As U.S. officials continue pressing for a durable end to the Gaza war, the central unresolved issue has been whether Hamas would disarm and whether Israel would accept the sequencing of any withdrawal. That dispute moved back to the center of the conflict on July 30, when President Donald Trump described a “historic” new agreement even as Israeli skepticism quickly cast doubt on the proposal.
Trump’s announcement described a phased disarmament deal, but core terms remained unsettled
President Donald Trump said Thursday, July 30, that his administration’s Board of Peace had reached what he called a “historic” agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. According to The Associated Press and Axios, the framework Trump described would pair Hamas disarmament with a phased Israeli military withdrawal, the transfer of governance to a new Palestinian technocratic administration, and support from an international stabilization force. U.S. officials said the arrangement would be implemented in reciprocal stages rather than all at once.
The broad outlines matched Trump’s existing 20-point Gaza plan, which already called for Hamas to surrender weapons, destroy tunnels and cede control of Gaza to a non-Hamas governing body. AP reported that U.S. and Board of Peace officials said the first near-term step would involve Gaza police turning over weapons within about two weeks, while the surrender of heavy weapons and dismantling of tunnels would come later over a period officials put at roughly 200 to 350 days. Axios reported a similar but somewhat narrower timetable of about 200 to 250 days.
Even as Trump presented the development as a breakthrough, the administration did not point to a formal public Israeli endorsement of the new arrangement. AP reported that Israel had been consulted during the talks, but Israel’s U.N. Mission had no immediate comment after the announcement. That left unanswered whether Israel had accepted the practical sequencing Trump described, especially the linkage between verified disarmament and troop withdrawal.
The immediate impact of Trump’s announcement was not local in a U.S. geographic sense, but it was highly concentrated in Gaza and in Israel’s military decision-making. What was confirmed on July 30 and July 31 was that U.S. officials were publicly presenting the proposal as consistent with commitments Israel had already made under Trump’s earlier ceasefire plan. AP reported that a U.S. official said Israel was not being asked to do anything beyond what it had previously committed to when it agreed to that broader 20-point framework.
What was not confirmed was a fresh Israeli acceptance of the newly described implementation plan. Axios reported that Israeli officials remained deeply skeptical Hamas would actually surrender its weapons. AP likewise said Israel had not indicated that it had agreed, even as Hamas officials spoke of an understanding on disarmament.
That gap matters because Hamas officials publicly described the sequence differently from Trump. Axios reported that senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said Hamas would not take steps on disarmament before Israel withdrew from Gaza, while Trump had described a phased process in which withdrawal would occur as disarmament was completed. The practical result is that the White House described a breakthrough, but the two sides still appeared to differ on who moves first and under what verification system.
The reason this announcement drew immediate scrutiny is that Hamas disarmament has been the core sticking point in the ceasefire’s second phase for months. AP reported that negotiations had largely deadlocked over exactly that issue, alongside reconstruction and the shape of postwar governance. Previous Reuters reporting also described written U.S.-backed proposals that tied Gaza’s political transition to Hamas laying down its weapons, a step Hamas had repeatedly resisted without guarantees of a full Israeli withdrawal.
The humanitarian and military context also helps explain the pressure behind the new push. AP reported that Israel’s military controls more than half of Gaza and that large parts of the territory remain devastated, while Hamas earlier this month said it had dissolved its Gaza government and was preparing to transfer authority to a technical committee backed by the United Nations. That move suggested some willingness to give up formal governance, but not necessarily to surrender weapons on Israel’s timetable.
For residents in Gaza and for Israelis watching the next phase of the war, the immediate takeaway is that no broad wind-down has yet been fully locked in publicly. Trump’s announcement established a new U.S. benchmark for what a settlement could look like, but AP and Axios both reported unresolved timelines, disputed sequencing and continuing Israeli skepticism. Until those points are settled, the practical meaning of the “historic” deal remains limited to a proposed framework rather than a fully confirmed end-state.