Who disarms first in Gaza?

The agreement on record is the twenty-point Comprehensive Plan of 29 September 2025, which the UN Security Council endorsed in resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025 by 13 votes to none. Its point 13 provides for “a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors,” and its point 3 holds Israeli forces at “the agreed upon line” until “conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.” The plain question a reader brings is who moves first and by what date. The endorsed text answers the first only by sequence and the second not at all: it sets no date for decommissioning or withdrawal, never names the monitors, and gives the demilitarization mandate to an International Stabilization Force that the Board of Peace’s own May 2026 report records as still in “force generation and deployment.”

Key Findings

• UN Security Council resolution 2803 (2025) endorsed the twenty-point Comprehensive Plan on 17 November 2025 by 13 votes to none, with China and the Russian Federation abstaining, as recorded in S/PV.10046 (United Nations Security Council, 2025).
• The phrase “independent monitors” appears 2 times in resolution 2803 (2025), both inside point 13 of the annexed Plan and both attached to weapons decommissioning; the text does not say who the monitors are or who appoints them (United Nations Security Council, 2025).
• The Board of Peace’s own report S/2026/418 of 15 May 2026, the only one filed under operative paragraph 10 as of 10 September 2026, records the International Stabilization Force as still in “force generation and deployment,” with 5 Member States signing as founding contributors on 19 February 2026 (Board of Peace, 2026).
• The only date resolution 2803 (2025) sets for the arrangements it authorises is the sunset of “Dec. 31, 2027” in operative paragraph 8; no date governs decommissioning or the complete staged withdrawal (United Nations Security Council, 2025).
• The Interim Agreement signed by Israel and the PLO on 28 September 1995 set three further redeployments at six-month intervals, to be completed within 18 months of the Palestinian Council’s inauguration (Israel and the PLO, 1995).

What does the endorsed Gaza plan say about disarmament and withdrawal?

The UN Security Council endorsed the twenty-point Comprehensive Plan in resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025 by 13 votes to none, with China and the Russian Federation abstaining, as the verbatim record S/PV.10046 shows. The Plan is annexed to the resolution in full, and it pairs a decommissioning process under monitors with an Israeli withdrawal held until unstated conditions are met.

The disarmament term is point 13 of the annexed Plan, verbatim: “There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning.” The same point continues that the process is “supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors.”

The withdrawal term is point 3, the cessation clause, verbatim: “If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.”

The Council wrote the endorsement, not the terms. Operative paragraph 1 of resolution 2803 (2025) “Endorses the Comprehensive Plan, acknowledges the parties have accepted it, and calls on all parties to implement it in its entirety, including maintenance of the ceasefire, in good faith and without delay.” The Plan is dated 29 September 2025, and the Council’s endorsement followed 49 days later.

The two texts differ in vocabulary. The word “ceasefire” appears 3 times in the resolution’s operative paragraphs and 0 times in Annex 1, which describes the war ending “immediately,” operations “suspended” and lines “frozen.” Operative paragraph 2 also restates several Plan points in altered wording, including the sequencing of the pathway described in Plan point 19, so the Council’s endorsement and the Plan’s terms are two texts, not one wording.

Who says Hamas must disarm before Israel withdraws, and since when?

Point 3 of the Plan endorsed in resolution 2803 (2025) does tie the two together, because Israeli battle lines “will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.” The Israel Defense Forces, a party to the conflict, wrote on a page dated 19 February 2026 that the plan’s first phase required that Hamas “fully disarm.”

That sentence is the IDF’s own characterisation, not the Plan’s wording. In full, the IDF page reads: “The conditions of the ceasefire consist of a 20-point plan, whose first phase stated that Hamas would return all 48 of the remaining hostages in Gaza, and fully disarm.” The Plan’s own disarmament wording, in point 13, is “demilitarization” through “an agreed process of decommissioning,” and point 13 attaches no phase number to it.

Three further statements in May 2026 place the obstacle on Hamas’s side, each in the speaker’s own words.

The Board of Peace is the transitional administration the resolution itself created, chaired by the President of the United States under Plan point 9. Its report names “Hamas’ refusal to accept verified decommissioning” as the principal obstacle at paragraph 3, and that is the Board’s own attribution, not a determination by any court, inquiry or third party. The @IsraelMFA post of 18 May 2026 and the @cogatonline post of 25 May 2026 are statements by official accounts of a party to the conflict and are quoted as that party’s own words.

