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The world is celebrating a possible breakthrough for Gaza, but the details still hinge on Israel’s decisions. Hamas agreed last week to total disarmament in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territory and a technocratic committee governing Gaza with the protection of an international force. The agreement can hold only if compliance on both sides is independently verified and a political road map is in place — not just promises.

The Hamas movement, headed by a newly elected leader, Khalil al Hayya, agreed July 31 to the 15-point road map presented by the U.S.-created Board of Peace for implementing the next phases of the Trump administration’s Gaza peace initiative.

But before anyone can start celebrating, Israel must also agree — and make good on its agreements.

To be precise, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been hesitant in reacting to the plan. His political future and legacy may depend on the general election coming Oct. 27, and silence in the meantime could be his best strategy to avoid political repercussions for responding. Yet Israeli forces attacking Gaza on Sunday, just after the peace deal was announced, spoke louder than any politician, triggering an angry response from the negotiator for the Board of Peace.

“Two days of strikes across Gaza have killed civilians and destroyed medical supplies,” the negotiator, Nickolay Mladenov, wrote on X. The BBC reported that at least 13 people, including several children, had been killed in the latest strikes on Gaza since Hamas’ agreement to disarm.

Israel claims it is reluctant to withdraw occupying forces because it doesn’t trust Hamas. Palestinians counter that recent history shows Israel is the untrustworthy party. Since the current ceasefire went into effect, not a single bullet has been shot by any Palestinian in Gaza, while Israel has continued to wreak havoc. That continues a clear pattern: Doctors Without Borders reported that 1,185 Palestinians have been killed and 3,816 injured since the Sharm el-Sheikh ceasefire was announced Oct. 10. This is roughly one Palestinian killed or injured every hour and 20 minutes, for nine months. As of June 19, more than 265 children have been killed, according to UNICEF.

The broader lesson from conflicts around the world is that ceasefires endure only when they can be observed and checked. Allowing a third party to monitor a ceasefire is one way to reduce violations and disputes.

Under the terms of the deal, the technocratic committee, whose Palestinian membership Israel approved, has yet to be allowed to enter Gaza. The terms of the latest plan, modeled on the 1998 Good Friday decommissioning of IRA weapons in Northern Ireland, call for all heavy Hamas weapons to be placed in locked warehouses in Gaza whose keys will be in the hands of Palestinians. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, led by General Commissioner Ali Abdul Hamid Shaath, is expected to govern Gaza with assistance from an international force and control these warehouses. However, the entry of this 5,000-member force needs to be approved by the Israeli prime minister and defense minister.

Another critical issue history has taught us is that a ceasefire needs more than neutral external observers: A political path must also be laid out. Item 19 in the Trump administration’s 20-point plan, in what became a binding UN Security Council resolution, calls for a political process that leads “to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

Since the U.S.-sponsored ceasefire was declared, Israel has also unilaterally expanded its control of Gaza from 53% in October to more than 60% now. Although the expansion violates the ceasefire deal, Washington and the U.S.-backed Board of Peace overseeing the deal’s implementation have seemingly let it slide as negotiators sought to persuade Hamas to accept the disarmament proposal first.

Hamas has said it will begin to carry out its part of the disarmament deal once Israel withdraws from those areas it reoccupied in Gaza after the ceasefire.

Israel’s longest-serving prime minister is awaiting decisions on four charges in a criminal corruption court and the possibility of an official investigative committee into the events leading up to and on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. The Oct. 27 general elections will determine whether Netanyahu can again cobble together 61 mandates to form a majority in the 120-member Knesset. If his opponents fail, he would stay as acting prime minister until new elections can take place.

The ball is clearly now in the Israeli court as the Palestinian side has reluctantly agreed to yet another change of the agreed-upon deals. What will Washington do if Netanyahu refuses or attempts to suggest a counterproposal that includes yet another change of the goalposts? His proposals are often aimed at the other side, which refuses them. This allows Israel to claim that it is not an obstacle to peace. Will the Israeli leader again get away without accountability? Can any peace deal move forward while he remains in power?

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and a former professor of journalism at Princeton University. X: @daoudkuttab

