US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace has presented Hamas with a written proposal on how it could lay down its weapons, two sources said, a step the Palestinian terrorists have thus far refused to take as the US president pushes on with his plan for Gaza's future.
The proposal, first reported by NPR, was submitted to Hamas during meetings in Cairo over the past week, one of the sources said.
"The idea itself that Hamas would disarm is not out of the question," Robert Danin, a former senior US State Department and White House official specializing in the Middle East, told NPR at the time. "The question is, when and under what circumstances and at what price?"
The talks were attended by Nickolay Mladenov and Aryeh Lightstone, the two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Mladenov is the Trump-appointed Board of Peace envoy to Gaza. Lightstone is a US aide to Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump's Gaza plan, to which Israel and Hamas agreed in October, sees Israeli troops withdrawing from Gaza and reconstruction starting as Hamas lays down its weapons.
Mladenov on Thursday said that serious efforts were underway to bring relief to war-torn Gaza, with a framework agreed by the mediators that could advance reconstruction in the enclave, much of which lies in ruins.
"It is now on the table. It requires one clear choice: full decommissioning by Hamas and every armed group, with no exceptions and no carve-outs. In this season of hope, may those responsible make the right choice for the Palestinian people," Mladenov said on X/Twitter in a post for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
Representatives of Hamas were not immediately available for comment on Saturday, the second day of the holiday. Talks on disarmament had been placed on hold at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began on February 28.
Amnesty offer may be on the table
US officials have said that Iran-backed Hamas could be offered amnesty in any deal under which they agree to lay down any heavy weaponry and light arms, including rifles.
Sources close to Hamas say the group would likely refuse to give up its rifles for fear of attacks by rival militias in Gaza, some of which have backing from Israel. Hamas and its rivals have staged deadly attacks on one another since the October ceasefire.
One of the sources said much would depend on what is acceptable to Israel, which demands the group’s complete disarmament.
Some of Hamas's prominent officials have outright rejected any disarmament over the past few months.
For example, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who sits on the five-person committee currently running the terror group, rejected disarmament during a February Al Jazeera Forum in Qatar.
“In the context that our people are still under occupation, talking about disarmament is an attempt to make our people an easy victim to be eliminated and easily exterminated by Israel, which is armed with all international weaponry,” Mashaal said at the time.
Israel has shown no sign of withdrawing its troops, who are in control of around half of Gaza's territory, with Hamas keeping a firm grip on the other half of the enclave and its two million population, most of which has been rendered homeless by two years of devastating war.
The source said that amnesty and targeted investments in Gaza were being offered as incentives for Hamas, but said that it was unclear whether the Board of Peace would have funds to pay for it.
Trump garnered some $7 billion in pledges in February from countries, including some in the Gulf, before those same countries came under attack by Iran in a widening Middle East war.
The source said that only a small portion of the pledged funds had actually been provided, without specifying the amounts.