The dated sequence runs from February to May 2026. Over those months, the Israeli statements and the Board’s report converge on one reading of the frozen front in point 3: the conditions it refers to include disarmament or decommissioning. Point 3 itself does not list them.

Where do Israeli forces stand while disarmament is pending?

Point 3 of the Plan endorsed in resolution 2803 (2025) holds Israeli forces at “the agreed upon line,” with battle lines that “will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.” Denmark’s representative told the Council at its 17 November 2025 meeting that “the ceasefire entered into force on 10 October,” before any line had been endorsed.

The Israel Defense Forces, a party to the conflict, give the hour in their own words: “On Friday, October 10th, 2025, at 12:00 PM, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect.” Resolution 2803 followed 38 days later, so the line forces withdrew to was in place before the Council endorsed the Plan that refers to it.

Point 3 states an order of events and nothing more: withdrawal to a line, a frozen front, conditions, then a complete staged withdrawal. It lists neither the conditions nor the stages, and it sets no date for any of them.

The line has a name in practice that the instrument never uses. The IDF’s own entry of 20 October 2025 reads: “the IDF identified several terrorists who crossed the yellow line and approached IDF troops operating in the Shejaiya area, posing an immediate threat to them. The troops fired toward the terrorists who crossed the yellow line in order to remove the threat to them.” The terms “terrorists” and “immediate threat” are the IDF’s own. The words “yellow line” appear in neither the operative paragraphs of resolution 2803 (2025) nor Annex 1, and neither text defines or maps the line. Its course is an implementation arrangement between the parties.

BBC News reported in its live coverage of the plan that Israeli forces would move to the agreed Yellow Line within 24 hours of the Israeli government’s approval. That timing is the BBC’s account of the plan, not a term printed in the endorsed instrument.

Who verifies that Hamas weapons are put beyond use?

Resolution 2803 (2025) contains exactly one set of “independent monitors,” and the phrase appears 2 times, both inside point 13 of the annexed Plan and both attached to weapons decommissioning. The Plan does not say who the monitors are, who appoints them, what they publish, or to whom they report.

A second body carries a demilitarization function in the same document. Operative paragraph 7 of resolution 2803 (2025) authorises “a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza to deploy under unified command acceptable to the BoP,” to “use all necessary measures to carry out its mandate consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law,” and to ensure “the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.” Demilitarization therefore appears twice, attached to two bodies: the unnamed monitors in the Plan, which the Council annexed, and the ISF in a paragraph the Council wrote itself. Neither text states how the two relate.

The ceasefire monitoring mandate is a third and narrower clause. Operative paragraph 7(A) provides that the ISF “shall, (A) assist the BoP in monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza,” and paragraph 7(B) that it will be “funded through voluntary contributions from donors and BoP funding vehicles and governments.” The clause creates no duty to count, classify, attribute or publish anything. The word “violation” appears 0 times in the resolution and its annex, so the instrument also defines no breach of the decommissioning process that any monitor could record.

A later text names a verification body that the 2025 instrument does not. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies reported on 31 July 2026 that the Board of Peace had announced a Hamas disarmament agreement. The text of that deal as published by the Associated Press in 2026 refers to an International Verification Commission, alongside the ISF and a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza that would hold decommissioned weapons. Resolution 2803 (2025) contains no commission of that name, and no Council document endorsing the 2026 text was located on the Official Document System as of 10 September 2026.

Has the force meant to demilitarize Gaza deployed?

The Board of Peace’s own report S/2026/418, dated 15 May 2026 and covering the first seven months, records that the ISF had not deployed: paragraph 37 states “Preparations for deployment are well advanced,” and paragraph 38 states “Efforts are ongoing in force generation and deployment.” The report is the Board’s own account of its own implementation.

Paragraph 37 sets out the command arrangement, verbatim: “The ISF operates under the unified command of the United States through Major General Jasper Jeffers, and in close consultation and cooperation with the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel.” Paragraph 38 adds: “The ISF supports ceasefire monitoring... Deployments are anticipated in phases.” The report states no troop number, no deployment date and no sector.