Perspectives

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

Ideas expressed in the piece

• The column contends that the widely hailed Gaza peace breakthrough is structurally fragile because it lacks one indispensable element: a credible, independently verified political roadmap that converts ceasefire promises into enforceable steps toward Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood, rather than leaving the deal as a narrow security arrangement.
• In laying out the current framework, the piece notes that Hamas, under newly elected leader Khalil al Hayya, has agreed to total disarmament in Gaza in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal, a technocratic Palestinian committee to administer the strip, and protection by an international force, arguing that the Palestinian side has already made major, reluctant concessions to keep the process alive. - [1]- [5]- [6]
• At the same time, the article emphasizes that implementation is effectively blocked on the ground by Israel: the technocratic committee, whose membership Israel has vetted, still has not been permitted to enter Gaza, and the 5,000-member international force cannot deploy without authorization from the Israeli prime minister and defense minister, leaving governance and security arrangements in limbo. - [1]- [5]- [6]- [13]
• The piece further argues that recent Israeli military actions and territorial moves undermine the very ceasefire Israel claims to uphold, pointing to continued strikes in Gaza after Hamas accepted the disarmament roadmap and to Israel’s unilateral expansion of its control over Gaza’s territory in violation of ceasefire understandings, while Palestinians in Gaza have, according to the column, observed the truce without firing a shot.
• Drawing on casualty figures from international humanitarian organizations, the article describes a pattern in which Palestinians are killed or injured at regular intervals despite the ceasefire, including large numbers of children, and uses this record to claim that Israel, not Hamas, has been the main violator of the agreement and therefore the less trustworthy party when it comes to honoring commitments.
• In addition, the column argues that experience from other conflicts shows ceasefires only endure when there are neutral, empowered verification mechanisms and a clear political horizon; it cites the Good Friday Agreement model for decommissioning IRA weapons as an example of how locked, inspected arms depots and independent monitoring can work, and contends that similar tools are needed in Gaza but remain only partially and conditionally in place. - [2]- [4]- [10]
• The article highlights a specific political gap in the Trump administration’s 20-point plan: although a UN Security Council resolution tied to the plan references a “political process” leading to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, the piece argues that there is still no concrete timeline, mechanism, or guarantee for this outcome, so Palestinians are being asked to disarm without a firm, enforceable path to freedom and sovereignty. - [1]- [5]- [10]
• Moreover, the column portrays Washington and the U.S.-backed Board of Peace as overly deferential to Israel, accusing them of allowing Israeli violations and goalpost-shifting—such as expanded control of Gaza’s territory—to slide while pressing Hamas to accept ever more stringent disarmament terms, thereby deepening Palestinian distrust of U.S. mediation. - [1]- [5]- [10]- [11]
• Turning to Israeli politics, the piece suggests that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hesitation to endorse or implement the deal stems less from security considerations than from personal political calculations related to looming elections and ongoing corruption proceedings, and warns that this dynamic allows the Israeli leader to stall or alter the deal while still claiming Israel is not an obstacle to peace.
• Finally, the article raises the broader question of accountability, arguing that as long as Netanyahu can block or dilute implementation without serious consequences from Washington or the international community, no durable peace is likely; the piece therefore implies that meaningful progress may require either robust external pressure on the current Israeli government or political change in Israel so that a new leadership is willing to accept verifiable withdrawal, international monitoring, and a binding roadmap to Palestinian statehood. - [1]- [5]- [10]- [14]

Different views on the topic

• In contrast to the column’s focus on Israeli obstruction, some security analysts argue that the most serious flaw in the current deal is not the absence of a political roadmap but the lack of concrete, operational detail on disarming Hamas and dismantling its military infrastructure; these experts point out that the agreement is vague on timelines, benchmarks, and enforcement mechanisms for demilitarization, especially regarding Hamas’ extensive tunnel network and the fate of smaller arms. - [4]- [6]
• From this perspective, Israel’s reluctance to withdraw fully or to greenlight an international force is seen less as bad faith and more as a response to genuine security risks, with analysts noting that any premature pullout or under-resourced stabilization force could enable Hamas or other armed groups to rearm and regroup, potentially leading to another devastating round of conflict. - [4]- [6]- [13]
• Other critics focus their skepticism on the Trump plan itself rather than primarily on Israel: U.S. commentators writing in outlets such as The Dispatch have described the 20-point framework as a triumph of “marketing over substance,” arguing that neither Israel nor Hamas has signed a binding peace accord and that the core documents commit the parties only to vague, non-enforceable promises, making talk of a genuine “peace plan” misleading. - [1]- [3]- [11]
• Israeli-aligned voices quoted in that critique further insist that what exists today is, at most, a ceasefire-for-hostages arrangement rather than a comprehensive peace process, and thus they contend that expectations of rapid, far-reaching political moves—such as full withdrawal or immediate statehood commitments—are unrealistic and not grounded in what Israel’s government ever formally accepted. - [3]- [11]
• In addition, several U.S.-based policy organizations argue that the deal’s implementation problems reflect the behavior of both warring parties, not just Israel; J Street, for example, assesses that the Board of Peace “has failed to convince Hamas and Israel to take the steps outlined in the plan,” concluding that both sides have often preferred the status quo to making meaningful concessions on disarmament, governance, and withdrawal. - [1]- [5]
• Some experts caution that the plan’s deeper weaknesses lie in its limited Palestinian political ownership and its complex, overlapping security architecture, rather than simply in Netanyahu’s stance: Carnegie Endowment analysts, for instance, criticize the fact that the framework was negotiated primarily with Hamas, not with a broader, representative Palestinian partner, and warn that any model that contemplates simultaneous roles for Hamas, Palestinian police, an international stabilization force, and the Israeli army is inherently unsustainable and unlikely to attract Arab troop contributors. - [8]- [9]
• These critics therefore suggest that even if Israel were to promptly approve the technocratic committee and international force, the agreement could still fail without a more inclusive Palestinian political process and stronger multilateral backing—an emphasis that differs from the column’s tight focus on Israeli accountability and Netanyahu’s personal politics. - [8]- [9]- [10]
• Meanwhile, Israeli government supporters and some U.S. commentators stress Israel’s right and obligation to defend its population, including by maintaining a security perimeter inside Gaza and continuing operations until Hamas is verifiably disarmed and all hostages are returned; they frame ongoing military actions and territorial control not as violations of the ceasefire but as necessary self-defense measures in the absence of credible guarantees that Hamas will not reconstitute its capabilities. - [4]- [7]- [12]- [13]
• Security-focused think tanks also highlight the unresolved practical questions around the proposed International Stabilization Force—its mandate, rules of engagement, composition, and chain of command—and note that Arab and other potential contributors have been cautious about committing troops; in this view, Israeli hesitation is partly a function of uncertainty over who would actually secure Gaza and how, rather than solely a political gambit by Netanyahu. - [2]- [4]- [13]
• Finally, a number of American and Israeli analysts argue that the omission of an explicit, near-term commitment to a Palestinian state is deliberate and appropriate, reflecting skepticism that rapid statehood is feasible or stabilizing under current conditions; instead, they advocate a gradual, conditions-based approach in which progress on security, governance reform, and reconstruction precedes any definitive steps toward sovereignty, a sequencing that runs counter to the column’s insistence on front-loading a clear statehood pathway. - [1]- [4]- [5]- [11]