The central challenge facing Trump’s newly launched Board of Peace can be summarized in a single sentence: Hamas still has its guns. As the board convened for its first meeting in Washington Thursday, the disarmament question that underpins the entire Gaza peace process remained entirely unresolved.
Israel and the United States have made clear that Hamas disarmament is the key to progress on all other fronts: reconstruction, governance, withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the deployment of international stabilization troops. Netanyahu specified Sunday that Hamas would need to surrender approximately 60,000 automatic rifles — a figure that captures the scale of the disarmament task.
Hamas, for its part, has agreed in principle to disarm as part of a process leading to Palestinian statehood. But its senior officials have said security forces need to retain some weapons to maintain law and order during the transition period. Ideas under discussion — placing weapons in sealed depots, surrendering heavy arms while keeping handguns — fall far short of what Israel and the US say they require.
The Board of Peace was designed in part to create the political and security framework that would make disarmament possible. More than two dozen countries are founding members, Trump has claimed $5 billion in reconstruction pledges, and a transitional governance committee has been named. But without movement on disarmament, none of these pieces can fall into place.
Arab and Muslim board members have pushed back on the framing that disarmament must come before everything else. They argue that Israel’s continued daily strikes and refusal to withdraw its forces are equally destabilizing, and they are pressing the US to apply pressure to its ally. The first meeting of the board will reveal whether it can hold together a coalition with such divergent views on the fundamental sequencing of the peace process.