Force generation had produced commitments rather than deployments by the reporting date. Paragraph 39 records that the Declaration of Founding Contributors to the ISF was signed on 19 February 2026 by 5 Member States, Albania, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Morocco, and that “A pre-deployment site survey by troop contributors was also completed in late April 2026.”

The body operating in the meantime is a coordination centre, not a force. Paragraph 28 reads: “The Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC), established on 17 October 2025, has served as the principal operational mechanism for this function during the reporting period, involving 50 partner nations and organizations.” The function in that paragraph is humanitarian coordination, and the report does not describe the CMCC as carrying out decommissioning.

The provenance of the report bears on how it is read. The Board of Peace is the transitional administration the resolution created, and the report was transmitted to the Council as the annex to a letter from the Permanent Representative of the United States, signed by Michael G. Waltz. The United States is one of the Plan’s guarantors and the penholder on the resolution, so the account is a party’s report on its own implementation, not an independent assessment.

Who guarantees that Hamas meets its obligations?

Point 14 of the Plan annexed to resolution 2803 (2025) assigns the guarantee to unnamed third parties, verbatim: “A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.” The Plan does not name the partners; the joint declaration welcomed in the resolution’s preamble carries 4 state signatures.

Point 15 adds one further mechanism, verbatim: “A deconfliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.” It names no members and no date.

The preamble of resolution 2803 (2025) welcomes “the historic Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity of 13 October 2025 and the constructive role played by the United States of America, the State of Qatar, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the Republic of Türkiye, in having facilitated the ceasefire.” The Declaration, signed at Sharm el-Sheikh, carries four signatures: Donald J. Trump for the United States, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for Egypt, Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani for Qatar, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for Türkiye. Israel did not sign it, and neither did Hamas, the Palestinian Authority or any Palestinian body.

The Declaration contains no disarmament term, no withdrawal term, no ceasefire term and no monitoring provision. Its nearest operative sentence reads: “We hereby commit to the resolution of future disputes through diplomatic engagement and negotiation rather than through force or protracted conflict.” It opens by welcoming “the truly historic commitment and implementation by all parties to the Trump Peace Agreement.”

Two features of the published record attach to any quotation from it. The official United States text in the Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, DCPD-202501008, carries an editorial note from the Office of the Federal Register: “An original was not available for verification of the content of this joint statement.” And the two United States texts differ: the govinfo text prints the fourth signatory as “Recep Tayyip Edoğan” [sic], the White House text as “Erdoğan,” and the two file the document under different classes, Joint Statement and Presidential Memoranda. No agreed multilateral text was located on any Egyptian, Qatari or Turkish government host.

The obligations point 14 refers to are Hamas’s and “the factions’,” but the guarantee is written as an undertaking by third states the Plan leaves unnamed, and the one document the four mediators did sign holds no clause on disarmament or withdrawal for them to guarantee.

Does the plan set a deadline for disarmament or withdrawal?

Resolution 2803 (2025) sets no date for decommissioning or for the complete staged withdrawal. Its only date for the arrangements it authorises is the sunset in operative paragraph 8, printed as “Dec. 31, 2027”: the Board of Peace and the international presences “shall remain authorized until Dec. 31, 2027, subject to further action by the Council.” That gives the arrangements 25 months of authorisation from the November 2025 vote.

The instrument’s only recurring timing provision is a reporting interval. Operative paragraph 10, the only reporting duty in the text, “Requests the BoP provide a written report on progress related to the above to the UN Security Council every six months.” It asks for progress, not compliance, and it attaches no deadline to any step.

As of 10 September 2026 one report had been filed under that paragraph, S/2026/418 of 15 May 2026, so no trend across reporting periods can be drawn from the mandated record. A second report fell due around 15 November 2026. The first report quantifies breaches of the ceasefire only as occurring “on a near daily basis, some of which are serious,” with no total or attribution, a gap examined in the report on what the ceasefire instrument defines as a violation.

A deadline circulates from a later text. The text of the 2026 disarmament deal as published by the Associated Press provides 14 days, after approval of a roadmap, for completing the disarmament implementation timetable, and states that the deadline may be extended by the International Verification Commission. That 14-day period belongs to the 2026 text, not to resolution 2803 (2025) or its annexed Plan, neither of which contains a period of days for disarmament.

