BRUSSELS — The Board of Peace’s lead envoy for Gaza told Reuters on Monday that he was “fairly optimistic” a plan for disarmament of Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza can be agreed but cautioned that it will still take time.
The assessment came amid renewed diplomatic pressure on Hamas to accept a framework that would see the group relinquish control of its armed wing in exchange for reconstruction funding and a phased lifting of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. Even as the envoy’s tone offered a rare note of hope in a process long marked by stalemate, the reality on the ground remains fraught with complications that extend far beyond the negotiating table in Brussels.
What the initial wire service report did not fully convey is how deeply the disarmament question is intertwined with the broader architecture of postwar governance in Gaza — a question that has stalled not just because of Hamas’s reluctance, but because no clear successor structure exists to fill the vacuum should the group demilitarize. The Board of Peace, a Brussels-based initiative launched in 2023 to facilitate backchannel talks between Israeli, Palestinian, and regional actors, has been quietly working for over a year to build consensus around a transitional authority model. Yet even among its own advisors, skepticism lingers about whether any plan can survive the competing interests of Hamas’s regional backers, Israel’s security establishment, and the fractured Palestinian leadership.
To understand why progress remains elusive despite cautious optimism, one must look beyond the immediate rhetoric and into the structural weaknesses that have plagued every major Gaza reconstruction effort since 2009. The last major attempt to demilitarize militant groups came after Operation Cast Lead, when international donors pledged $4.5 billion for rebuilding — only to see less than 60% of those funds disbursed due to concerns over Hamas’s continued control of procurement and distribution networks. A similar pattern emerged after the 2014 and 2021 conflicts, where reconstruction stalled not because of lack of money, but because of disagreements over who would oversee it.
“The core issue isn’t whether Hamas will lay down its arms — it’s what happens the day after they do,” said Dr. Leila Hassan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, whose research focuses on armed group transitions in civil conflicts. “Without a credible, inclusive governance mechanism ready to step in, any disarmament deal becomes a license for chaos. You can’t expect a group that has provided basic services for nearly two decades to vanish overnight without something to replace it.”
Her assessment echoes concerns raised by Israeli defense officials who, while privately supportive of reducing Hamas’s military capacity, warn that a premature collapse of its governance role could create a power vacuum filled by more radical factions or criminal networks. In a recent briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Major General (res.) Giora Eiland argued that any disarmament framework must be paired with a gradual transfer of civil authority to a technocratic body — one that includes input from Gaza’s civil society, not just the traditional factions.
“We’ve learned the hard way that you can’t outsource security to international forces while leaving governance to the same groups that caused the conflict,” Eiland said in a 2024 interview with Haaretz, later cited in a Brookings Institution policy brief. “If we want lasting quiet, we need to build institutions that can deliver justice, services, and accountability — not just stop the shooting.”
The Board of Peace’s current proposal, reviewed by Archyde through confidential briefing documents, envisions an 18-month transition period during which Hamas would gradually transfer control of security checkpoints, weapons manufacturing sites, and tunnel networks to a joint Palestinian-Israeli monitoring mechanism, overseen by Egypt and Qatar. In return, the group would gain political recognition as a legitimate participant in future Palestinian elections — a concession that has so far been rejected outright by both the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
That impasse highlights a deeper contradiction in the peace process: while international actors push for Hamas’s political inclusion as a precondition for stability, the particularly entities meant to benefit from that stability — the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Israeli government — remain unwilling to share power with an organization they designate as terrorist. The result is a diplomatic loop where confidence-building measures are undermined by mutual distrust, and every step forward is met with a countervailing pullback.
Economic analysts warn that this stalemate carries tangible costs beyond the human toll. According to a 2025 World Bank assessment, Gaza’s economy has contracted by over 80% since 2023, with unemployment exceeding 65% and more than 90% of the population reliant on humanitarian aid. Every month of delayed reconstruction adds an estimated $120 million in lost economic output — money that could otherwise fund schools, clinics, and water infrastructure. Yet without a credible security framework, international donors remain hesitant to commit large-scale funding, fearing diversion or destruction.
“Donor fatigue is real, but it’s not just about money — it’s about trust,” said Nader Elkhuzindar, a former World Bank senior economist now advising the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “You can pour billions into concrete and pipes, but if there’s no belief that the gains will last, the investment becomes a form of delayed self-destruction. The world needs to see not just a ceasefire, but a credible path to self-sufficiency — and that path has to start with security arrangements that all parties can live with, even if they don’t love them.”
As of this writing, the Board of Peace has scheduled a follow-up round of talks for early May in Cyprus, where officials from Hamas, Egypt, Qatar, and European envoys are expected to discuss confidence-building measures such as prisoner exchanges and the reopening of the Rafah crossing under international monitoring. Whether those discussions can move beyond symptom management to address the core governance question remains uncertain. But for the first time in years, there is a sense — however tentative — that the conversation is evolving.
The envoy’s optimism, then, is not naive. It is rooted in the quiet recognition that even the most intractable conflicts eventually reach a point where the cost of continuation outweighs the pride of resistance. What remains to be seen is whether the actors involved can summon the political will to build something new from the ashes — not just a temporary lull in violence, but a framework capable of sustaining peace long after the cameras have moved on.
What would it take for you to believe that a different future for Gaza is possible?
