel for two states. Abbas also committed to new Palestinian elections within one year. Abbas wrote: “The State of Palestine stands ready to assume sole governance and security responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, with Arab and international support. Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces, which will oversee their removal from the Occupied Palestinian Territory, with Arab and international support.” The letter also included a commitment to “revoking the law of payments to families of prisoners and martyrs.”
The war must end now. The hostages must be returned home to Israel. Hamas can no longer govern Gaza and does not present a threat to Israel anymore. Trump can assure Netanyahu that if Hamas tries to rebuild its military capabilities, Israel can re-enter Gaza with the blessing of the United States. Trump can tell Hamas that as long as they do not try to rebuild their military threat against Israel, that the United States will guarantee the ceasefire and the end of the war.
This can all happen in the very near future.
Let me take the other side . . .
“ . . .Hamas does not have the ability or the motivation to continue to shoot rockets and mortars into Israel, once the war is over. . . .”
I don’t know what Hamas’ motivation was, before the 2023 war, to shoot rockets and mortars into Israel. Would “But we signed a truce agreement!” be enough to stop it, in the future?
This appears to be a sticky point and a real hurdle to close the deal: "Hamas has not committed itself to disarmament, transferring its weapons to the new Palestinian government, or having its armed personnel or some of them leave Gaza with their families"