U.S. Will Reportedly Allow Hamas To Retain Limited Arms

The United States is reportedly prepared to allow Hamas to keep some of its small arms in exchange for giving up those capable of striking Israel.The draft proposal, which is subject to change, will be shared with Hamas in the coming weeks by President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy and Nickolay Mladenov, a former senior United Nations official, according to the New York Times. White House spokesman, Dylan Johnson, told the Times: “The United States is working closely with all parties and mediators to ensure full implementation of the plan and to advance a durable security framework that supports long-term stability in the region and prosperity for Gaza.”Israel is still confiscating weapons and destroying Hamas tunnels on the eastern side of the Yellow Line in Gaza, but Mr. Netanyahu told Fox News last month that Israel estimates Hamas still has about 60.000 kalashnikovs at its disposal. “That’s what disarmament means – got to take all these rifles, take them away from them, and break up those terror tunnels that they have, still hundreds of kilometers of terror tunnels. Hamas refuses to do it,” he said. Hamas has repeatedly refused to disarm despite agreeing to this under Mr. Trump’s 20-point peace plan that ended the Gaza war in October last year. Earlier this week, senior Hamas official, Khaled Mashal, told Al Jazeera: “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.” Mr. Mashal also claimed that Hamas proposed a truce of anything from five to seven to 10 years. “This is a guarantee that these weapons are not used,” he said, adding that countries who have a “deep relationship with Hamas, can form a guarantee.”No country has yet publicly committed to deploying soldiers to Gaza to actively disarm Hamas as Mr. Trump’s peace plan calls for. But on Tuesday, Indonesia’s army chief of staff, Maruli Simanjuntak, said Jakarta is ready to send between 5.000-8.000 soldiers to Gaza as part of a peacekeeping force that would focus on engineering and medical units.“The total number is approximately 20,000 (across countries) … it is not only Indonesia. We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached and we have to send peacekeeping forces,” presidential spokesman Prasetyo Hadi said on Tuesday. Defense ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirat told Reuters that Indonesia’s plans to contribute to peace and humanitarian support in Gaza “are still in the preparation and coordination stages.”“Operational matters (deployment location, number of personnel, schedule, mechanism) have not yet been finalized and will be announced once an official decision has been made and the necessary international mandate has been clarified,” he added.

U.S. Will Reportedly Allow Hamas To Retain Limited Arms

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