US General to Oversee Hamas Disarmament Under Gaza Deal, Israeli Official Says

A United States general would oversee the disarmament of Hamas under a Gaza agreement, according to an Israeli government official cited on Monday. The official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached an understanding with US envoy Jared Kushner on the arrangement. Israel is also said to be maintaining that its troops will not withdraw from the Gaza Strip until all Hamas weapons are handed over.

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The report said there has been no immediate confirmation from the United States of any such deal. It also said the disarmament issue is part of the wider agreement signed between Israel and Hamas to end the war in Gaza. The same account said Hamas stated on 31 July that it had agreed to disarm "for the good" of Gaza's population, but only if Israel withdrew from the territory.

Israeli officials have repeatedly linked any withdrawal to what they describe as genuine disarmament. On 31 July, an Israeli official said the military would not leave Gaza until Hamas submitted to "genuine disarmament". Netanyahu later said on 9 August that troops would not leave until Hamas was "truly disarmed".

He also rejected a United States proposal for Gaza, underscoring the gap between the two sides over how any ceasefire arrangement should be implemented. The reported role for a US general would give Washington a direct supervisory function in one of the most sensitive parts of the post-war plan. That matters because disarmament is one of the central unresolved issues in efforts to stabilise Gaza and determine whether a ceasefire can hold.

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It also places the United States more visibly inside the enforcement phase of an agreement that has already exposed major differences between Israel and Hamas. The broader context is a US-backed framework that included a 15-point document presented at the end of July by what was described as Trump's "Peace Council". According to the report, that roadmap was intended to advance stabilisation and reconstruction in Gaza, but the disarmament of Hamas remained a major point of disagreement.

The latest account suggests Israel is still insisting on security control until it sees concrete steps on weapons handover, while Hamas has tied any process to Israeli withdrawal. What remains unclear is whether the reported understanding has been formally approved by the United States or translated into an operational plan. It is also not clear how a US general would exercise authority on the ground, or what mechanism would verify that Hamas has fully disarmed.

The next developments to watch are any official confirmation from Washington, further detail on the supervision role, and whether the ceasefire framework can move forward without renewed dispute over Israeli troop withdrawal.

#Gaza #Hamas #disarmament #Israel #UnitedStates

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