Two joint working groups have been formed after United States envoy Jared Kushner and the Board of Peace officials held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an effort to push President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. The first committee is tasked with disarmament and demilitarisation of Gaza, while the second working group will focus on humanitarian efforts, including sanitation, clean water and health issues. Reconstruction in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s ongoing genocide, won’t be allowed until the demilitarisation of the territory is complete, Kushner told US media.
The panels aim to bypass ongoing deadlocks and advance Phase Two of Trump’s 15-point Gaza peace plan, which was rejected by Netanyahu, who wants the disarmament of Hamas before the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave. The Board of Peace head Nickolay Mladenov, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee also attended the meeting with Netanyahu. From the Israeli side, Shin Bet Director David Zini and military intelligence chief Shlomi Binder were represented, according to the Israeli media.
So what are the two working groups, and will they be able to achieve peace in Gaza? The first working group is entirely focused on security and the complete demilitarisation of Gaza. Its mandate is that all weapons, both light and heavy, must be collected and permanently decommissioned, alongside the dismantling of the enclave’s tunnel network.
Kushner estimated that “starting to take some of the weapons out” and filling the tunnels could happen “in the next 60 to 90 days”, he told Fox News. Crucially, the weapons surrendered by Palestinian factions will not be transferred to the new Palestinian technocratic government, officially known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Instead, the arms will be handed directly to an American-led International Stabilization Force (ISF), with the responsibility for their destruction placed strictly under US General Jasper Jeffers, according to Israeli media outlets.
Wesam Afifa, a political analyst and writer, told Al Jazeera that handing weapons directly to the UA military while under Israeli occupation will trigger “severe sensitivity within Hamas and the rest of the factions”. Afifa explained that this mechanism “will look like a disarmament process under direct American military supervision, and not part of a balanced Palestinian and international political settlement”. Gaza-based political analyst Eyad al-Qarra agreed, noting that shifting weapons control to US General Jeffers instead of the Palestinian NCAG was “a matter that was not present in the agreement”.
The second joint working group is tasked with addressing basic humanitarian needs, sanitation, clean water, and public health issues for the people of Gaza, following severe warnings of potential disease outbreaks. The mandate also includes assessing how these environmental and health issues impact Israel. Afifa noted that the Israeli motive here is “not purely humanitarian”, but stems from a “direct security and health interest in preventing the collapse of the sanitation system and the spread of epidemics near Israeli forces and the Gaza envelope”.
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