Disarming Hamas: A Framework for Lasting Security

This report is dedicated to those whose lives have been shattered by the Gaza conflict.

October 7 and its aftermath were an act of deliberate human cruelty and moral collapse. But it was also the consequence of years of strategic negligence toward Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly.

Key dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are “managed,” deferred, or ignored do not remain contained. They erupt—in blood spilled, homes destroyed, families torn apart, and lives permanently altered.

We recognize policymakers, security professionals, and practitioners—Israeli, Palestinian, American, regional, and others—who refuse to accept this bloody reality as inevitable. Working under severe political and moral constraints, they believe that serious policy can still reduce violence, restore agency, and turn strategy into real gains for individuals and nations alike.

We thank those who shared their time, experience, and judgment in support of this work. In particular, we acknowledge the designated team who worked with the Economic Cooperation Foundation to develop the disarmament plan underpinning this report, as well as the insights shared by members of Israel Policy Forum’s policy team: Rachel Brandenburg, Michael Koplow, and Alex Lederman.

Responsibility for the research, analysis, and conclusions that follow rests solely with the authors.

Background and Context

The Gaza war that began with the vicious terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, ended in late 2025 without resolving the core problems it exposed: who governs Gaza, who controls force, and how renewed conflict is prevented once high-intensity fighting stops. Israel degraded Hamas militarily at enormous cost. Gaza was left devastated, fragmented, and without a viable civilian or security authority capable of stabilizing daily life, let alone preventing rearmament.

As focus shifted from battlefield outcomes to post-war arrangements, the central challenge became stabilization: resuming humanitarian aid and early recovery; establishing interim governance and security frameworks; and confronting the unresolved role of Hamas—both its residual military capabilities and its continued control of the population. Absent such arrangements, Gaza risks settling into a familiar pattern: humanitarian recovery layered over unresolved armed power.

On September 29, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled the 20-Point Plan to end the Gaza conflict, and on November 17 the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, elevating Trump’s plan into an internationally endorsed roadmap from ceasefire to stabilization and reconstruction. Over the long term, the framework fleetingly pointed toward reintegration with the West Bank under a reformed Palestinian Authority (PA), which might set conditions for eventual statehood. In the short and medium term, however, Gaza was placed under an unusually robust international trusteeship, under the newly created Board of Peace, endowed with sweeping transitional powers inside Gaza—civilian and security-related—and designed to concentrate authority rather than disperse it. Operating through an Executive Board, a high representative on the ground (former U.N. senior envoy Nickolay Mladenov) and a technocratic Palestinian governing body (the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG), the architecture sought to align governance, security, humanitarian delivery, reconstruction, and demilitarization under a single stabilization logic. This is not a light-touch coordination mechanism, but a full-spectrum attempt to impose order, credibility, and accountability on Gaza’s post-war transition, at least on paper.

Yet even with this unusually extensive international architecture, the reality on the ground remains stubbornly political. External actors can enable, finance, monitor, and pressure; but they cannot impose outcomes unilaterally. In practice, Israel and Hamas retain the greatest veto power over whether stabilization mechanisms function or fail: Israel through its military posture and freedom of action; Hamas through its ability to obstruct, evade, or selectively comply while maintaining coercive influence over Gaza’s population.

Against this backdrop, in early 2026 differences between the United States and Israel over Gaza center largely on sequencing rather than end goals. Washington conditions reconstruction on the initiation of disarmament, arguing that limited reconstruction inputs can begin once the process starts. Israel remains skeptical of allowing construction materials to enter Gaza before disarmament is far advanced, fearing diversion to militant infrastructure. Similar uncertainty surrounds Israeli withdrawal, with unresolved disagreement over whether redeployment should track incremental disarmament benchmarks or be deferred until weapons are fully removed and/or a credible international force deployed.

This is the context in which disarmament moves to the center of the policy debate. Like reconstruction and civilian governance, disarmament is not merely technical; it hinges on legitimacy. Dismantling Hamas and other armed factions, preventing rearmament, and establishing a credible monopoly over force are undertakings with inevitable setbacks and a high risk of failure. 

But Gaza is not the first post-conflict arena to confront this dilemma. This report examines three models for advancing Hamas’ disarmament: coercive disarmament through military force, non-kinetic coercion, and negotiated disarmament. The latter draws on a body of international practice—political as much as technical—that seeks to align security operations with legitimacy and political arrangements into a single framework commonly referred to as Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR).

Strategic Overview

The post-war framework must aim first and foremost to sustainably stabilize Gaza and the Gaza–Israel arena. Achieving this goal requires the synchronized advancement of three mutually reinforcing elements: disarmament of Hamas and demilitarization of Gaza, establishing a non-violent Palestinian governing authority, and large-scale reconstruction of Gaza. None can succeed on its own; security, governance, and recovery must advance together.

• At the core of this framework lies Hamas’ disarmament and demilitarization of the strip, as envisioned in point 13 of President Trump’s 20-Point Plan. Disarmament is the essential security enabler: without it, any ceasefire remains fragile, reconstruction is vulnerable to diversion and destruction, and no alternative governing authority can operate with legitimacy or coercive capacity. Additionally, disarmament that is not embedded in a broader political and civilian framework risks proving temporary.
• Reconstruction functions as both an outcome and a lever. Large-scale recovery and reconstruction are only feasible once armed spoilers are neutralized, yet reconstruction itself creates incentives for compliance, reinforces public order, and underwrites the credibility of non-Hamas governance. Recent U.S. policy reflects this logic, shifting away from a fragmented, area-by-area approach based on territorial control toward a more holistic reconstruction framework tied to overall security and governance performance. When conditioned on security performance and effective administration, reconstruction becomes a stabilizing force.
• Alternative governance is the institutional hinge of the package. A non-violent governing framework—technocratic in the initial phase and later absorbed by a capable PA following defined reforms—provides the governance needed to consolidate security gains, administer reconstruction, and turn demilitarization into a credible monopoly over force.

Taken together, these elements reinforce each other. The challenge is not linear sequencing, but designing a framework in which security, governance, and recovery advance in parallel. Accordingly, this paper prioritizes disarmament, addressing governance and recovery only to the extent that they enable, condition, or sustain disarmament.

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In this paper, the terms “disarming Hamas” and “demilitarizing the Gaza Strip” are used interchangeably. Analytically, the distinction matters: demilitarization refers to the territory, while disarmament refers to the actors. Strategically, however, the two cannot be separated. As long as Hamas and other armed factions retain weapons, command structures, and coercive capacity, Gaza cannot be meaningfully demilitarized. Conversely, demilitarization that focuses only on weapons stockpiles or infrastructure—without dismantling the organizations that control them—will not endure. In practice, Gaza’s militarization is inseparable from Hamas’ role as an armed governing actor and designated terrorist organization, responsible for systematic attacks against civilians. Disarming Hamas is therefore not a subset of demilitarization; it is its operational core.

Objectives

A process leading to Hamas’ disarmament should:

1. Neutralize Hamas as an armed actor: Achieve the verified disarmament of Hamas and the dismantling of its military wing, eliminating its capacity to conduct terrorist attacks and prevent military reconstitution via durable enforcement and monitoring mechanisms.
2. Restore a monopoly on the use of force: Enable the principle of “one authority, one law, and one gun” by removing all non-state armed actors and consolidating coercive power under a legitimate and non-violent Palestinian governing authority.
3. Reduce long-term security threats to Israel and Gaza: Translate tactical disarmament into sustained strategic stability by removing Gaza as a recurring launchpad for large-scale violence.