When did Israel last agree to phased redeployment, on what schedule?

The Interim Agreement signed by Israel and the PLO on 28 September 1995, known as Oslo II, set three further redeployments, “each to take place after an interval of six months,” to be completed “within 18 months from the date of the inauguration of the Council.” The schedule appears in Article XI(2)(d) and Annex I, Article I(9), of the text published by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Annex I, Appendix 1, names the stages Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, at six, twelve and eighteen months. Annex I, Article I(5), adds: “After the inauguration of the Palestinian Council, the Israeli Civil Administration will be dissolved and the Israeli military government will be withdrawn.” Article XXXI(5) set permanent status negotiations to begin “not later than May 4, 1996,” covering “Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders.”

The 1995 instrument covered Gaza in the same territorial frame as the West Bank. Article XXXI(8) records that the two sides “view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit.” Article XXXI(7) binds both: “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

These dates are what the 1995 text promised, as written in 1995. Whether the redeployments were completed on that schedule is a question for other records, examined in the report on the interim agreement and the length of the occupation; the agreement itself cannot be cited for what followed.

The comparison is between two instruments’ texts. The 1995 agreement, signed by both parties, numbered its stages and dated each against a fixed event. The 2025 Plan, accepted by the parties on the Council’s acknowledgement in operative paragraph 1 but signed by neither, refers to “the complete staged withdrawal” without numbering the stages, dating them or listing the conditions that release them.

Methodology and limitations

The evidence is drawn from primary instruments and the parties’ own published statements, labelled by type. The instruments are UN Security Council resolution 2803 (2025) with its annexed Comprehensive Plan, read from the Official Document System text, and the verbatim record of the 10046th meeting (S/PV.10046) for the recorded vote; the Trump Declaration of 13 October 2025 in its govinfo text (DCPD-202501008), compared against the White House posting; and the Interim Agreement of 28 September 1995 in the text published by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, cross-read against the National Academies Press reproduction.

Word counts in the instruments (“violation” 0, “ceasefire” 3 in the operative paragraphs and 0 in Annex 1, “independent monitors” 2) come from a case-insensitive search of the full four-page resolution text, verified 10 September 2026. Every Document System entry issued under resolution 2803 (2025) was searched on the same date; S/2026/418 was the only report filed under operative paragraph 10.

Party statements are labelled as such in every section that carries them: the Israel Defense Forces ceasefire page (dated 19 February 2026), the @IsraelMFA post of 18 May 2026 and the @cogatonline post of 25 May 2026 are statements by a party to the conflict, and S/2026/418 is the Board of Peace’s account of its own implementation, transmitted by a guarantor. The IDF page stamps nineteen November 2025 entries with the year 2026; no November date from it is quoted here.

The July 2026 disarmament text is known only through its publication by the Associated Press and reporting by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and BBC News. No Council document endorsing it was located, so its 14-day period and its International Verification Commission are attributed to those publishers. No published instrument defining or mapping the yellow line was located.

Conclusion

So who moves first, and by when? On the endorsed text, Israeli forces hold a frozen line until unlisted conditions are met, decommissioning runs under monitors the text never names, and nothing carries a date except the Council’s authorisation sunset of “Dec. 31, 2027.”

The record is consistent across every axis it covers. The Council voted 13 to none for a Plan it annexed but did not write. The demilitarization function sits with two bodies, unnamed monitors and an International Stabilization Force that the Board of Peace’s own May 2026 report records as still in force generation. The guarantee rests on unnamed regional partners, while the declaration the four mediators signed holds no disarmament or withdrawal clause. The Israel Defense Forces, Israel’s foreign ministry and COGAT, each a party to the conflict, and the Board in its own account all place the stalled condition on Hamas’s refusal to disarm, and point 3 leaves that condition for the parties to supply. The 1995 agreement numbered and dated its redeployments; the 2025 Plan names a staged withdrawal and counts no stages.

An arrangement whose sequence is fixed and whose timing is not leaves each step waiting on the other. When the withdrawal waits on conditions the text never lists, and the decommissioning waits on monitors and a force not yet in place, which of the two the record will show moving first, and on whose account of the conditions, is the question the next mandated report will be read against.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who chairs the Board of Peace?

