A lasting ceasefire in Gaza cannot be achieved unless Hamas disarms before any agreement is reached

What's this about?

People disagree about whether Gaza can have a lasting ceasefire without Hamas giving up its weapons first.

The key question is whether disarmament must come before the first deal.

What supporters say

• Hamas must lose control of weapons to help stop new attacks.
• Past ceasefires can fail when they leave the main safety and war issues unsolved.

What critics say

• The claim sets a strict order that past peace deals do not clearly support.
• Hamas may refuse to give up its weapons before any deal, so this demand may block talks.

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show who is right; the strength of the proof matters more.

The bottom line

The evidence shows that Hamas must likely lose its own war power for a lasting peace.

But we are not sure that this must happen before the first ceasefire deal, so the claim goes too far.

The claim says a lasting ceasefire in Gaza is impossible unless Hamas gives up its weapons before any agreement is signed. The evidence supports the importance of disarmament, but it does not show that it must happen before an initial ceasefire.

The case for

A durable settlement would need credible control of weapons and an enforceable end to Hamas’s independent military role. Without that, a ceasefire could pause fighting without resolving the security problem that helped cause it.

RAND analyses of disarmament in Gaza describe weapons removal as part of a much broader process. That process would also require functioning governance, incentives for compliance, outside monitoring and an agreed security structure. The analysis warns that a ceasefire without those arrangements could merely interrupt violence rather than end it. 1

The Institute for National Security Studies has also highlighted the obstacles to disarmament, including Hamas’s ideology, internal power structure, security fears and uncertainty over who would govern Gaza. These concerns support the view that any agreement without verifiable weapons controls could leave the central conflict unresolved.

Experience from other post-conflict settings points in the same direction. Comparative research on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration has found that armed groups can threaten stability after an agreement if their military capacity remains intact. Weapons also carry political meaning: their removal can affect trust, legitimacy and whether the settlement is seen as a genuine end to the conflict. 2

But these arguments establish a narrower point than the claim makes. They show that eventual disarmament, or at least the loss of Hamas’s independent military capacity, may be essential to a lasting settlement. They do not prove that all of it must happen before the first ceasefire agreement.

The case against

The strongest objection is that the claim turns an important security goal into an absolute sequencing rule. Existing ceasefire frameworks do not require Hamas to complete disarmament before an initial agreement.

UN Security Council Resolution 2735 called for an immediate ceasefire, hostage releases, the return of civilians and increased humanitarian aid in an opening phase. It then envisioned negotiations toward a permanent end to the fighting. The framework therefore allowed the first ceasefire to come before a final settlement of the weapons issue. 3

The Israel–Hamas agreement reached in January 2025 also followed a staged model. It included exchanges, troop withdrawals, humanitarian measures and further negotiations without requiring completed disarmament before the agreement took effect. Comparative research likewise finds that ceasefires can reduce violence even when armed groups have not first surrendered their weapons. 4

There is also a serious practical problem. Disarmament is politically costly and usually depends on security guarantees, credible concessions, governance arrangements and plans for reintegration. Demanding unilateral surrender before those conditions exist could remove Hamas’s incentive to negotiate and make an initial ceasefire harder to secure. Reuters’ report that a Hamas official resisted giving up control of Gaza’s security apparatus illustrates the obstacle, although it does not establish which peace plan would ultimately work best. [5]

The evidence does not show that an earlier disarmament requirement would produce a more durable outcome. Nor would prior disarmament alone guarantee lasting peace if governance, enforcement, political aims and implementation remained disputed.

The bottom line

The evidence weighs against the claim as stated, with moderate confidence. It strongly supports making the eventual dismantling of Hamas’s independent military capacity a central, monitored and enforceable part of a lasting settlement. But it does not establish that Hamas must disarm before any agreement can be reached.

The better-supported conclusion is that an initial ceasefire can be negotiated before full disarmament, provided it includes a credible path toward weapons control, governance, monitoring and enforcement. The main uncertainty is Gaza-specific: existing studies and agreements show that sequencing can work in principle, but they cannot predict whether a particular arrangement would prevent renewed fighting there.