Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau abroad, revealed the movement’s vision for the next phase in the Gaza Strip, proposing what he called a “guarantees approach” as a “realistic, field-based” alternative to international demands to disarm the resistance.
The vision, announced by Mashaal during an interview at the 17th Al Jazeera Forum, includes accepting a “long-term truce,” and deploying international peacekeeping forces on the border, while categorically rejecting any form of external guardianship over Gaza’s administration.
The proposal comes as Israel and the United States insist that Hamas disarm as a precondition for rebuilding Gaza, a demand Mashaal said would leave Palestinians defenseless against occupation.
“Talk about disarmament is an attempt to make the Palestinian people an easy victim that Israel can eliminate,” Mashaal said, framing armed resistance as a response to occupation and a right protected under international law.
“If we return to the big question about the root of the conflict, that it is a matter of occupation, and a people resisting occupation, with the right to self-determination, then the question of resistance, and its weapons, becomes natural,” he added.
He said Hamas’ position rests on what he described as a distinction between “constants and variables.” Resistance, he said, remains constant as long as occupation continues, while its forms may change depending on circumstances. “Sometimes a revolution, sometimes an uprising, and sometimes armed resistance.”
Trump’s plan for a ceasefire in Gaza calls on Israel to withdraw from the Strip and demands Hamas give up its weapons and any role in governing the Strip. However, Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip, and head of its negotiating delegation, Khalil Al-Hayya, had a different view. He previously announced that the movement is open to studying any proposals regarding weapons, but only on condition that they maintain the principle that “resistance and its weapons are a right guaranteed by international laws.”
Details of the “guarantees approach”
Instead of disarmament, Mashaal presented a vision he said had crystallized through indirect dialogue with the US administration, and through mediators in Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar, describing it as a “logical approach” that provides a safe environment for reconstruction while ensuring fighting does not resume.
He said the “guarantees approach” rests on three main pillars: Hamas’ acceptance of a truce lasting five to ten years, as a guarantee that weapons will not be used, or displayed, during the period of the Strip’s recovery; the presence of international peacekeeping forces “on the border” to prevent any clashes or renewed fighting; and the role of regional guarantees, with Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar monitoring and implementing the agreement.
Mashaal noted that the vision Hamas is presenting comes in light of Gaza’s need for an extended period to recover, asking, “Who expects that Gaza, over the next 10 or 15 years, can be demanded to lay down arms in the face of Israel?”
Mashaal warned that Israel’s push to strip Palestinians of their weapons is not a demand for security, but a desire to “place them in the hands of militias affiliated with the occupation to create chaos and carry out assassinations.”
Israel and the United States do not appear ready to abandon disarmament. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in remarks on Wednesday that “Israel will dismantle Hamas if it does not agree to lay down its arms.”
After meeting US envoy Steve Witkoff on Tuesday, Netanyahu affirmed “the uncompromising demand for the disarmament of Hamas” before any step to rebuild the Gaza Strip.
With Cairo recognizing the impossibility of fully disarming Hamas, it proposed a middle-ground solution to “place weapons under control” so they do not pose a threat to Israel, in a path that ensures a ceasefire and a transition to a new political phase. Israel rejects that option.
The situation was summed up by former Lebanese ambassador to Washington Massoud Maalouf in press statements as a “wide gap and a big difference between the Egyptian and Israeli positions,” explaining that Netanyahu “clings to impossible demands to ensure the military confrontation continues.”
No external guardianship
On “the day after” proposals and the future of governance in Gaza, Mashaal reaffirmed the movement’s commitment to finding a balanced approach that allows aid entry, and reconstruction, without abandoning national constants, stressing, “We do not accept the logic of guardianship, external intervention, or a return of the mandate. Palestinians govern Palestinians.”
He invoked the Iraqi model to warn against external interventions, saying, “We will not allow a new Paul Bremer inside Gaza or Palestine,” referring to the former head of the US administration in Iraq, and affirming that Gaza belongs to its people, and Palestine belongs to Palestinians.
On guarantees to prevent the war from recurring, Mashaal said halting the “war of extermination” was an achievement, and that there is broad, comprehensive Palestinian national consensus, not only within Hamas, on not going backward or to the option of war at present, to ensure reconstruction continues and to avoid giving Israel new pretexts.
Mashaal concluded by saying the “main point of strength” now is the steadfast Palestinian presence on the ground, considering the thwarting of forced displacement the “greatest strategic achievement” accomplished and a force that no global power can defeat.
The United States has sought since January 2025 to displace Palestinians from Gaza. At the time, US President Donald Trump called on Egypt and Jordan to accept a number of Gaza residents. The call was met with a categorical rejection from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who said relocating and displacing the Palestinian people is “an injustice we cannot take part in.” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians.
To confront the displacement plan, Egypt prepared a plan to rebuild Gaza without displacement, adopted at an emergency Arab summit in Cairo. The plan takes five years to implement, and costs about $53 billion. It includes forming a committee to manage the Strip’s affairs in a six-month transitional phase that covers rubble removal, and installing temporary housing in seven sites that can accommodate more than 1.5 million people.