Point 9 of the Plan annexed to resolution 2803 (2025) states that President Trump heads and chairs the Board. The operative paragraphs the Council wrote never name the chair, and “Blair” appears once, in the annex only.

Does resolution 2803 mention Hamas by name?

“Hamas” appears 5 times in the annexed Plan and 0 times in the resolution’s operative paragraphs (United Nations Security Council, 2025). Every obligation addressed to Hamas by name therefore sits in the Plan the Council endorsed, not in text the Council drafted.

What legal status does the Board of Peace have?

Operative paragraph 2 of resolution 2803 (2025) establishes the Board “as a transitional administration with international legal personality.” That phrase appears nowhere in the annexed Plan; it enters the record through the Council’s own wording.

What happens when the authorisation expires?

Operative paragraph 8 authorises the Board and the international presences “until Dec. 31, 2027, subject to further action by the Council.” The resolution says nothing about what follows if the Council takes no further action.

What happened to the hostages under the plan?

The Board of Peace’s own report records that of 251 people taken captive on 7 October 2023, 168 were returned alive, the last living hostage on 13 October 2025 and the last deceased hostage on 26 January 2026 (Board of Peace, 2026). The same paragraph records Israel’s release of 250 life-sentence prisoners and some 1,700 Gazans detained after 7 October 2023.

Does the plan say what counts as a ceasefire violation?

No: the word “violation” appears 0 times in resolution 2803 (2025) and its annex, with no threshold and no body named to find one. The IDF applies its own test, describing incidents as “a clear violation of the understandings of the ceasefire,” a party’s own characterisation.

Does the Council’s text match the Plan on Palestinian self-determination?

Operative paragraph 2 restates Plan point 19 with different sequencing and drops its closing clause, “which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people” (United Nations Security Council, 2025). The two wordings sit in the same document and are quoted separately.

Sources

• @cogatonline, 2026. Post on X of 25 May 2026. X. https://x.com/cogatonline/status/2058835468825846042. Post by a party’s official account (COGAT, a party to the conflict).
• @IsraelMFA, 2026. Post on X of 18 May 2026. X. https://x.com/IsraelMFA/status/2056267380980949212. Post by a party’s official account (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a party to the conflict).
• Associated Press, 2026. Text of the deal for Hamas to disarm and Israel to leave Gaza. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/gaza-hamas-israel-deal-text-7347ef0f3b745f22c12b67f786b70f0f. News reporting.
• BBC News, 2026. Live reporting on the Gaza disarmament plan. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/clyp18kwdnwt. News reporting.
• Board of Peace, 2026. Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025): Report of the Board of Peace through the Office of the High Representative for Gaza. S/2026/418, 15 May 2026. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=S/2026/418&l=E&t=pdf. Official record (a party’s own report on its implementation, transmitted by the United States).
• Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2026. Board of Peace announces Hamas disarmament agreement; IDF reports 32 Gaza ceasefire violations July 10 to 31. FDD Analysis, 31 July 2026. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/07/31/board-of-peace-announces-hamas-disarmament-agreement-idf-reports-32-gaza-ceasefire-violations-july-10-31/. Policy analysis.
• Israel and the PLO, 1995. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II). Signed at Washington DC, 28 September 1995; text published by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/General/the-israeli-palestinian-interim-agreement. Official or primary record.
• Israel Defense Forces, 2026. A broken record on repeat: Major Ceasefire Violations. Page dated 19 February 2026. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/israel-hamas-war-gaza/articles-israel-hamas-war-gaza/a-broken-record-on-repeat-major-ceasefire-violations/. Official record (a party’s own characterisation).
• United Nations Security Council, 2025. Resolution 2803 (2025), endorsing the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, with the Plan as Annex 1; recorded vote in S/PV.10046, 17 November 2025. https://docs.un.org/en/S/RES/2803(2025). Primary and official record (instrument and recorded vote).
• United States, Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, 2025. The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity. Signed at Sharm el-Sheikh, 13 October 2025. Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents, DCPD-202501008. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202501008/html/DCPD-202501008.htm. Primary record (signed joint statement).